harvest time? Black trichomes White pistils

Unfortunately I don't have a camera to show you the trichomes in any detail.

My plants are looking about 40-50% brown hairs and they look well swelled up.
What is confusing me is that the trichomes are looking odd, there is mostly cloudy around 70% then the rest are a mixture of amber clear and almost black trichomes.

What are these black trichomes? I have never seen anyone talking about them but I have seen them on bought bud and my own before.

Anyway with this mix of trichomes am I past harvest time? The plants are over 12 weeks flowering sativa dom unknown strain.

Any advice on this would be appreciated, this is my 3rd grow and these plants are bewildering me.

Black is never good. Are you magnifying?

Yeah it's a 40x but it's a bit rubbish...

The plants seem to have stopped shooting new hairs but some of them still look young and fresh. Still straight and pointy alongside shrivled old hairs.

I can still find clear trichomes too and they aren't icolated to the newer growth.

OK... Are these 'black' ones on the edge of a leaf, where the leaf has issues ? Then they are degenerated leaf edge, not black Tric's...
70% cloudy/milky means your plant is close...
Hairs resede back into Calyxes ? Are the Calyxes swollen ? [Do they look like they have a seed inside but don't?]...
I have never personally seen black tric's... but when GF looks at tric's on our plants, she sees lots of amber that I never see...
Wishful looking I call it... What you are seeing ????

I've heard us males don't have as good sight for defining and spotting colours as our female counterparts do.

I find these black trichomes everywhere, even inside buds I've cut apart for a closer look.

The calyxes are swollen perhaps they could swell a bit more in places though.


There was another strain started the same time as this one and it has been out for over a month now, so I'm just hoping I've not left this one too long.

part of me wonders if these black trichomes are very dark amber? how hard do you normally find it to distinguish between amber and cloudy?

I'm guessing after reading your title, that you have frass. It's insect shit, usually from spider mites, or fungus gnats, and it's very unhealthy for people with poor immune systems to be smoking. If your in Colorado, or Washington, and it's a personal grow, and your healthy as an ox, don't worry about it too much. If your a patient trying to sell overages to a dispensary (if there are any dispensaries left out there) than forget about it. 99.9% of dispensaries won't take herb with frass.

P.S. Even if your healthy frass can make you feel shitty, and give you headaches...
Spider mite faecal matter and body parts is a major and serious contaminant in dried cannabis. It is known to contain e-coli and other pathogens. It poses a very real and serious risk to lungs, and is an antagonist for many lung conditions.

They're indoor and I've not seen any bugs, they were treated with neem oil a few times as a precaution.

I'm sure it is the trichomes anyway as I can see the back inside the trichome head, similar to how they look when they first go cloudy but very dark.

if they really are black trichs, subbing in the hope you can get pics
from my own limited experience, it is possible get very atypical trichomes
but i've never seen black yet, would be interesting if nothing else

I think it's quite possible the trics had degraded. I wish I could take a snap, thinking of investing in a usb microscope because they look fun

Upon further inspection however I've realized a lot of my problems were coming from the microscope its self. The light was simply not bright enough for me to see the trichomes properly, I got a lamp right next to it and bingo I found my amber trichomes, I literally couldn't see them without the light on.

Even with the light though I could see clearly that the trichome had black or dark brown fluid inside it.

Little history on the plant if your interested
I aquired seed from another grower was just described as a haze.
I grew the one seed and the plant got stressed and produced seeds without any males being in the room.
So I put 4 of them in 12/12 from seed under 600w HPS and 12 weeks later I've just weighed 1.5lb wet trimmed bud
all 4 plants displayed these trichomes. Along with this there was purpling of the stems which I think was the cold. The pots were too small for the final size of the plant.

not really relevant but i have a strain now that just wont finish. it has amber in a lot of the stems of the trichs but the bulb at the end of the trich is still clear. 11 or 12 weeks on an indica. Its pissing me off and i need the room on the table but its been so long now I figure ill let it go.

ilikecheetoes said:

not really relevant but i have a strain now that just wont finish. it has amber in a lot of the stems of the trichs but the bulb at the end of the trich is still clear. 11 or 12 weeks on an indica. Its pissing me off and i need the room on the table but its been so long now I figure ill let it go.

Click to expand...

had something very similar(maybe), a NL that went that same time
the only change were clear/yellow trichomes, never got cloudy
had a hell of a head rush to it, supposedly some sativa genetics in the mix can show up this way

I need to see these black trichs...

I had a few black trics on my last grow. Deep black heads. I guess there just degraded THC that might of took a different ageing process..

I had a plant that didnt want to finish and was told to try knocking it down to 10/14 or even 8/16

bump...I have some black trichs on my stacked og kush that i harvested last night..

Im gonna take pix and post them when the camera charges

Post em up bud!

If you are 100% sure its the trichs then you need to chop that plant before its totally ruined. Black trichs are degraded THC and once its all black your smoke is useless.

I have heard of THC going amber on plants before the pistols go brown. Some plants need to come down while all the pistols are still white, its deceiving knowing and you have to go by the THC.

Either need pics or harvest that plant. If it all goes black then you have lost your crop, unfortunately.

I can imagine that black trichs are some kind of too old trich which changed it's color from translucent to black, but I have a bit different problem. I had some rotten flowers, and the trichs of so called "healthy" buds have some TRANSLUCENT trichs with black black tops. I am affraid that is no good also anybody?

Please post them pics!! BTW. a Good USB microscopes can be had at Toys "R" Us for under $50!!

No pics........liars!