when to harvest , my 1st grow

ok ,I am a first time rookie here and my grow is a gorilla style grow in 2x2x3 foot box. not sure how old when I switched time to 12/12 but i would say roughly 4 to 6 weeks. using only cfls I started 12/12 flower cycle 03/23. I saw first hairs on 04/10 . thats 18 days before I saw the first hairs. when I saw that my grow was so far going ok i decided to buy a 150w hps light. I have had the light for about 1 month and it has been about 2 monthes total since i switched lights.. My 1st question is does the flower stage start when you switch the lights or when the first flowers start to show? and by looking at my pics , when to harvest?? I dont have a good microscope to check trics. but its in the mail. can I please get some opinions from some of you experianced farmers. Thanks. the photos are from may 25th. the plants are from bagseed and the 1st pic is a bud shot of my biggest plant and the other 2 pics are from a small plant of the same type. the small plant was stunted because i have no room and it stayed in a small butter cup. these plant showed flowers at same time. please help asap , thanks for looking, Peace

Wheres the pics at mate?

Ive always used the day I switched to flowering cycle on my lights as the countdown starter. And it is real hard to tell from that pic if this is ready.
A generic rule of thumb is when half the pistols turn reddish / orange, although this isnt completely scientific, if they at that stage it will be good smoke. Thats a sign that there isnt much new growth now, and the old growth is ripening. But I will say, you have time to wait for your scope, from the pic it seems like you still have more fresh growth than ripening growth, and you may still have a decent ammount of yield to come, although I could be wrong that pic has alot of light in it, hard to see.

thanks for the info , I just dont want to harvest too late. I added 2 pics from a small stunted plant from the same bag also planted at same time but didnt have room for a bigger pot. Its hard to get a good picture cuz of my space but I was able to take the little plant out to photograph . they flower at the same time as well. hope the new pics help a little more.

harvest after the second blue moon

Yeah thats a better pic, that dont look ready to me.

when the hairs change to orange red or brown is it very noticable ?? sorry for the dumb questions , I just dont wanna f -this up. I will try to get better pics. thanks for the reply.

donvaskwa said:

when the hairs change to orange red or brown is it very noticable ?? sorry for the dumb questions , I just dont wanna f -this up. I will try to get better pics. thanks for the reply.

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Yes its very noticable.

So would you say 50% of the hairs on the whole plant. Or would you harvest each branch when 50% of the hairs turn red? What im saying is that the top cola on my plant is about 50% red hairs, but the rest of the buds are mainly white. Can i harvest the top cola first? not meaning to take over your thread sorry, just figured it might be helpful for u too. Thanks

no problem rodi , all is helpful

usually people harvest the whole plant at 1 time but people have only harvested nugs that "look ready" first

when the hairs change colors to red or brownish, do they kind of shrivel or look dryer in appearance?

The top parts usually ripen a bit faster, some of the bottoms seemingly never will really develop(indoors), the hair theory is really only a general, non scientific method, to really see when its at its best u can check the crystals, I have always done it by eye and gotten it right, but alot use a scope to look for cloudy trichs (crystals), when most of those are cloudy they harvest.

donvaskwa said:

when the hairs change colors to red or brownish, do they kind of shrivel or look dryer in appearance?

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Yes they do, and they will have no white on them.

How tall is that plant??? & How much would you say you will harvest after all dryed and cured

the first pic of the close up of bud is about 2ft and the other pics are a plant thats from the same bag and I flowered it with the other but it is real small because I never transplanted it its like 10 or 12 inches. Not sure what my yeild will be its my first grow . the bigger plant is like one skinny bud I think its gonna appear to be a one huge bud cuz the flowers are all are the main stem , real close together I would like to get a better pic to post but its kind of hard to get out of the grow box cuz I got some power skunk growing all around it and braches are tied down, trapping the plants I posted about . I think her hairs are changing color, do they curl up or maybe look dryer in apperance when the hairs start to change color?? thanks

Get the microscope and go by the trichromes harvest when 50% of trichromes are amber. or all amber if you want couchlock sleepy high . its really your prefrence. if you harvest when all trichromes milky white you get a real light heady buzz so i would take cuttings of buds after each stage and decide what you like best for harvesting the future

omg.. bad info, you don't harvest by the hairs. Look up trichomes, they are different than hairs or pistils.

oh sorry I asked same question twice I missed your reply, sorry bro. thanks for the help . I am sure more questions will come, I want to get some better pics like a pic of the whole plant or at least most of it. its close to 9 weeks flowering and as far as I can tell the trichs are mostly clear maybe starting to cloud up. My 30x pocket microscope got here. wish I would have got like 50x or 60x mag. I just am worried about missing that window of "the time to harvest". It seems like its taking forever , but the buds are stlll not thick as I think they should be . Hard to tell cuz of my rookieness.

Here's a nice picture example... happy growing!

C2C