I’ve read all sorts of info on get a jewelers loupe and look at your trichomes. I’ve over the years have been looking at them and seeing if it’s legit and so far I’m not impressed.
I’ve been keeping track and for example Cbd shark - trichomes cloudy like opaque plastic very early in flower, no amber, Blueberry had lots of clear for a long time, Cbd Blue Shark had lots of amber early on, Cbd Spliff Berry was a mix of amber and cloudy and waited till amber and the end result was junk as compared to earlier on. The North Thunderfuck is all cloudy early. Dolato a mix of cloudy and amber.
My point is this trichome thing seems to be way overinflated. I think I’m done with it, it’s all over the map. Im going to just add two weeks to the day of flip start the breeders number of weeks and if they sorta check the ripe boxes of majority orange pistils, swollen calyxes it’s chop chop time.
Any thoughts?
I cut my teeth growing outdoors 25 yrs ago. My luck far exceeded my skills at the time but I’d rather be lucky than good. Anyway, I’m not sure I knew what a trichome was back then. The old timer that taught me the outdoor grow def didn’t know and he damned sure didn’t carry around a jewelers loupe in the pocket of his bibbed overalls. He was a celebrity in a small circle of enthusiasts and never failed to impress when fall rolled around.
I followed his advice to a tee, and the results were perfect. Now we grew the same strain for the most part and I’m sure there are other varieties that behave a little differently…..but we would never pull a plant that was still flowering out white hairs. Let them finish doing all that and you’ll generally have a couple waves of those white pistils. Your calyces will swell and the entire bud will swell up. Once there are no new white hairs coming and the older ones have either turned and/or receded, the bud is ripe on the outside. The old timer held steadfast that once it looked ripe to give it another week to get ripe on the inside…..now I’m sure that’s some old man science but it prevents bud being picked too early…and there is nothing worse than growing a beautiful plant for months and whacking it before it’s ripe.
Let the plant ripen and then have a look at your trichs. Once it’s ripe you have a window that you can play with. Some plants will have mostly cloudy trichs way way before it’s ripe…and those trichs will generally stay that way until it’s ripe. Believe me, a plant is not going to have a degraded majority of amber trichs before it ripens.
New growers are putting the cart before the horse with harvesting…..by looking at trichs on immature buds.
You cannot and should not try to turn an indica into a sativa by chopping it early…..just grow a sativa if that’s what you like.