# Staggered Harvests



## Lesso

I have noticed that some of you take partial harvests by taking the tops and letting the undergrowth mature for a bit. I have an auto that im chopping next week and i was wondering.....is that done to let the trichomes mature or do the lowers fatten up a bit more?
I have looked at the trichs on my plant and sure enough the buds closest to the light are cloudy and the lowers are clear.


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## Rosebud

I know nothing about autos but I used to take the top half of a plant and let that bottom mature for a couple of weeks. Depending on the strain.  It worked well.


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## Lesso

Rosebud said:


> I know nothing about autos but I used to take the top half of a plant and let that bottom mature for a couple of weeks. Depending on the strain.  It worked well.



Did you see an increase in yield or potency?


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## RubyRed

I doubt you see much difference in the Auto but when taken like Rosebud mentioned. it allows the lower bud sites that didn't get much light, Get a week or so more

:48:


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## Hushpuppy

I tried it with a couple of autos and I believe it did a little better. I do it very regular with regular sexed plants and I get some amount of improvement in both bud size and trichome ripeness. How much improvement greatly depends on the strain though, I think. Autos will typically not do as well because they have the time limit that is set by the auto trait.


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## Hushpuppy

I do this because I have a small space for flowering. By keeping my plants healthy up to the first cut, I can allow the plants to go another week or 2 depending on the plants and the amount of lower plant bud growth I have. I never try to continue to grow/flower the smaller "sucker buds" on the lower/heavy stems and trunk of the plants as these would take too long to get anything out of them. I divide my plants into 3 sections. The bottom 3rd of the plant is mostly stems and trunk with small sucker growth. I remove and toss all of this material and only harvest the top 2/3 of the plants.


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## HippyInEngland

Give an Auto as much light as you have without burning it.

24hr from week 2.

When the top is ready, the whole plant is ready, top 1/3 will give you it most potency, you then have 2 choices, keep the lower buds as reserve lower hit smokes or use them for cooking with making them into butter or saving lots of them and making butane oil.

eace:


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## Lesso

Hushpuppy said:


> I do this because I have a small space for flowering. By keeping my plants healthy up to the first cut, I can allow the plants to go another week or 2 depending on the plants and the amount of lower plant bud growth I have. I never try to continue to grow/flower the smaller "sucker buds" on the lower/heavy stems and trunk of the plants as these would take too long to get anything out of them. I divide my plants into 3 sections. The bottom 3rd of the plant is mostly stems and trunk with small sucker growth. I remove and toss all of this material and only harvest the top 2/3 of the plants.



Very informative. Thank you.


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## Lesso

HippyInEngland said:


> Give an Auto as much light as you have without burning it.
> 
> 24hr from week 2.
> 
> When the top is ready, the whole plant is ready, top 1/3 will give you it most potency, you then have 2 choices, keep the lower buds as reserve lower hit smokes or use them for cooking with making them into butter or saving lots of them and making butane oil.
> 
> eace:


Yeah they get 24 hours of light. Im probably going to take the whole plant down.


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## orangesunshine

Hushpuppy said:


> I do this because I have a small space for flowering. By keeping my plants healthy up to the first cut, I can allow the plants to go another week or 2 depending on the plants and the amount of lower plant bud growth I have. I never try to continue to grow/flower the smaller "sucker buds" on the lower/heavy stems and trunk of the plants as these would take too long to get anything out of them. I divide my plants into 3 sections. The bottom 3rd of the plant is mostly stems and trunk with small sucker growth. I remove and toss all of this material and only harvest the top 2/3 of the plants.



you might try removing that lower 1/3 of larf/suckerbuds, stems and lower branches at your flip to 12/12 and use it for clones---lighting intensity and penetration is at it's weakest at the bottom of the plant because it's furthest away from the light and eventually become shaded from the tops---if you do this you would allow all the plants energy to focus on flowering the top 2/3 and will give you larger flowers/tops in the end---imo it's all about the canopy and re-focusing the plants energy to grow the portion of the plant that is most desireable---in a perfect world according to me---i want the top 2 feet to be dense enough to provide complete shade on my buckets


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