Using Trichrome to decide harvest time

Hi guys

Ive been saving this photo pictorial for a while now as my grow grew, to share info and let you decide where you want to cut your *****.

I advise a form of magnification instrument.

The pictures below show stages of trichrome, a very important knowledge of these is needed to know when to harvest.

Clear/cloudy is a head high, a buzz that allows you to still work and be energetic and active.

Cloudy is a more relaxed and happy chilled stage.

Cloudy/Amber is heading to couchlock, a place where you feel the high strong, heady, slight out of this world.

Most amber, your freaked at a shadow, its heavy couchlock and you do not move for 4 hours.

.....with knowledge comes laughter and happiness.



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Picture 1 is huge and shows clear trichrome and showing the plant about to start maturing.
Picture 2 is a close up of the same

Picture 3 is trich turning from clear to cloudy

Picture 4 a sample of cloudy trich.

Picture 5 is a picture of trich turning amber mixed with cloudy that gives you sit on your bottoms and do nothing while buzzing heavily

I do not have a picture of most amber trich because I do not let my plants go that far

... OK, if I get this correct all pics may be in order that I have just typed lol

I have done this for 1 reason, no gain, just to share knowledge and to enlighten the vauge and not knowing, to the knowing.

Hippy

Yo Mrp

Yes they are all my pictures, ive been saving them for over 6 weeks to show the trich development, my camera is a Megapix VX600 (10 million pixel optical zoom, the macro focus range is from 4 mm to 10 cm).

"When to harvest" pics...

The colour of pistils vary from plant to plant to plant, what your after is the trichomes on the plant, you harvest the plant at a time when you decide the trichomes are the colour you want your high to be.

throughout the entire period of flower the trichomes begin developing,starting to see clear trich`s at around week 3-4-if not sooner.
the harvest window is about two weeks unless your growing Sativa which can have many harvest windows oppening and closing.
good luck man.

you choose the harvest time for the type of high you want, cloudy will be more head high and more amber than cloudy is couch lock.
get yourself a magnifying implement, they`re pretty cheap and then you can follow the trichome developement for yourself.
harvesting at weeks 6-7 is fine (dependant on strain) unless the trich`s are mostly clear which means not enough potency yet.
check this out....

Harvesting and Curing..
from the Resources page..

I took some pictures of trics from my Jezebel.



I just like the purple moving up the stalk.



The back side of the leaf. Jezebel flexing her muscle.

I have a coolpix 3500. I have a couple macro pics in another thread. Its not the greatest for that. I also have a lab microscope that I hold my little 3500 up to the eye piece, position, zoom then try to get the lighting right and hope the camera takes a focused picture.

Macros from a better camera look cooler. Microscope is good at looking too close sometimes.

There are three types of trichomes and to the best of my interpretation here are some pictures.

I think this is capitate trichome. The "hair" isn't supposed to contain THC, but the "head" which is embedded into leaf may?(IMO) The head circumference is about 100+ microns. I read where people make ice hash then still get high from remaining dried material or use it to make canna butter. I assume that if you make ice hash properly I think you knock all the other ones off and these would be left within the leaf.


This little baby is the bulbous trichome. You can catch these with the 25 micron bubble bag. Again, I didn't think there was supposed to be much THC, but people seem to get high.


Maybe I interpret things wrong, keep that in mind.

This one for sure has THC! This capitate-stalked trichome head is about 150+ micron head and 300 micron stalk. Most of the stalks are even longer on this ****. Comparing to the mother's trichomes in this thread this ****'s trichomes are more dense and taller.


Here's the view from above. The blue triangles are the capitate trichomes. Red circles are the bulbous trichomes. I see the bulbous trichomes go dark amber long before the capitate-stalked trichomes begin to turn amber.

shuggy4105, the trichomes color can be anything you want them to be when you harvest. What type of high would like?

This shot is from my BBxNL squared, about half way up the plant, the lower buds are really turning amber, about 25% and the main cola is still putting on weight with clear trichomes at the tip.
The red arrow shows a clear trichome, the blue arrows are just about to turn amber showing the disc cells at the base of the bulb clouding. You can also pick out other cloudy trichomes by the way the light is reflecting even when out of focus.

No matter what when you harvest you can not give a sativa an indica high or vice versa. While harvesting an indica early will give a headier high then it would if the stain had been pulled at maturity, it will never give you a real sativa high. Same goes with a sativa, you could let a sativa flower for 16 weeks and it will not give you a true narcotic couch lock high, like a heavy indica will.

IMO, if you like heady highs, grow sativas and if you like narcotic body highs then grow indica doms.

lcar55 said:

i have this beautiful jock horror and the trichomes are milky and the hairs are about 50%. the so called better (more experienced grower friends) say wait wait that bud is going to get bigger. BUT won't the trichomes go to amber and then screwed up the sativa high?

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