A Couple Flowering Questions

[KamelRedLight]

Over 24 hour days:
Has anyone experimented with this? For example, when flowering, doing 18 hours of light, but still 12 hours of darkness. I heard of this once and I'm wondering if it works at all or has any benefit.

Also, when harvested, does the bud continue to grow and mature while it's drying? Does it live longer if it's left attached to the stem and leaves? And if so, as it's drying and still growing a bit, do the trichomes continue to mature and degrade THC?

Thanks for any input.

[Tommygirl]

18/12 sounds counter productive to me. The reason you switch to 12/12 is so that the light sensitive flowering hormones have enough time to build up to a critical point in the darkness and don't get completely depleted during the light hours. Seems to me that 18/12 would be too long of a light period and too much of the hormones would get destroyed by the light. it's might be reasonable to level that out though, and try 18/18, but I'm not sure there would be any benifit in doing so.

It might even make your plant hermi, fooling it into thinking that it's summer, no it's winter, not it's summer, no it's winter. You could try it on a plant that you don't really care about...say a clone?...and see what happens, eh?

As for the other question? I really don't know. I hope someone comes along who does. I'd be interested in finding out myself.

[-mu]

Any more than 24hr darkness, and the plant will probably think it's dying, and get maturing fast. It's common to do this just before harvest.

I've heard of people shortening the days on the last week, and cooling the room, to speed maturation, particularly when breeding, but superlong days doesn't seem, to me, to have any benefit, but I'm possibly missing something. Worth a test, fo sho.

Anything still connected to the plant will carry on with the life-cycle, fruiting, THC degradation, death. As soon as it's cut from the roots, a whole new set of processes start up, just like a dead human, sorta. It's now curing, and THC is being created from precursors.

I'm too stoned to consider this more deeply.

-mu

[KamelRedLight]

I heard it would let the plants store up more energy to grow with in the 12 hours of dark. I didn't know the light cycle was important, I just thought you needed a constant 12 hour dark cycle to remain in flowering. I should try it out in the future with a clone.

What I'm trying to figure out with the cutting question is if when you cut your buds, do you freeze action in the trichomes, or if things carry on. I want to try to harvest one of my plants with no amber trichomes and as little degredation products as possible to tell the difference. I'm just not sure if I should chop when things are still clear and they'll cloud over in the drying/curing, or if I need to wait for them to actually turn cloudy so I don't kill potency.

[Spanishfly]

Originally Posted by Tommygirl

18/12 sounds counter productive to me.

¿Que?

[KamelRedLight]

Upon inspecting my top heaviest plant Bonnie, her trichomes look to be around 40/60 clear/cloudy. For the high I'm trying to achieve, would it make sense to chop now, and the cure will bring out more THC without the stony chemicals? She's more than a week early, by her mother's standards. I think I wanna chop her but I need some reassurance that the clear ones will go cloudy after harvest. It's tough cuz I wanna wait for more to cloud up, but I don't want much amber at all. This strain has a good amount of indica blood, so I don't wanna wait too long.

[-mu]

As soon as the trichomes start to cloud over, THC is starting to slightly deteriorate, but is also being produced; it's a balancing act. When they turn amber, it is breaking down into cannabinoids, and you are getting into couch-lock territory. It depends on the strain, but if your looking for mimimum "stony chemicals" you should probably harvest before they start to turn amber.

Wait a week, at least, and you will catch the full moon, and get an added potency boost

And a good cure will ensure most of the THC precursors are converted to the good stuff.

Attached is an image you might find useful.

-mu

[Tommygirl]

Originally Posted by Spanishfly

¿Que?

What doesn't make sense about that statement? If you explain what it is you don't understand I'd be happy to explain.

[KamelRedLight]

Right mu, but I'm scared to wait too long. I think I've already spotted a couple amber ones, no more than 5% but this weed seems to have a wide range of colors when cut normally. I'm willing to cut early and sacrifice a little potency to keep the high THC based, especially if the trichomes continue to produce and mature after cutting.

[ISTANDALONE]

(quote)Wait a week, at least, and you will catch the full moon, and get an added potency boost

out of curiosity, how does the full moon effect potency? and is this the "harvest moon" i've heard a time or two?

[Ganjagod85]

harvest moon is when it's orange right?

[-mu]

I dunno about "harvest moon", isn't that a song? But most resin producing plants are more potent after the full moon. Any time in the third quarter is the best, but right up until the new moon is okay. I'm probably going to end up harvesting slightly early so I can get it picked before the next New Moon.

No one knows exactly why it has such an impact, I've heard a lot of stories, but it's basically the moon's magnetic pull (okay, gravity). It's similar to the way it controls the tides, plants contain of a lot of mobile fluids, and these are pulled up and down by the force of the moon.

The phrase "the sap is rising" describes the upward pull, so anything that fruits is building up juice during this time. Different phases of the cycle are useful for different activities. If I had, for instance, some hard-to-germinate seeds (wink wink) I'd definitely be paying attention to the moon phase.

I used to do a lot of psychedelic alchemy and such in my youth, and moon phases were always of great importance when harvesting plants for ritual/magic purposes, sometimes down to the minute. I'm fairly attuned to the moon's phases myself; I can always feel a full moon coming (a few days yet), and every new moon I get three days of really wild dreams.

Some useful links...

http://www.planetfusion.co.uk/~pignu...gardening.html
http://www.weedfarmer.com/cannabis/moon_guide.php
http://kaykeys.net/spirit/earthspiri.../moonseed.html
http://www.users.on.net/~arachne/MoonPlanting.html
http://www.rexresearch.com/agro/astromet.htm
http://www.dirtgardener.com/Moon_Ima...diacSigns.html

Here's something to bookmark...

http://www.zodiacarts.com/Calendar.shtml

KamelRedLight, why not take a small sample? I know it's "bad", but if it's your first time with this strain, it's probably prudent to test a few times during the last couple of weeks. You wouldn't want to miss that perfect day.

-mu

[KamelRedLight]

Wow mu really cool. This is actually my second experience with this plant. Last time it flowered for 51 days for a well rounded buzz, so I went ahead and pulled it at 42 days, because I just won't know the difference till I find out. Her sister is still in there to be flowered for the normal time, maybe I should pull her with the full moon.
Edit: Or third quarter moon whatever. What's that like Dec 14?

[-mu]

Best time to harvest is in the third quarter, that is, from the full moon to about a week later. The following week is fine, too, just not quite as good. Harvesting between the new moon and the full moon is usually considered a bad idea (I read some research a while back about studies done on crop storage longevity based on moon cycle, basically crops were tastier and kept much longer when picked in the third quarter), though the days leading up to the full moon will show increased potency levels, too. It can be quite a balancing act, when you think about it.

But a few hours after the full moon would probably be the ideal time to pull the remaining plant.

-mu

ps. I fixed the links. sorry bout dat.

[Tommygirl]

Originally Posted by -mu

Best time to harvest is in the third quarter, that is, from the full moon to about a week later. The following week is fine, too, just not quite as good. Harvesting between the new moon and the full moon is usually considered a bad idea (I read some research a while back about studies done on crop storage longevity based on moon cycle, basically crops were tastier and kept much longer when picked in the third quarter), though the days leading up to the full moon will show increased potency levels, too. It can be quite a balancing act, when you think about it.

But a few hours after the full moon would probably be the ideal time to pull the remaining plant.

-mu

ps. I fixed the links. sorry bout dat.

Hey, -mu. Do you mean that the full moon should actually have risen, or could it be done the day that the moon will rise full? If the moon actually needs to have risen, how high in the sky would be optimal? Lunar noon, or what?