whats the real significance of hairs on your bud?

[aes-one]

from a scientific standpoint, what exactly does it mean to us THC-lovers when our bud has a lot of hairs? does having a high density of hairs on your bud directly correlate with high THC levels?


the reason why I ask is this...

to my knowledge, female cannabis plants that are grown optimally will obviously have very high THC/trichome levels. why? simply because females need to collect pollen from male plants in order to reproduce. so the most fit and healthiest female plants will be able to collect pollen the easiest. how? by developing the ability to have things stick to them easily! how does the cannabis plant do this? by having a very large amount of STICKY trichomes on them! the more sticky trichomes the female produces, the more likely it is for passing pollen to get stuck onto her. once a female plant does in fact get pollenated by a male, they begin to develop SEEDS. now that the female has been pollenated, there is no longer a need to produce THC/trichomes, as they have already effectively served their purpose in the reproduction process. this is a deeper explanation of WHY good weed will have a lot of THC/trichomes, and WHY seeds can be a good indicator that your weed doesn't have optimal thc levels.

now correct me if my science is wrong, but to me, this makes sense. so back to the original question, What significance, if any, do the hairs on the female plant have? does the significance of the hairs have anything to do with the reproduction process? does it have anything to do with THC content at all? my guess is that the hairs are the actual female reproductive ORGANS. however, shouldnt the trichomes ONLY be present on the hairs then? instead, the trichomes are all over the plant leaf, stem, hairs, etc. this doesnt really support my hypothesis, so i'm a little confused about the hair thing.

what do you guys think?

peace!

[Fppunk]

The first part i really get what you are saying. I really dont think the hair are the reproductive organ themself more of part of a reproductive system(the buds) the hairs do have trics on them too but the bud it self is full of trics though, maybe the hairs help the buds to collect the pollen? idk but i really dont think the hairs themself do too much more than help catch pollen, considering thats all the bud is really there for in the first place, to be the sex organ, also hence sexing your plant.

[broccolicattle]

i think the trichomes are to protect it from UV-b rays and to ward off bugs and stuff, something like that.

[sphinx13]

Hairs don't have high THC levels in them, I think they are just indicators of the rest of the bud having high THC levels.

[aes-one]

thanks for the replies!

Fppunk, basically the first part of my post was explaining that the reason why trichomes are sticky is to allow plants to capture more pollen. do hairs serve the same purpose? if so, why does the plant develop hairs instead of just developing trichomes if they serve the same purpose? see what im getting at here? im looking for an answer a little deeper here. i basically want to know how and why hairs are an indicator of good weed.

yes brocco, oftentimes plants will have things like this that will serve more than 1 purpose. trichomes in this case not only help protect the plant from harmful UV rays and ward off unwanted guests, but they also serve the purpose of being STICKY to collect POLLEN to REPRODUCE, which is the main and most important function of the trichomes. but my question was about the hairs...


anyone know why hairs are a good indicator of good weed? whats going on with the actual physiology of the plant? can any experts give some insight? maybe i should post this in the growers forum....

[Jimi001]

hairs don't mean shit, the reason red hairs = good weed is because if you grow it properly it will have hairs and it will be good. If you don't grow it properly it won't have red hairs and it will be bad, I'm sure a lot of the handling after the grow has something to do with it too (brick weed)

[aes-one]

thank you sphinx!

but can you get a little deeper in this? why would hairs indicate high THC content? and, we know that trichomes make the plant sticky, helping the plant catch pollen. but what do the HAIRS actually DO for the plant? do they make it more colorful, to attract bees to help pollenate or some shit? you see what kind of answer im looking for here?

[Jimi001]

trichomes are some kind of defense mechanism for the plant I was reading it while doing some research for a paper, I can't remember exactly what though. As far as red hairs go, I don't think they have any purpose it's just part of the flower.

[fearthebug]

i had always thought the hairs caught the pollen (some sort of bonding chemical in the plant (the thc?)) and as seeds developed, the flower (bud) grew around it to keep it protected until it was ripe.

so if the above is possibly true, then one would assume removing the pollen would, in the end, remove the seeds. ideally, the plant puts more energy into making the flower of the plant, but makes it stronger and much more potent since it doesn't have to double it's workload by developing seeds AND the flower. hope that makes sense.

[rumandromanism]

The hairs are actually the pistils, the female reproductive organ. When looking for good bud, don't judge by the hairs, but by the smell and the amount of crystals. I've seen a lot of people fooled because they were told that their bud had "a lot of hairs" on it. Hell, beasters usually have the most hairs out of any type of bud and that's nothing special. I've had weed with little or no hairs on it that has fucked me up beyond belief.

[kraiz]

Originally Posted by aes-one

from a scientific standpoint, what exactly does it mean to us THC-lovers when our bud has a lot of hairs? does having a high density of hairs on your bud directly correlate with high THC levels?


the reason why I ask is this...

to my knowledge, female cannabis plants that are grown optimally will obviously have very high THC/trichome levels. why? simply because females need to collect pollen from male plants in order to reproduce. so the most fit and healthiest female plants will be able to collect pollen the easiest. how? by developing the ability to have things stick to them easily! how does the cannabis plant do this? by having a very large amount of STICKY trichomes on them! the more sticky trichomes the female produces, the more likely it is for passing pollen to get stuck onto her. once a female plant does in fact get pollenated by a male, they begin to develop SEEDS. now that the female has been pollenated, there is no longer a need to produce THC/trichomes, as they have already effectively served their purpose in the reproduction process. this is a deeper explanation of WHY good weed will have a lot of THC/trichomes, and WHY seeds can be a good indicator that your weed doesn't have optimal thc levels.

now correct me if my science is wrong, but to me, this makes sense. so back to the original question, What significance, if any, do the hairs on the female plant have? does the significance of the hairs have anything to do with the reproduction process? does it have anything to do with THC content at all? my guess is that the hairs are the actual female reproductive ORGANS. however, shouldnt the trichomes ONLY be present on the hairs then? instead, the trichomes are all over the plant leaf, stem, hairs, etc. this doesnt really support my hypothesis, so i'm a little confused about the hair thing.

what do you guys think?

peace!

thrichomes are the hairs.... other plants have trichomes, even non weed plkants. its jsut little hairs on the plants.

[zen_420]

from my experience, you get the most hairs when the tree is grown hydroponically. hope that helps.

[EP879]

Originally Posted by rumandromanism

The hairs are actually the pistils, the female reproductive organ. When looking for good bud, don't judge by the hairs, but by the smell and the amount of crystals. I've seen a lot of people fooled because they were told that their bud had "a lot of hairs" on it. Hell, beasters usually have the most hairs out of any type of bud and that's nothing special. I've had weed with little or no hairs on it that has fucked me up beyond belief.

^Exactly what I was going to say. This is the truth

[sphinx13]

Originally Posted by kraiz

thrichomes are the hairs.... other plants have trichomes, even non weed plkants. its jsut little hairs on the plants.

He's talking about the red hairs in the bud, not the little hairs with a beads on the top that are trichomes.

[aes-one]

Originally Posted by EP879

^Exactly what I was going to say. This is the truth

yes! thank you rumandromanism. when i said my guess was that the hairs were the actual reproductive organs, that is exactly wat i meant. the pistils! so the pollen actually needs to reach the pistils in order to reproduce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpel

so, a female plant that is most "ripe for reproduction" will develop alot of hairs/pistils, thus increasing their chance to become pollenated! these plants will also develop high levels of THC/trichomes, thus making them more sticky, further increasing the chances of the plant catching pollen and reproducing.....its starting to allll make sense


my new conclusion...
so in terms of THC content, red hairs dont directly mean anything. abundance of red hairs could, however, be an indicator of "ripeness" (for lack of a better word), and "ripe" females typically produce many trichomes, which means HIGH THC!