<span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">Hello!...brand new here and i am looking for help...if i am in the wrong place, let me know and please point the way to the correct location...</span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;"> </span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">so, in a nutshell, sometime late May, early June, i tossed a couple of pot seeds out of a bag of weed into some soil mix i stirred together while doing my vegetable start up for the year...i have some decent gardening experience, but have only made one previous aborted attempt to grow weed about 20 years ago</span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;"> </span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">2 popped, i barely paid them any mind except to throw water on them, transplant them into a 1 gal bucket (1 died) and stake it for support...the survivor has grown to about 2-1/2 ft, is not really bushy, has somtimes gotten too little water and has been sitting out back where it does catch northern exposure sun in the morning and direct sunlight revolving around it until early afternoon (shaded rest of the day until sundown)</span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;"> </span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">so...i had no idea if it was male or female and i did not really have much hope for it, have done virtually nothing with it (has had some shots of miracle grow feeder based fertilizer when i have watered other things using that, picked a few clearly dying leaves off of it)</span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;"> </span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">now beginning of Sept., days are getting shorter and lo and behold!...i have buds!...lots of them for such a small, neglected plant....</span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;"> </span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">here are my most immediate questions: what can i do now to help it along until harvest? when should i harvest? can i move it indoors overnight and set out for its sunlight cycle where i have had it (it is still in the bucket! so it is portable and i would like to set it in the shed and lock it up to keep it from potentially being stolen overnight); if so, how should i time it?...12/12?</span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;"> </span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">also interested in cloning info...it would be a shame to let the opportunity slip by...can only do 1 or 2 plants at a time so this might be the way for me to keep the bud flowing without it getting out of hand and i could experiment with indoor growing over winter.</span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;"> </span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">any help would be greatly appreciated! </span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;"> </span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">ps: i have some pics i took today, but waiting til i know i am in the right place</span></span> <span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="background-color: #ffffff;">pps: i actually cut away one small bud today, from the bottom of the main trunk, carefully dried it enough to smoke without killing potency and wow...not the best i have ever had, but more than decent...<span style="color: #0f243e;"><span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="color: #3f3151;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-size: 14px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"><span style="font-size: 18px;"><span style="font-size: 16px;"></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span>
Your in the right place, the more experienced people here are gonna want pics for the question you asked. You harvest by trichome color, they go from clear to milky to amber, depending on what strain you want to harvest between all cloudy and up to 50% amber. You'll need like 40-60+ x magnification to get a good look at them.
there she is, my poor lil spindly girl! (testing posting pics here; first time, so if i am doing it wrong, please let me know!...up close shots coming next)
this is the top 1/3 of my plant in the big pic here, all solid bud beneath the leaves...the others, i managed to get in just thumbnails, various shots i took up close
I'm new too but it looks like if you just keep doing what your doing your going to get some nice buds off of it. do you know the strain? I can only spout off what i've read since i'm in my first grow but i've read a lot. pure indicas they sudgest should be harvested when the trichomes are milky or not more than 10-20% amber. Pure sativas i've read between 20 and 50% amber. i can only assume crosses of the two you want somewhere in the middle. more cloudy should provide more of a heady energetic high and more amber is more of a body/couch lock kind of high. It varies strain to strain but you can probably figure out when just by the kind of high your looking for out of your babies. Don't forget indicas have a more body couch lock kind of high to start with and sativas are more cerebral energetic highs. If your feeding them don't feed them in the last couple weeks. i hear you get better burning and tastier buds that way.
i have zero idea about the strain...the seeds came out of a bag of weed i bought from a friend and around here we generally don't talk strain language, we talk taste and potency and whether it is hydro or not... so if anyone out there has thoughts about that based on pics, please let me know... and yeah, Cal, it seems i stumbled into a nice yield, all things considering, so unless someone has suggestions on how i can help them along that i am not already doing, i am just gonna keep doing it...but i am hoping for some tips about how to help increase yield and potency at this point, so late in the game.... wish i had paid better attention to it now!...ugh...but maybe i can pull some clones and do better with those
water her with 1 Tbps unsulphured blackstrap molasses next couple feedings.. then when u get about 10 days from being done flush u plain water. it'll help
thanks strocat!...can you tell me if that is per gallon of water or...?...have some good backstrap in the cabinet i am pretty sure and i still need to know what i am looking for as a good indicator of when to harvest... need to look around the site a lil for some pics on this subject but if anyone can point the way to a good guide about that specifically that would be very helpful!
adding a post to share a nice visual guide i found...posting the charts here, with a link to the source ((based on this source, my strain is certainly an sativa)) Sativa plants are tall, loosely branched and have long, narrow leaves. They are usually grown outdoors and can reach heights of up to 20 feet. Indica plants are short, densely branched and have wider leaves. They are better suited for growing indoors. Effects Besides appearance, indica and sativa plants are commonly believed to have different effects on their user. These effects include: Sativa uplifting and energetic cerebral, spacey or hallucinogenic best suited for day use Indica relaxing and calming body buzz or ‘couch lock' best suited for night use source: indica-vs-sativa-understanding-differences
It looks good, keep doing what you are doing for this grow and work on improving next year. If you want clones, take those two small branches off the bottom, they arent going to produce anything anyway. You will need a separate area to clone with a light of some sort and preferably a timer. As far as how to do it I would advise an aero cloner for new growers, they are almost fool proof. There is a diy cloner tutorial here at gc to make one relatively cheap. A bubble cloner would be even cheaper but I dont like them as much personally. There are many other ways to clone, try all of them if you can.
Your buds looks fine. During the vegetative stage, if humidity drops below 40%, especially anywhere below 25%, it can cause serious problems that look like nutrient deficiencies light/heat stress! But in these cases, just adding a little moisture to the air does wonders, even if you don't change anything else. During the flowering stage, your cannabis plant actually prefers less humidity! Drier air during the flowering stage helps prevent mold and actually increase trichome production on your buds! For best results, keep humidity 45-55% during the flowering stage.. Harvest it when 50-70% of hairs have darkened for highest levels of THC.Harvest when 70-90% of hairs have darkened for a more calming,anti-anxiety effect as some THC turns to the more relaxing CBN. Enjoy you grow!!!
thanks guys...huge help!...i really appreciate the feedback...keep it coming, anyone that has more info to impart...clearly, despite being a lifelong head and an accomplished gardener, i am a total noob about growing cannabis...
yes sir 1 Tbps of molasses per gallon of water and brother I dont have a scope so Im gonna go by the hair color to tell when i should harvest.
stro....thank you for getting back at me about the molasses...and i do not have a scope either, so i think i am also going by hair color, per dcoukeking's instructions here dcoukeking...thank you for the very helpful info!...this tells me what i need to know about the when of harvest time! and jay!...thank you for the cloning advice...i have several tuts on building an aero cloner and this will be easypeasy for me....i do diy tote projects alllllll the time...(maybe i should make a thread when i decide on a design) you guys rock and i am open to further suggestions and will make updates as things progress... on a side note: i kept a close eye today to time how long the plant got direct sun...530ish when the sun is rising these day, til around 3pm...then in shade until dark....based on what i have been reading, bad for the plant to have light after full dark and yet mine has been getting indirect light at night everynight all along, due to where i have had it stationed (i live directly behind a walmart; between the back of my house and the back of walmart, they have a truck access road and access doors into the store from the back, so lots of high set lights and security cams out there... i also live in a crap neighborhood with a lot of heads...my spot is unable to be seen from the road or the neighbors' yards, but i worry about my plant walking off...i do have it sitting with a bunch of other plants so it is semi camo and i will look to arrange for better screening without blocking light, but as of tonight at full dark, i have set it inside a small shed i have right there near where i have kept it up til now and will set it back out for sun at 530 am so it still gets the full amount of sun it has been used to... if you have any thoughts about this, please let me know...i hesitate to change anything i have been doing, but growing lore says the full dark would be much better for her, so i thought that would be ok... ps: stro...i am a sistah, not a brother...lol... thanks again guys!
another question occurs to me as i am reading my way through forums... flushing...my plant is flushed pretty much everytime i water (it's in a 1 gal bucket, and i have been hosing it down until i know it is saturated)...is this a good thing, or a bad thing?...should i back off the water, give it less with the molasses so she can suck up the goodies? getting fallish weather, but still pretty hot most days and i live in a high humidity area...water daily due to heat or...?? inquiring heads want to know!
did my first feeding with the molasses, using distilled water, this evening, after allowing the soil to go dry the last couple of days (watered well day before yesterday (tuesday), slightly moist yesterday, dry to the touch today)...any changes i should make to this approach?...how many feedings like this should i do before ready to harvest?...weekly, bi weekly? also located a jewelers loupe...trichs are like tiny lil raindrops, crystal clear...no milky/cloudy so far that i could see...thoughts on how much longer i have before i have to think about chopping?...i assume many weeks yet, but a timetable would be helpful for me to get properly set up for the big event
Dont worry about the soil going dry, I keep a thick mulch layer over my soil so it doesnt really dry out. Saves on water and makes for much healthier soil/roots. If you're growing organic then you really want to keep your microbial/fungal populations healthy and a good mulch layer, and using clean non-chlorinated water, is essential. I've noticed, when using a mulch layer, that those top few inches of the soil that are usually not really populated by roots/organisms are filled with nice white feeder roots and little earthworms/critters. The soil is much more active, and I've heard that the top 5-6 inches of the soil is where the most action goes down. I wouldnt worry about feeding your plant too much to be honest, when you're a beginner its best to keep it simple. Sometimes less is more A good thing for you to do would be an earthworm casting(EWC) slurry. Basically get a 1gal water jug and put 1cup of high quality (very important) EWC along with your molasses and only about 25% filled up with clean water. Shake that up as intensely as you can for a minute or two and then let it sit for a few minutes and then shake it up some more, you might want to do that a few times. Thats basically to break up the castings really fine to make a makeshift organic liquid fertilizer. After its all mixed in really well you can fill it up the rest of the way and water it in. Try and water in only a little bit first and wait 5-10 minutes before watering the rest in so the soil soaks it up evenly. You should really only need to do that once before your plants ready to harvest, doesnt look like it needs a lot. If you have hydro stores near you I would very strongly suggest you buy a bottle of Teraganix EM-1, its a probiotic microbial concentrate thats a lifesaver in the garden. Online even works. You can use it to kickstart compost, add microbes to your soil to bring your soil to life, foliar spray and even start fermentations to make highly bio-available nutrient/microbial extracts, which is a real game changer in my book. If you're able to find it, just add it to your waterings at the suggested rates and with your worm casting/mollases drenches. Add the EM-1 after shaking up all the castings, when you fill the jug the rest of the way up. You can use the EM-1 practically up until harvest (foliar sprays with it should probably be stopped a week or two before though), it basically just contains lactobacillus(like in your gut, greek yogurt etc.), phototrophic bacteria and yeasts which are all strong decomposers of organic material. The acids and enzymes they produce when digesting plant/organic material in your soil makes the nutrient far more available to the plant than without, you'll notice a difference in your plants even at this stage, it does look like you could easily flower them out another 2-4 weeks depending on how mature you like your trichs. Please let me know if you need any help with anything else, I'll gladly help however I can. Hope that was able to point you in the right direction
amazing stuff, Jimmy, thank you!...i will be shopping these items you've mentioned this morning to have by the weekend and you have confirmed what i had concluded from my reading here...2-4 more weeks...i will be doing an indepth study of trichs over the next day or two for comparison purposes as i move forward...(will post a follow up to this on the guide i am going by for determination about when they are ready as soon as i am done with this post; would love your thoughts on that when you get a chance) so, at this point, i have a good idea of where to go from here over the next few weeks in terms of helping things along...my thoughts range forward to prepping for harvest and to that end i have a couple of questions: flushing?...when to do it and for how long? keeping in mind i have used almost no nutes throughout (maybe 4-5 times it has been hit lightly with some miracle gro veg/flower through a hose feeder, plus the molasses yesterday) full dark prior to chop?...do it or not?...if so, how long?...have a small shed i can use, but there would be next to no ventilation; another option would be in my room, but i do not think i could ensure full dark in there chopping...best way, based on my plant structure?...pull the entire plant or harvest branches?...any way to do it and keep the plant going? (gonna pull those tiny bottom branches to try to clone them; seems a shame not to try to keep things going, having accidentally been so successful, but would be moving things indoors from this point) and finally, thoughts on best drying techniques...hang/rack etc...also i hear a lot about doing all of this in full dark...necessary? ...and if so, how do you manage to do that? i know it is a lot and i have a lil time, but i want to work out my strategy and get set up so when the time comes, i can be ready thanks again...you rock!...off to shop!
as promised, here is the research i will be using to go by in determining when to harvest (i will be shooting for Day 70 trich %s)...see sources at the end... 1.) Harvested on day #60 of flowering 2.) Resin glands after examination of 200 glands under 30X to 50X magnification (and a splitting headache): 7% amber 64% clear 29% cloudy 3.) Stigma most are still showing to be fully fertile, very erect and completely white. About 15% have turned to a orange or red color completely with the remaining 25% being partially changed. 4.) Seed bracts - this one is hard to tell with a visual check, but all of them appear to be swollen and are uniform in size. Flowers were trimmed, then dried for 5 days and cured for 7. I got very lucky and found a lab that is willing to run the test for almost free because they are just as interested in the results - so here they are for the first plant: THC - 21.4% CBD - 2.0% CBN - 0.0% Back with the results from Plant #2: 1.) Harvested on day #65 of flowering 2.) Resin glands after examination of 200 glands under 30X to 50X magnification: 8% amber 61% clear 31% cloudy Not much change here, but going the direction one would expect. 3.) Stigma most are still showing to be fully fertile, very erect and completely white. About 25% have turned to a orange or red color completely with the remaining 25% being partially changed. This is where the biggest change has taken place. 4.) Seed bracts - they have appeared to have swollen quite a bit more from the one harvested 5 days prior. I started to use a caliper to measure them for the future cuts, but this information won't be to valuable, since it will vary so widely by strain. Flowers were trimmed, then dried for 5 days and cured for 7. Results from #2: THC - 22.1% (not much of a change, but it looks like we are going in the right direction) CBD - 2.0% (no change here very interesting) CBN - 0.0% (good that this has maintained 0%) Back with the results from Plant #3: 1.) Harvested on day #70 of flowering (recommended harvest date from breeder) 2.) Resin glands after examination of 200 glands under 30X to 50X magnification: 10% amber 39% clear 51% cloudy 3.) Stigma the majority are now at least partially changed, visually before I had a magnifier this is when I would harvest. About 25% are still fertile looking (all white) and about 25% are curled and look dead. 4.) No real visible change here, I didn't take measurements so I am just going off of comparing pictures. Flowers were trimmed, then dried for 5 days and cured for 7. Results from #3: THC - 22.0% CBD - 2.0% CBN - 0.0% The THC decreased by .1%, I would say that means it's the same as the last sample, since there is no CBN the THC has not started to degrade imo. CBD remaining the same leads me to believe that the CBD is fully developed much earlier than THC. Back with the results from Plant #4: 1.) Harvested on day #75 of flowering 2.) Resin glands after examination of 200 glands under 30X to 50X magnification: 14% amber 24% clear 62% cloudy 3.) Stigma the majority are now at least partially changed, visually before I had a magnifier this is when I would harvest. About 15% are still fertile looking (all white) and about 30% are curled and look dead. 4.) No real visible change here, I didn't take measurements so I am just going off of comparing pictures. Flowers were trimmed, then dried for 5 days and cured for 7. Results from #4: THC - 21.1% CBD - 2.0% CBN - 0.2% The rise in CBN and decrease in THC is showing what we would expect, as the plant ages the THC levels go down and the CBN goes up, not exactly by the same amounts so I wounder what the exact reaction is (i.e. if you need two moles THC to make one Mole CBN). 1.) Harvested on day #80 of flowering 2.) Resin glands after examination of 200 glands under 30X to 50X magnification: 18% amber 13% clear 69% cloudy 3.) Stigma the majority are now at least partially changed, visually before I had a magnifier this is when I would harvest. About 10% are still fertile looking (all white) and about 40% are curled and look dead. 4.) No real visible change here, I didn't take measurements so I am just going off of comparing pictures. Flowers were trimmed, then dried for 5 days and cured for 7. Results from #4: THC - 16.5% CBD - 2.0% CBN - 1.8% This was huge for me, and very unexpected, the THC levels seem to drop exponentially if you miss the harvest window. 1.) Harvested on day #85 of flowering 2.) Resin glands after examination of 200 glands under 30X to 50X magnification: 30% amber 4% clear 66% cloudy 3.) Stigma the majority are now at least partially changed, visually before I had a magnifier this is when I would harvest. About 5% are still fertile looking (all white) and about 50% are curled and look dead. 4.) No real visible change here, I didn't take measurements so I am just going off of comparing pictures. Flowers were trimmed, then dried for 5 days and cured for 7. Results from #4: THC - 13.5% CBD - 2.0% CBN - 1.9% Another huge drop in THC, I was not expecting anything this large. ***my thanks to GardenMaster for his extensive research that produced these results (sadly, it appears he is no longer here at this site, a major loss to this community for those of us that appreciate real, verifiable data based on boots on the ground work) honorable mention goes to howando for his excellent graph chart that breaks GardenMaster's results down into a birds-eye view you can read the entire thread here: http://forum.grasscity.com/harvesting-processing-m...