I have a pretty tall plant and the branches are quite a bit further on than the cola. My question is: Can i harvest brances individually till the cola catches up? p.s. It is a sativa, so i am also worried about the longer maturation time.
No buddy, dont harvest or cut off fan leaves, be patient and NEVER trim buds. Your plant could turn hermie or could start to die and you may ruin your final product. The biggest reason for growing yourself is to ensure nice quality, Virtually Free (since you save money buying supply than you would buying your own bud) Sensimilla bud =). Good luck. Oh I forgot to add that some buds may seem like they're ready to harvest, but plant defence mechanism will make it grow MORE hairs to catch pollen when the old ones start to dye (turn red)
Wait, are you talking about harvesting buds on the branches or leaves? Has this plant been trained at all? If leaves, are you talking about trimming or actually harvesting? Usually you don't want to harvest leaves -- true they can get you high but bud is where it's at. And I'd like to see pictures of an untrained plant in which the branch buds are well ahead of the main cola. To your question, any bud that is ready can be harvested without harvesting any other part of the plant.
from what ive read you can harvest a part of a plant that is already mature and wait a little bit for the rest of it to mature and then harvest that after, thats what im plannin on doin in a couple weeks
I notice the bottom of the plant all the buds are more matured because they were left out of the light. I have a magnifyer, so i harvest the buds when they look mature enough to me,(Milky amberish) so of course its ok to harvest some of the branches as long as you know which ones are ready. The last thing you want to do is harvest an un-matured branch, usually plants gain a significant amount of growth in their last stages. Usually when in the veg stage we try to perfect our plants by training/cutting off branches that might block light to the lower budding area's.I guess this is where your lacking, ive never grown sativa, but i do know that tall plants are a bitch and more bud sites get left out.
Thanks for all the responses It isn't trained or anything. Its some bagseed from some decent sativa, so i decided to grow it... and it grew to 47". All i have are 2x 70w hps security lights, haha. I don't think its enough light but (as many have said before) these plants are resilient. And i was talking about clipping buds, not leaves (although i do trim unhealthy/in-the-way fan leaves).
Go ahead and chop the colas off, if they're done ahead of the main cola. Do yourself a favour though and dry them slowly (or at least most of them) to make sure you get good bud. I've trimmed branches early several times, including in my last grow (see grow journals). I've never had problems, and the plant in question has never shown any signs of slowing down its growth in the other colas. Any suggestion that this or anything else could turn the plant hermie at this late stage in the grow is just absurd...
ancible, are you checking the trichs under a loupe or scope to determine which buds are ready for harvest?
He was, dierwolf. EDIT: Just realized you were talking to the others... sry dierwolf And toasty, i got like a walmart letter magnifying glass. Has a little magnifying area within the regular glass; prob. a 20x (the little part) I check em but this is my first grow plus its from bagseed so i have no idea how big the trichomes will be, or even if they all hit that mushroom shape at the same time before degrading (doesn't seem likely?).
ive been gradually harvesting my plant from the top down for the last week... the bottom popcorn buds are actucally getting bigger so by the time i make it down the bottom, the smaller buds wont be wasted. i planned it so i harvest the top when most are cloudy, by the time i get the bottom, 90% will be amber... so my buds should have different effects by the time everythings harvested.