I'm growing a few meds outdoor and my ladies have been flowering since June 1st. I have two hybrid strains that are from clones and live in southern California.... Way south. My question is when will my ladies finish? My pistils are about 25% amber and the tricombs are light golden right now and I'm about 7 weeks into bloom. How much longer should I wait and does the cycle slow down once they start to age? just because one grows doesn't mean one smokes.
Early planted clones AKA spring harvest plants are a little tricky to judge just when to harvest or so I've found so far.. look up the flowering times on the strains your growing.. use your microscope.. and watch for signs of re-veg.. I'm in Southern California as well and most of my plants are re-vegging or at least showing signs of.. Bud tops will start to open and stretch and new green will start to show.. timing is strain and location dependent.. the trick is to leave as long as you can without the tops splitting open.. Once the top start to open you have to harvest or let the plant go into re-veg and lose what buds have formed as the new growth will ruin the bud.. I've chose to harvest 80% and left 20% to reveg for fall.. not sure if I have time for all the plants to veg/flower before winter so that part is still an experiment but a few have gone back to veg early enough to be respectable sized..
My plants....two of the four clones are starting to fill in the colas AND are showing about 50% pistil darkening. I have a few smaller colas bellow my main shoots that are looking like they're a few weeks ahead of the rest. It's like my babies started to finish but there's new hairs popping out (I'm new to this whole thing so forgive me if my terms are a bit crude). My chicks dad is telling me to wait but the guy is from Mexico and has never grown kind buds before and only knows about dirt weed. He says to wait for the colas to become more full but I don't know how to tell him to STFU and that there are many types of cannabis strains that are not going to finish how his plants did or that they can be skinnier. IDK boss he just keeps me second guessing my harvest dates and has me waiting two more weeks longer then what I thought and what the net says the strain should be (7-9 weeks). I'll post a recent photo of a few colas and keep my fingers crossed you reply with advice on them. Again I'm new to growing but understand red tricombs will degen and lose value and that the calyx is another way of telling when is a good time to harvest.
Hairs mostly turned red and pulled back.. trichs under a scope mostly gone cloudy with about 30% amber is ideal.. But I think you'll be lucky to get that ripe before the plants start to show signs of re-vegging.. I'm thinking your future father in law has done pure Sativa and them babies take a long damn time to mature.. 11 weeks or so.. in that he's correct But your hybrids and Indica plants are done much sooner.. I'll take some good close pictures of just what a full flowered plant undergoing re-veg looks like so you'll have a better idea of what to watch for as I have a couple in that state.. http://forum.grasscity.com/micro-grows/1175723-70-watt-mh-hid-starter-box.html/page-11 My own most recent off season harvest get your cheap microscope from radioshack if you haven't already http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2179604
Your grow looks nice but which are your reveg pics? I came across the ones next to your pond ( 2013-07-10 13.12.37.jpg ) and are those your early harvest photos? Oh and yea luckily the old man had a handheld microscope in the back. Those are such a handy tool to have around the harvest
http://forum.grasscity.com/unknown/1175723-70-watt-mh-hid-starter-box.html/page-12# http://static.grscty.com/uploads/monthly_07_2013/post-645641-0-70190000-1374925105.jpg http://static.grscty.com/uploads/monthly_07_2013/post-645641-0-31994600-1374925115.jpg http://static.grscty.com/uploads/monthly_07_2013/post-645641-0-50678400-1374925123.jpg http://static.grscty.com/uploads/monthly_07_2013/post-645641-0-41940300-1374925131.jpg That's the best pictures I can get..
I'm also South CA, sprouted March/April, started flowering in May. Advice was to sit tight so I did. Plants seemed to pause. Growth slowed and flowers have just slowly developed without any signs of re-vegging. I've kept the growth nutes up for now. Wondering when to switch (see other thread/ 12 12?) I'm hoping these flowers will develop fully. If so there would be enough for an acceptable harvest for a first grow. Anybody else in the same boat?