When I harvest my plants in the future, I don't want to destroy the trichomes by accidently touching the trichomes and causing them to burst and ruining my months worth of growing. What is the proper way to harvest the cholas or the cholas on the braches to dry them without touching them? Sent from my LM-V350 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
You could try trimming while still on the plant then when done, take her down. Let her hold herself up for you. Take the big leaves, the middle leaves. Leave the sugars for a dry trim.
The idea is to minimize contact, not to completely eliminate it. You aren't going to ruin your harvest if you happen to make a bit of contact while harvesting. You could hang whole plants or branches to dry, then cut branches down to a manageable size and hold buds by the stem while trimming. I like to hold branches upside down while trimming, which i find eaiser. It's usually a good idea to make a little bit of contact with some of the buds throughout drying and curing, to properly get a feel for how dry they are. You've got the right idea about preserving trichs but don't get too worried about it. It's a hands-on sort of experience and you'll find you can tell a lot about your plant by giving a bud a gentle squeeze every now and then. Be cautious but not paranoid. There's a lot of other factors that can ruin a harvest, like mold or inproper drying and curing. A bit of handling is much better then your buds getting moldy because you were afraid to touch them to see how moist they were.
Okay hey by the way speaking of trichomes, I am using a Mars hydro 300w (130 watt) LED grow light, do led grow lights facilitate trichomes on the buds? Do led lights even have UV-B lights? If not, then what is my LED light doing or what will the plant do to create trichomes if using LED lighting doesn't have UV-B lights? Will I still get trichomes? Sent from my LM-V350 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Trichomes are not strictly a product of UV-B light. If your light can grow a healthy plant, it'll have trichomes. Some plants have more than others, which tends to have a lot to do with the genetics. If you're mainly looking to harvest trichomes, pick a strain known to produce lots of them. Many people are experimenting with UV lighting to promote better trichome production, but i don't really have an opinion on that just yet. My understanding is that the results are not overwhelming enough where everyone needs to run out and upgrade their lights, at least not for your average grower. If you're a new grower, I would focus first on creating a good grow environment for your plant... you'll likely find that you'll get much better results from focusing on things like: - a good growing medium (soil, hydro, coco...) - temp & RH - Water & soil PH - fertilizers - basic lighting needs (sounds like you have that part covered) From there, once you're growing the best possible bud for your conditions, then you can experiment with things like UV lighting, CO2, unique fertilizing schedules/products, etc. A lot of those things are unnecessary, in my opinion, for a new grower.
