![](\"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/harvesttrichomes-1.jpg\")
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The best time of the year is upon us. October, otherwise known as Croptober to those already in the know, is the month when the annual outdoor cannabis crop is harvested. Soon the marijuana marketplace will be flooded with choice outdoor herb, but knowing just when to harvest is not a straightforward proposition. To answer a question like \u201cWhen\u2019s the best time to harvest?\u201d growers must take into account a plethora of factors and, ultimately, let mother nature take the wheel.<\/p>\n
Master cultivator Harry Resin<\/a> explains that cannabis can be compared to tomatoes in the sense that both crops are \u201cvine-ripened,\u201d meaning they ripen on the plant until they are able to reach the juiciest, most flavorful taste profiles.<\/p>\n \u201cIf something is vine-ripened, that would be like you walking up to your mango tree in your backyard in Hawaii and picking the ripest mango,\u201d Resin says. \u201cThat thing is going to be so sweet and full of sugar and that wonderful taste. Cannabis is the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n Resin says fruits that are not vine-ripened, such as avocados, are harvested before they are ready in order to account for things such the time involved with transportation to sale.<\/p>\n Of course, cannabis \u2014 because consuming it involves things like the complex chemical reactions between cannabinoids<\/a>, flavonoids<\/a> and terpenes<\/a> within our individual endocannabinoid systems<\/a> \u2014 isn\u2019t quite as easy as other crops when it comes to judging the time it\u2019s ready to harvest. Ultimately, cannabis growers are looking for optimal development within a microscopic element of the cannabis flowers: the resin within the trichome<\/a> heads (the plant\u2019s external glands) that contains psychoactive compounds such as THC<\/a>, and yes, CBD<\/a>.<\/p>\n Immature trichomes\/Photo courtsey Marijuana Harvest<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Mature trichomes\/Photo courtsey Marijuana Harvest<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Resin explains that the average cannabis cultivar spends about 8.5 to 9.5 weeks in flower and choosing when to harvest is a matter of deciding the optimal elements that a grower is looking for.<\/p>\n \u201cDepending on the type of high that you want, you could harvest at the beginning of the cycle or at the end of the cycle,\u201d he says. \u201cAt the beginning of the cycle, the bud tends to be a little racier \u2014 even the indicas \u2014 because you\u2019re basically harvesting very fresh, just-ripened trichomes. If you let it ripen more, [the resin] goes into a more amber color, which we know is a degradation of THC into CBN<\/a>. So you\u2019re getting a more sedative type of heavier buzz.\u201d<\/p>\n Most how-to grow marijuana literature surrounding the optimal harvest time will point towards watching the trichome heads turn from clear to amber or milky white. That\u2019s the technique Resin learned from master cultivator Soma of Soma\u2019s Sacred Seeds<\/a> in Amsterdam.<\/p>\n \u201cSoma would teach us about this ripening period,\u201d Resin says over dabs at his San Francisco cannabis manufacturing and distribution site. \u201cHe would always go 10 to 15 percent amber trichome coverage. He would look with a loupe [magnifier] and he would wait and wait until the plant told him it was ripe.\u201d<\/p>\n Leading cannabis horticulture authority Ed Rosenthal also told me that the best way to know when a plant is ready to harvest is by using a magnifying glass or optical magnifier and looking at the plant\u2019s glands. If they are clear, it\u2019s a sign the plant might need more time, but if they are amber or cloudy, \u201cthat\u2019s a sign that they are beginning to deteriorate and you should take the plant down.\u201d<\/p>\n Rosenthal, who co-wrote the book \u201cMarijuana Harvest<\/a>\u201d with David Downs<\/a>, said the harvest should ideally take place once these amber or cloudy trichome heads appear, but added if a grower is looking for more sedative effects with less THC and more CBN, cultivators can wait for more cloudiness to appear before harvesting. He said smell is also a great indicator of ripeness.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the plant ripens, the intensity of the odor increases dramatically,\u201d he said, adding that if outdoor growers are dealing with bad weather or potential robbers, it\u2019s best to just harvest early.<\/p>\n Despite the widespread belief in judging when the harvest time is ready based on the color of the trichome heads, when I called master hashishin Frenchy Cannoli<\/a> to ask about his thoughts on the right time to harvest, he told me something controversial that I was not expecting. In his opinion, getting the best trichomes with which to craft things like his premium hash, doesn\u2019t really depend on the color of the trichomes. Cannoli<\/a> even went as far as to say judging when to harvest by the plant\u2019s resin is not the right approach.<\/p>\n \u201cJudging the majority of the resin is the wrong approach,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to judge by the formation of your flower.\u201d<\/p>\n Cannoli said that the coloring of the resin heads can be affected by many different factors, the most obvious of which is whether the plant is grown outdoors or under UV lights indoors. Instead, he says growers are looking for a 3-day window when the cannabinoids within the resin heads are at peak fullness. And given that there are so many things to take into account, such as the type of strain and how long it spends in the flowering period, how do you know when to pinpoint that magical window?<\/p>\n \u201cThe plant\u2019s got that look when she\u2019s ready,\u201d Cannoli said, while also clarifying the fact that he is not a grower himself and noting that perfect resin is a \u201cgift\u201d from the farmers he works with. \u201cEvery cultivar is different, but at the end of the day a fully-formed bud is a fully-formed bud.\u201d<\/p>\n Luckily, discovering this optimal time to harvest based on peak cannabinoids (compounds so tiny they are unintelligible by the human eye) is getting easier as precise cannabinoid testing continues to become increasingly available. Resin is known for trying his hand at growing unique cannabis cultivars and believes testing will one day be the measure for knowing when it\u2019s time to harvest.<\/p>\n \u201cTake this one genetic anomaly that I had, this mutant A5C, it was a three percent CBGA plant,\u201d he says. The plant, he discovered, was a long-flowering sativa from his Dutch Haze<\/a> genetics and could go 19-20 weeks in flower.<\/p>\n \u201cSo it would not be ripe after 19 or 20 weeks and what we did is, we tested it with Steep Hill [a laboratory in Berkeley, California], week nine, week 10, 11, 12. We went all the way up to week 16. And we got to actually see each week how the cannabinoids changed,\u201d he says. \u201cThe CBGA dipped, the THCA went up then started to go down a little bit. So, with a lab, you can chart out the optimal ripening period if you were going to spend that amount of money on R & D or if you had your own testing machine you could do it fairly inexpensively.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US<\/strong>, have you ever grown your own marijuana?<\/p>\n The post When to Harvest: How to Achieve Peak Ripeness<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The best time of the year is upon us. October, otherwise known as Croptober to those already in the know, is the month when the annual outdoor cannabis crop is harvested. Soon the marijuana marketplace will be flooded with choice outdoor herb, but knowing just when to harvest is notContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":29788,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,6108,5,1211,115,2724,306,6109,602,4080,2132],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29787"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29789,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29787\/revisions\/29789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/harvesttrichomes.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Trichomes](\"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/Platinum-Huckleberry-Cookies-trichs.jpg\")
<\/p>\nAmber Indicators in the Trichome Heads<\/h4>\n
![\"Harvest](\"http:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/harvesttime.jpg\")
<\/p>\nJudging the Formation of the Flower<\/h4>\n
A Future With Widespread Cannabinoid Testing<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: When to Harvest: How to Achieve Peak Ripeness<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"