I have never done it and not sure I will start. Does anyone leave their plants in the dark for 48hrs before chopping? Why?
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No, never. Primarily because I see no benefit to it, but also because I run perpetual grows, meaning that disrupting the light cycle for plants that are done will put the rest of the plants that are only half way through flower into the dark unnecessarily.
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I do it, just stressing the plant produces more resin. People even pinch leaves with a needle to make her thing of a bug attack and increase resin as a defence.
Maybe it is just an urban legend but I follow this tips … 
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If im not running perpetual, then I tey to do 24 to 48 hours of dark before harvest. I was always told that it produced higher resin production and whatnot like @George said
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IIRC the plant produces plant matter (bud) during the lights on cycle and produce resin during the lights off cycle. So chopping the plant at at the end of a night cycle is preferable as leaving it to go through the day cycle after that instead and chop at the end of lights on then the extra power/light/time produces no extra resin. Technically, to the tiniest degree, it has also lost potency due to increased plant mass and no increased resin production. So if you are just trying to grow the best weed then you should give them the 12 hour night cycle then chop. Perhaps the 24 to 48 hour darkness thing takes that further and lets the plant use up every last bit of energy it has left to produce that last extra bit of resin without increasing plant mass. Ending in a slightly more potent bud.
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Ive done it. I want to say it makes em better but i really havent noticed any drastic change. I do always wait til end of 12 hr dark.
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Ive found same issue as stated above. Trying to keep a flow its out of the way to put em in a day or 2 dark. They get dark on the drying rack.
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Yeah, the differences will be pretty negligible but probably real so worth doing. I guess if you pack on the most weight during about 6 weeks of flower then 6x7=42. So over 42 nights. So the extra resin without the extra weight will be about 1/42th of its total resin at that point. So your weed will be 1/42th more potent without using the extra power/money. You would not be able to tell the difference when you smoked it no matter how sensitive you were because there is more variation in each session than that from other variables. However, if you had 42 ounces and pressed the whole lot into rosin then you would get the same amount of extra rosin as if you pressed an extra ounce of bud without using any extra electricity/money at the end of the grow.
Disclaimer: This is all speculation by a novice grower and has nothing backing it up. 
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Winner, winner!!
Chicken Dinner!!
100% on target.
There is a daily cycle to these plants. A certain set of functions happen when the sun is shining on the plant - then other processes occur in the dark.
Cheers
G
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I harvest whenever it’s done and convenient for me.
I really don’t think a dark period makes a difference at all.
It seems like the stoner-logic is such that “dark makes plant flower, add more dark for more flower” which is seriously flawed reasoning.
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Yeah, I agree with @BudSy. I’ve tried it and didn’t see a difference, but it costs nothing to try. Just be sure you manage the humidity and airflow in your “dark room”. It would be a cryin’ shame to get bud rot at that point. I mean, bud rot is always a cryin’ shame, but in the last 48 hours of life is as bad as it gets.
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I add to that dark period also cold temperatures (the real dark room where we were frightened to be locked as kids), that helps with resine production too, I chop in the start of her day where THC is supposed to be at his peak …
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Not a soul said anything about UV light. The only documented way to get extra resin using light manipulation.
You want more resin then feed the plants lots of extra S right up to the end and more K than P once the stretch is done. I use a common health food supplement to add organic S without the extra Mg you’d get with Epsom Salts tho that works too. The S in MSM is more easily taken up by the plants than the sulphate S from Epsom too.
I bought a pound of the raw MSM so use about 1g/gal for watering potted plants or a tsp/gal/4L in a DWC.
3 days of darkness is just 3 days before you can start cropping. Right after their night is best and waiting longer than that is not going to do squat. Pinching plants? ROTFLMAO! It used to be drive a nail through the base of the main stem and resin would drip off the plants. Bro-science at it’s finest.
I’m cropping bit by bit and doing my final trim fresh off the plants so take buds off whenever I feel the urge. Fresh buds into doubled paper bags for 3 weeks of slo-drying then a month of burping to get them dry enough to smoke. Amazingly smooth smoke and nice brown buds with no hint of green all the way to the centre.
Happy harvesting!
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Well, I never saw so big thrichomes in the scope than when they were (sadly 
) infested with spider mites.
" According to William. A. Embodem, insects can be used to deliberately attack the plants so that they raise their defenses in response to the stress, creating more trichomes and THC."
I started with “People say” because that looked to me as stoner science, but after looking the trichomes of my disgraced plants I think there must be some truth on it.
BTW good to see you around 
, what’s MSM? 
EDIT: Sorry for my lousy description, it is pinching THE LEAVES with a needle to simulate insect bites.
I think it is not a question of processes but stress generated, like OMG where’s that fuc*in’s sun? 
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Insect attack does cause an increase in resin as the plant tries to defend itself. I’ve used my USB scope to watch those damn mites run across the trichs like nothing. Couldn’t find any stuck in the resin so it’s pretty useless against tiny bugs like that. Something larger that likes to chomp on plants might be deterred or stuck in the goo.
What gives you that response without the nasty bugs is Insect Frass. Basically bug poop and can be bought at most grow shops. I got a big tub of it last year but haven’t really done a side-by-side yet to see if it helps or not. Can add to the soil, top dress or mix with water and water it in. That chitin stuff from crab and lobster shells is supposed to do that sort of thing too.
What and how you feed your plants and how they are grown along with the right genetics is the way to get the most resin. The bigger the yield the more resin even if the trichs are no bigger than a smaller plant of the same strain.
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Yup anyone who has ever grown indoors knows when those lights come on the exhaust fan better also!
Hot dry and low wind…stress. I agree with a lot of what has been said here…the plants defense is what we am for…to trigger it!
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I was just thinking how many bugs were necessary to fill that shitty tube 
, seems anyway less harmful and appropriate than pinching leaves … 
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It’ll say MSM on the bottles full of 1000mg caps at the drug or health food store but it’s full name is MethylSulfonylMethane.
I packed my own 00 caps and took 2/day for a month along with my usual supplements and it didn’t seem to help my arthritis any so might as well feed it to my plants.
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I have lab testing for the last two grows. One was harvested at the end of the light cycle, one was harvested before the lights came on. No noticable increase in cannabinoids but some increases of terpenes. Same clones, same environment, same nutes.
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mmmmmmmmm terpenes… 
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