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Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
Till the last recorded syllable of time…
-Macbeth, in frustration over the delays in his own “Harvest!”
Alas and alack, mates. It STILL isn’t harvest day, but it is getting damned close. So, while we wait, let’s take a minute to talk about when to chop down the plant you have come to love.
I have grown this same White Widow strain several times now and on each occasion I treated harvest timing as a variable. I wanted to learn whether the potency & character of the cured smoke was really affected by those pretty trichome color changes.
I was also influenced by an article by Frenchy Cannoli (may he RIP!) that suggested maximum THC production doesn’t occur until at least half of the trichomes have turned amber. Most growers don’t wait that long so I wondered if we are all harvesting too early. Here’s a link to the article in question. This is an interesting read even if you don’t buy all of Frenchy’s opinions.
Without belaboring the details of my experiments, I concluded that waiting for more amber did indeed have a strong influence on the potency of my harvest, however it didn’t seem to change the character of the high as is usually supposed. In my case at least, clear trichs didn’t really make the weed noticeably “speedier,” just not as strong. That supported Frenchy’s claim that peak THC has not been reached. This led me to have more patience awaiting the “Amber Dawn” before harvesting.
I realize that is controversial, but it is what I found under relatively controlled repeat trials over several grows.
More importantly however I came to realize that trichome coloration is only one of several things to look for. After an intellectual nudge from the gentleman who invented the growing technique we’re using here, I learned how to also look for “The Final Push,” a sign he trusts as indicating that a plant is at peak THC production.
I understand the Final Push as a last gasp attempt by a cannabis plant at attracting a bit of pollen before withering away. That Lady Plant really wants to deliver a seed to the world before she dies, and the Final Push is the result. The tell tail sign is the appearance of new white pistils emerging from an individual calyx that already has older dry brown pistils. You can observe the phenomenon during very late harvest time and, once you know what to look for it is unmistakable.
To illustrate, here is an image of the Final Push on a near-harvest Northern Lights beauty: (reproduced with permission)
For the Final Push to be useful you need to know how and when your specific strain expresses it. There are many different cola structures and plant lifecycles, and the Final Push may present differently among them. I’ve only had the opportunity to view this with a few strains but they all showed it to some degree. YMMV! Break out the loupes and USB microscopes grow nerds!
This is also the time you may see signs of male sex indications, and nanners, both of which are stress signs of a plant trying to propagate any way she can. Remind yourself that this plant is a living organism with a programmed mission in life. “The Selfish Gene” by Dawkins explains it better than I ever could hope to.
Whether you see the “Amber Dawn,” or the “Final Push,” or both, this is your plant’s last attempt at making sure she doesn’t go without progeny. The flowers are swelling, and your plant is doing her best to ensure that if there are any boyz at all out there, she is ready to party!
“Huc Venite Pueri ut Viri Sitis” (basically, Come Hither Boys…)