Hi growmie. I am hoping you are happy with your harvest and would love to help you achieve a more satisfactory result with a few suggestions. I was a little confused by your choice of when to harvest. The bending trichromes are a mystery to me and I wonder if you mean the white hairs that poke out all over and go brown. ?. These are called pistils and will collect any pollen in the air while fresh and go brown and curl up if not fertilised , they replace them with fresh ones until very close to harvest.It is normal for this flush of new pistils to occur during flowering, usually around week 6/7 . The trichromes are what people refer to as frost/ice/sugar/thc and are nearly microscopic but cover the entire bud structure and sugar leaves , they stack up as the plant matures and can be viewed with a powerful magnifying glass or jewellers loupe/microscope. Rhey look like crystal balls on top of spikes and are clear initially , as the plant matures ,these will slowly become milky/cloudy and following this amber will begin to appear on them. This point is considered the sweet spot for maximum potency and effects intended by the strain. The amount of amber covering them at harvest determines how heavy the narcotic effect is and over 30% amber trichromes will create a sleepy, couch lock effect. More cloudy and no amber would be a more "up/active " high.
If using the browned hairs to guide the harvest point , it is less accurate but aim for 70%of the plants buds hairs have browned off. I think you may have harvested very ,very early.
Drying is also a learning curve and speed is to be avoided as this does not allow the chemical processes to complete during drying. A very good way is low temp and slow drying . allowing air to directly blown onto the plant as it dries will obliterate so many of the "terpenes" that create the strains flavours and hit profile. Heat and light also have a very destructive effect on this process which we have grown the whole cycle to achieve . I find a big cardboard box with colder air passing it but feeding in some of it through the lid flaps helps. ideally I use 15°c fresh air exchanging but not blowing directly on the plants. this allows all the green chlorophyll in the leaves to be used up by the plant as she slowly dries out. The leaves are what will create the harsh, acrid taste and can ruin a good harvest and put growers off keeping going. I say this in absolute respect and care for your new venturws in growing. I would love to assist you with your next grow to help you achieve a more beneficial harvest . I hope this isn't an insult to your skill or knowledge and I suggest it with totally positive intent. be safe growmie. P.s remove those leaves off your jarred buds. they will make you cough amd kill the flavour for you. burp them daily too for the first week or so to avoid any chance of mould building up.Good luck
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