What happens if I let a grow go “too long” bef...

Leaving flowers too long, will lead to flowers with reduced THC and increased CBD and CBN, giving you a sleepy body stone, with very little actual "high" or head trip. Once all the pistils are all brown, the plants metabolism has slowed dramatically, meaning there is little energy available to maintain THC quality, causing THC to breakdown rapidly into CBD and CBN, two non-psychoactive cannabinoids, giving you buds with a lazy and tired feeling and not an uplifting and mental mind trip. Harvesting when there are still 5% of whitish pistils will give you the mind bending high, without the sedation, however, mind bending highs do scare some people, so they prefer a relatively "safe" and heavy and sleepy stone provided by over ripe buds. It is also why some people can not handle strong Sativas, too much mind tripping! I much prefer to judge my buds' maturity by pistil condition, as this indicates the true level of the health of the plant, rather than trichome colour, for plant health is responsible for cannabinoid composition. Trichome colour on its own can be misleading, I have grown many plants with almost 50% amber trichomes already after only 4 weeks in flower and other plants that have never developed amber trichomes, no matter how long they were left to ripen. Had I harvested the plants with 50% amber at week 4, I would have been disappointed by not only the yield, but also the effect of immature flowers. I have also been very disappointed with flowers left too long while waiting for the magical amber trichomes to appear and ended up with low grade over ripe flowers that put you to sleep, but did not get you high. Trichome colour is somewhat linked to genetics, and waiting for a plant to get amber trichomes that does not have the genetic trait for producing amber trichomes, will lead to over ripe flowers with very little psychoactivity, harvested from near dead plants. Hardly a way to obtain quality cannabinoids. Hope this helps,.......... Organoman.

A bit bigger buds with less THC...