Time to harvest

Ideally, you want to harvest a plant that is healthy and with an active metabolism and not be under any stress. In my opinion, subjecting your plant, after weeks/months of careful growing, to an unnatural, metabolism destroying and stressful extended length of darkness, is the last thing that should happen to your lovely plants right before harvest. Through numerous experiments that I have conducted over the last 35+ years, I prefer to harvest in the morning or about an hour or so after the lights come on. This seems to be the right amount of time to activate the terpenes for the day, without causing them to burn off, as can happen by the end of the day. This timing seems to produce the tastiest cannabis, and believe me, I have tried harvesting at just about every hour of the day, including the middle of the night, which produced the blandest buds ever. When it comes to harvest timing, it depends on which sort of effect you prefer. If you are after a mind bending, up and clear head high, harvest when there are about 90-95% brown pistils. If you prefer a heavier and sleepier, relaxing body type of stone, harvest at about 98-100% brown pistils. The later you harvest and the more brown pistils, (like 95+%), means peak THC levels have passed and a lot of it has broken down into CBD and CBN, which is what gives you the heavier and more relaxing effect as compared to the mind bending head high of earlier (90-95% brown pistils) harvested buds. So, let your desired and preferred style of effect guide your harvest timing. Others may say wait until a certain percentage of trichomes are amber or something similar, but not all strains will develop amber trichomes, which is a genetically controlled factor, so I find the "pistil colour" method far more consistent and reliable indicator for judging my harvest timing. Hope this helps, Organoman.