👉The time finally arrived for the harvest, mostly cloudy trichomes with scant few amber, very few white pistols, and the leaves had either faded or were fading. The run-off pH would quickly plummet and the run-off EC would spike. This may be an indicator that the plant is ready but that only would be conjecture on my part. The overall look of the plant to me said it was ready. The aroma was super strong citrusy and intoxicating. THe leaves were fading and there were virtually no white pistols.
👉I harvested bottom to top. I hung each cola on alphabetized clothes pins with gardening wire attached for hanging on the rack. The buds are dense and shaped like pine cones. I trimmed it semi-tight, but left some of the smaller frosty sugar leaves. The buds and sugar leaves are very frosty but it wasn’t as scissor freezing as the Gorrila Glue I grew last year. I measured the post trim wet weight on a self-calibrating digital scale. I checked the accuracy of the scale with a set of scale calibration weights and it was accurate at all weight ranges. I logged each colas trimmed wet weight and hung on the rack. I have a 42” tower fan. For first 12 hours I ran it at its medium setting, then reduced to lowest speed. I rotated the side facing the fan after 24hrs. Then after another 24 hrs I placed them in paper sacks with to top open. I left the buds on the clothes pin hanger and clipped the bag to that. After another 24 hours I closed the tops. Another 24 hrs and I test weighed a couple of colas. I monitored for another couple of days until the weights averaged 20-25% reduced from the initial wet weight. I then cataloged the weight of each cola and placed each into its own jar, most got one of those small cheap hygrometers. These hygrometers have been calibration tested and I know the drift of each. My target humidity is 62%. I would open the jars for brief periods of time during the next couple of days until the humidity stabilized at 62%. Once stable I placed 62% humidity packs in the jars. I took out most of the hygrometers for the next plants cure, but leave some of them with the best buds. The Queen cola was 20g when placed in the jar. That is about 24% remaining weight from trim. 24% is a little on the high side of the humidity target range. The jar the Queen cola is in, is a wide mouth counter jar and I will be toking that bud primarily and it will dry out the fastest. I have compensated the weight I entered on the dry weight spec to reflect about 20g more of humidity loss and another 30 for the stems that are left on the bigger buds. The final weight of the buds going into the jars was 254g (not including the larf at 23gdry). 200g of plump sticky pine cones for the final weight is pretty nice for a 1 gallon pot.
👉I wrote this review at 3 weeks before the 6 week cure mark. In my short experience of being weed rich, its been interesting to take note of how the flower continues to ‘cure’ as time goes on. I have found that 6 weeks isn’t a given for when its ‘cured’. I have observed that as weed ages it changes. I have not noticed much difference with 2-3 week old buds at 62% humidity when compared to 6 weeks from jarring. But I do notice significant difference around 6 months of age. The flavor is enhanced and the buzz is stronger. It maintains this level then 8-12 months it has leveled off and all strains are becoming more ‘couch lock’ inducing. My observations are not scientific by any means. This is just my 8th plant in the 2 years that cannabis became legal for home grow in my area. But I still have each of the plants and rotate which one I consume.
👉I loved growing this plant, and hopefully gained more knowledge. It fox-tailed a bit at the end. I think my frequent fertigation techniques contributed to most of the issues I had. I think I was a little too conservative with nutrient mix and irrigation volume and frequency. I used only 10% expanded clay pebbles in the coco mix as opposed to the standard 30%. This was slightly problematic at first before the roots filled the pot. Fertigation events would cause erosion and caution had to be taken around the seedling. I placed a layer of hyrdoton pebbles across the surface and the issue was solved. Once the pot was filled with roots it took 10+ minutes to give the plant 2L of solution. The pot was packed hard with roots. This may have been a contributing factor to some of the possible nutrient issues I had. I dont think the nutrient issues I saw had much impact on the final outcome. To get 200g from a 1 gallon pot is wonderful.