August 23: Just finishing up about 36 hours of darkness, then I'm going to wash the buds, then hang them. Harvesting a bit early due to time constraints but it looks good. The smell is very dank, not a tropical skittles smell, much more like wood glue as I've seen mentioned in other reviews, although I'm starting to occasionally catch a sweeter tropical scent as well.
I wanted to leave it a little longer. There were still a lot of white hairs when I started the dark period, but a lot of them seem to have developed into swollen calyxes so I'm pretty happy. I was a little worried they were making seed pods after last time, but I broke one open and all that was inside was red hairs. I'm going to keep an eye on the RH while they're drying and get them into jars and try to wait as long as possible before I start sampling. I can tell this is one of those batches that's going to get better and better if left alone for a couple months.
Just did the wash, did 1.25 cups of 34% food grade H202 and a squeezed lemon in a 5 gal bucket. Another bucket of just water to rinse. Then I had a fan on it while hanging in the sunlight from a skylight in the bathroom for 30 min, then put the fan further back and on oscillate, then turned it down an hour later. Left it in there for a few hours, then hung it in the grow tent with everything removed except an oscillating fan, pointed away from the buds. I have the whole plant hanging in the middle of the tent and the tent is holding at 60% rh.
Next run I'm going to do 2 buckets and only top once. I might leave them a bit longer in veg too to maximize the height in my grow space, and I'll get a proper 500w bulb instead of continuing to run 1000w bulbs at 50% to lower the heat a bit. The weather will be cooler and I'll only run one air stone in each bucket which should help with res temp. I'll probably foil-wrap the buckets again as well. I should be able to get another run done by the end of the year. I have a White Widow fem seed I've been waiting to use but I'm not sure what else I want to grow yet. Maybe Granddaddy Purp.
I'll take some micro pics of the trichomes this week and start curing, and I'll post a proper review in a couple weeks.
Happy growing everyone!
August 24: I took it out of the tent to inspect. No mold or mildew. The middle of some buds are still pretty wet. I'll keep an eye on it. Wet weight on the stem is 158 grams/ 5.5oz.
I harvested a couple branches last week and hung them up. I just ground up one of the buds, left it overnight and vaped some today. There was a bit of Chemdawg Tangerine in the grinder already but overall I got a lot of thick vapour, instant effects, and a really great tropical taste.
I busted out the microscope camera and I realized I had a couple buds that fell off before I washed the plant in the H202, and a couple buds that came off in the washing process. It doesn't look like washing the buds took off any of the trichomes. I do seem to find less debris in the buds, not that there was much there before. The trichs look great. Just a light toasting of amber. The washed bud actually seems more dry than the unwashed bud.
August 25: there's a real chlorophyll smell coming from the drying room today, it was much terpier yesterday. Leaves are getting crunchy, stems are still fully bendy. I ended up taking it down in the evening. The drying room rh dropped from 60% to 55% and the buds were starting to look too dry based on my last grow. I put it all in a paper bag for the night and I'll put it in jars tomorrow morning. Broken down most of the way it came out to 48-49 grams. From the bud structure, I definitely feel like it would have benefitted from more grow time if I didn't have to travel. More to come.
August 26 - the edges of the buds are getting really crispy and the buds are getting tighter. I checked the paper bag earlier and it was 65-70%. I got the impression it was time to put it into jars. I'll keep the lids off for a bit.