You will need to wait 6-12 weeks until the harvesting depending on the strain. Harvest when around 90% of trichomes are milky white, and 10% are amber. Plus, around 50-70% of pistils should have turned red, brown, or orange.
When the plant approaches maturity, the pistils change color and take on a brown or orange hue. This is a sign that the biological functions of the plant have slowed and it is no longer seeking pollen for seed production. Guideline #2: Harvest marijuana when 70% of the pistils have turned brown or orange.
As your plant readies itself for harvest, they will turn darker red, brown, and orange hues. Never harvest your buds when most of the pistils are still white. This indicates your plants should be left to mature for a little longer.
Begin trimming flowers when 60–70% of pistils have turned dark for the highest levels of THC. Those growers looking for a more stoning and physical high should wait until 70–90% of pistils have changed colours, as more THC will have converted to CBN at this stage.
Pistil hairs aren't only white or orange. Based on the phytochemical content of the hairs, they can also display other colours.
Recommendations for When to Harvest Cannabis
The best way to tell when to harvest is by using a microscope; if you don't have one, wait until its pistils are more or less all brown and then wait another week or two.
Generally, flushing cannabis normally takes place two weeks before it is harvested. If the plant has an 8-week flowering period, flushing should start 6-weeks after the beginning of the flowering stage when trichomes begin to form a cloudy white color.
Mixed Trichomes
Many expert growers believe that the best time to harvest a plant is when the trichomes are 70 percent cloudy and 30 percent amber. Buds harvested with this ratio of trichome colors are frequently processed in the retail industry to create stimulating and cerebral effects for the recreational consumer.
When trichomes are cloudy and ready for harvest, you'll likely notice that 50-70% of the white “hairs” on your buds have turned amber. Keep in mind that if you wait too long and trichomes turn amber you will lose THC potency. The key thing to look for is milky, cloudy trichomes, as they contain the highest THC levels.
A reliable method that growers have used for years to determine the best time to harvest is the pistil method. Quite simply, it involves looking at the color of the pistils on your plant. If you pay close attention to the colors as they change, you'll know when it's time to gather your crops.
As your plant readies itself for harvest, they will turn darker red, brown, and orange hues. Never harvest your buds when most of the pistils are still white. This indicates your plants should be left to mature for a little longer.
As the plant grows, the pistils continue to evolve, too. Over time, they can change colors, taking on different hues depending on how the plant was grown. Once it's time for harvest, certain strains may have much more red or yellow hues than others, with orange hairs that are quite prominent.
Buds grown both indoors and outdoors are exposed to contaminants. Whereas colas are more likely to gather dust indoors, those cultivated outside are havens for mites and insect eggs. By simply dunking your buds before processing, you can rest assured that you're only using clean weed.
The female Cannabis plant starts blooming by producing pre-flowers, their pistils look like “white hairs”. Towards the end of the third week, the plant starts forming its bud sites in the plant nodes (where the main stem and the branches meet).
At this stage, you can observe completely mature trichomes with fully developed bulbous. Most of the ripe trichomes turn completely yellow while some of them could still be milky with a slight golden hue. You need to wait until 70% of trichomes have turned amber to get higher concentration of CBD and THC.
Can I Harvest One Bud at a Time? Yes, you can trim the matured buds from the plant's crown and tidy up the branches and leaves. This will enable more sunlight to reach the bottom part of the plant. The bottom buds, however, will keep developing and maturing until a week or two later, when they'll be ready to pick.
The highest THC levels are reached when the trichomes appear milky white or cloudy under magnification. These milky trichomes are ready to harvest and provide more euphoric and psychoactive effects. Around 50-70% of the pistils will have darkened at this stage.
Most growers prefer to harvest when 70-80% of trichomes are milky white and 20-30% are amber-colored. The flower buds harvested at this time have the best taste and the strongest psychoactive ability. The combination of THC to CBD at this point creates the perfect balance of energy and relaxation.
As trichomes mature, they will change from clear to cloudy to amber.
This milky or amber is color is what shows you the cannabinoids have reached full maturity and have begun to degrade. When about 20% of the trichomes on a bud begin to turn amber or milky, this is the time to harvest.
The ripening process of a trichome
The length of this stage of growth can last from two to five weeks, depending on the variety. Varieties that ripen in seven weeks usually spend about three weeks in this period of heavy flower growth.
Often the layer of sugar-like substance is so thick, that the flower looks as if it has a layer of frosting. After a sugar application, the resulting sugar-like crystals are the flower's trichomes, which are believed to double in production after the plant is treated with sugar.
More experienced growers are likely to utilize the naked eye, examining the cannabis flowers closely for pistil color. A mature plant ready to begin harvest will have pistils – a.k.a., the little pieces that look like scraggly tufts of hair – that have begun turning red or brown.
Beware of overripe cannabis buds
Plants given a little too much bloom time may have a general appearance of overripeness. Trichomes may be all amber, the terpene profile may be past it's best (possibly with a light aroma of fermentation) and the buds/leaves may take on a browner, less inviting, appearance.
The simplest technique for deciding when to harvest is by looking closely at the white pistils that begin to wither and darken, turning brown or orange depending on the variety. While this happens for the first buds, others develop with white pistils that will wither just like the first ones.