HARVEST TIME!!!

THERE IS MORE TO HARVESTING CANNABIS PLANTS THAN JUST CUTTING THEM DOWN!

It's our favorite time of year here at Grower's Grove. Harvest is a multi-staged process and to help guide you through it, we have compiled some information that should get you on your way to a healthy and bountiful harvest.
There is more to harvesting cannabis plants than just cutting them down. Before harvesting, the plants should be fed plain water only with no fertilizer (nutrients). This is to remove any fertilizer that has built up in the plants themselves, and the hydroponic media or soil they were grown in. After the plants are harvested, they have to be manicured and dried.
Even with a small indoor or outdoor garden (less than 20 plants) it can take a few hours to harvest, manicure, and hang the buds for drying. A large garden (more than 50 plants) may take a full days work, or longer. The plants must be manicured and hung to dry right after they are cut down, and this can be time consuming.
Make sure you leave yourself a steady 6 hours of time to work, the first time you harvest a small garden. Make sure you leave yourself a full day to work, the first time you harvest a large garden. You can base the time it will take to harvest future crops based on the amount of time it takes to harvest your first crop.
If you have grown a particular strain before, you will have a good idea when it will be ready to harvest. If you are a first time grower or if haven't grown a particular strain before, try to get you seeds from someone who can tell you not only what strain it is, but also the expected harvest time.
The reason why it is so important to know when the plants will be ready to harvest is because prior to harvest, you will need to remove the fertilizer contained in the plants. The plants themselves and the hydroponic media or soil the plants were growen in will store some of the nutrients that have been fed to them.
Cannabis plants need fertilizer so they can grow, mature, and produce THC. In order to remove fertilizer from plants, you feed them water with no nutrients for one or more feeding just before they are harvested. Tap water will have some chemicals present, it is best to use distilled water or water treated with reverse osmosis for this purpose.
When you know the approximate time the plants will be ready to harvest, you will be able to wait right before you are going to harvest and give them water with no nutrients. In this way they are allowed to grow for the maximum amount of time (large harvest) before being flushed.
The plants will use up the fertilizer they have stored in them and growth will not slow down, if done properly. If nutrients are not flushed from the cannabis plants, the resulting cannabis will taste bad and may also be hard to ignite.
If you are growing hydroponic cannabis, start cleaning about 7 days before harvest. This can be done by changing the solution and using only distilled water or water treated with reverse osmosis (no nutrients). Some growers will change the water two or more times before harvest because the media may still hold nutrients after the first flush.
With soil you need to change to distilled water or water treated with reversed osmosis about 14 days before harvest. Avoid slow release fertilizers because they are hard to remove. Soil growers that have to use slow release fertilizer should employ regular nutrients for the last month.
With hydroponics, if you know that the cannabis strain will be ready to harvest 10 weeks after flowering is started switch to water only feeding about 9 weeks after flowering. With soil, if you know that the cannabis strain will be ready to harvest in the middle of September, switch to water only feeding about the beginning of September.
When growing in soil. you can stop watering the plants 2 days prior to harvest. This is not essential but it will speed the drying process. Do not stop the flow of water to hydroponic plans. If you do, they will wilt and begin to die within a few minutes to a few hours.

HARVESTING CANNABIS PLANTS

The optimal time to harvest cannabis plants is when THC production has reached it maximum. A rough guide as to when to harvest is to wait until 50%-80% of the white pistils (hairs) have turned dark (usually brown or red). But a better method of determining when to harvest is to wait until certain trichomes on the plant have matured.
Trichomes are small appendages that look like hairs, they are produced by cannabis and other plants. Some trichomes on cannabis plants develop a resin gland at the top. These trichomes are rich source of THC, and monitoring them will allow you to best judge when the plants are ready for harvesting.
On cannabis plants, trichomes with resin glands form in the highest concentration on buds. They start out clear, turn a milky color, then turn amber (light brown). To best judge when to harvest, wait until about a week or two before the expected harvest time (just before you go to water only feeding) and look at the trichomes on the largest buds on each plant daily.
The best time to harvest a cannabis plant is when a majority of the trichomes have turned to a milky translucent color. Not all the trichomes will mature at the exact some time. so harvest when most of the plants are ready. Or harvest each bud separately.
It is nearly impossible to see the trichomes with the human eye, so some type of magnification is needed. An inexpensive way to effectively view them is to use a pocket microscope rated at somewhere between 20x to 70x.
There is another type of trichome that can be found on cannabis plants, they are called cystolith trichomes. This type of trichome is mainly found on the underside of leaves. They look like small hairs with no resin gland at the top. Cystolith trichomes are not a source of THC.
When grown indoors, most cannabis strains will be ready to harvest 7-12 weeks after starting a flowering light cycle (12 hours on and 12 hours off per 24 hour period). Most mainly indica strains will be ready to harvest in 7-9 weeks. Mainly sativa strains can take up to 12 weeks to reach maturity.
You can harvest the plants by cutting them down at the base of the stem (with a pair of scissors or some other type of cutting tool), just above where the plant meets the hydroponic media or soil. This will allow you to harvest the entire plant at the same time. Alternatively, you can wait for each branch to mature and cut it off separately.
Once you have grown a strain, you will be able to better estimate the best time to start giving it distilled or reverse osmosis water to flush nutrients, and when yo harvest future crops. Indoors you can be pretty sure that a strain will be ready in the same amount of time, if you provide the same conditions each time you grow it.
Indoor growing conditions will remain constant, unless you change something. When you grow outdoors, you can't assume that a particular strain will be ready in the exact some amount of time, each time you grow it. This is because you are not able to provide consistent conditions outdoors.
After the cannabis plants have been harvested, they must be manicured and dried. Manicuring and drying the cannabis harvest is a very important part in the cultivation process. You may want to smoke the cannabis you have grown without waiting, but this not a good idea.

DRYING AND CURING CANNABIS

Right after all the plants have been harvested, it is time to manicure them. Manicuring is simply cutting off the leaves that were growing from the buds. Cut off all the leaves surrounding the bud, so that just the bud remains.
Work over a glass table or some kind of smooth flat surface. This will make it easy to collect all the material that has been cut away from the buds. It is lower in THC than the buds, but rather than throw it away, you can use it to make hash oil.
When manicuring the buds, use a pair of scissors with small blades (to reach hard to get leaves) that is comfortable on your hands. If you have a small crop, you can handle the plants with you bare hands. With a large crop, wear powder free latex gloves.
The latex gloves will collect trichome resin in a similar manner to the way live cannabis plants are rubbed to make hashish. The latex gloves have to be power free or the powder will get mixed into the resin.
Do not touch anything other than the plants once you have put the gloves on. If you have to do something, remove the gloves you are wearing and put them in a plastic bag, prior to doing whatever it is that has to be done.
When finished, put on a pair of new gloves. Material on the first pair can be collected later. When you are finished manicuring all the plants, remove the gloves and place them in a plastic bag (to catch resin that drops off).
Put the plastic bag with the gloves in a freezer for 2-3 hours. The trichome resin can easily be peeled from the frozen latex gloves and consumed the same way you would use hashish.
If absolutely necessary, you can wait to manicure the buds. However, the job will take more time if you wait. Manicuring right after the plants are harvested will also speed the drying process.
Instead of smoking cannabis directly after it is harvested and manicured, it is best to dry and cure it. Some new growers might be in such a rush to try the cannabis that they don't want to dry the crop, or they might be tempted to put buds in a microwave oven to dry them out.

DRYING CANNABIS AFTER HARVEST

You probably don't want to smoke cannabis that is harsh and bad tasting. If you don't take time to dry the bud, you will not get the best possible smell and taste your crop is capable of producing.
Proper drying and curing will also ensure maximum potency of the cannabis you have grown. Cannabis is not potent just after harvest. Some of the THC is in a non-psychoactive acidic form. Drying cannabis the right way will convert the non-psychoactive acidic compounds into psychoactive THC.
The area where the drying is done should be dark. Light and high temperatures (higher than about 80 degrees) will cause THC to break down into less desirable chemicals, this will lower the potency of the finished product.
A good way to dry the crop is to hang the buds upside down by the stem, from some string or wire. the drying cannabis must have some circulation blowing over it at all times. A gentle breeze that circulates over all the plants is necessary.
A fan or two will circulate air within the drying room. Fans will aid in drying the plants evenly, and reducing the chances of mold. If mold starts and is allowed to grow, it might ruin all of your crop. Mold looks like white fuzz and has an odor that is unpleasant.
You will have to keep the temperature and humidity within a certain range for optimal results. Conditions should remain constantly somewhere within the following ranges, temperature should be between 65-75 degrees F, relative humidity should be between 45%-55%.
At temperatures lower than 65 degrees, drying time will be lengthened. At temperatures higher than 75 degrees, the heat will cause the outer portion of the bud to dry quicker than the inner part, and the taste will suffer.
At humidity levels lower than 45%, the cannabis will dry too fast and the taste will suffer. At humidity levels higher then 55% the cannabis will take a long time to dry, and it will be prone to mold.
Keep a hygrometer and a thermometer in the drying area, close to the plants. A hygrometer will allow you to keep an eye on the relative humidity level in the room and a thermometer will display the temperature. Some hygrometers have built in thermometers so you can measure the temperature and humidity together.
Depending on the time of year and your location, a heater or air conditioner may be necessary to adjust the temperature. To control humidity, a dehumidifier can lower humidity and humidifier can be used to raise humidity. There are warm mist humidifiers and cool mist humidifiers.
A warm mist humidifier will raise the temperature while a cool mist humidifier will not affect the temperature. There are also humidifiers that allow you to switch between warm or cool mist. If you are going to purchase a humidifier for this purpose, take your climate into consideration and buy an appropriate humidifier.
Warm mist models will actually hear the water and release warm humidity. Cool mist water isn't cooled, it just means that water is not heated. In most cases a cool mist will work best. To be safe you can get a humidifier that lets you switch between warm and cool mist.

CURING CANNABIS

It will take at least a week or two to dry the crop with temperatures between 65-75 degrees F and relative humidity between 45%-55%. You will know when the cannabis is dry if the stems snap or break (rather then fold) when they are bent. Try smoking a small bud (1/2 gram or less) in a joint to be sure it is dry enough.
At this time, small buds will be dry enough to smoke. But larger buds should be cured (slow dried) to ensure that the cannabis is as potent and tasty as possible. If necessary, you can set aside buds that are less than 1/2 gram for smoking, while larger buds cure.
The cure lasts a week or two. The aim of that you are doing is evenly finishing the slow dry process, so that mold will not grow when the buds are stored long term. Also, by the end of the cure, any remaining inactive THC will be converted to active THC (that increases potency).
To cure the crop, you will need one or more containers made out of glass or plastic. Some people say plastic can impart a taste to the cannabis.
Containers that have a rubber seal work best, but any type of container with a tight fitting lid will do. One quart canning jars do a very good job if you are curing a few pounds or less. They have a rubber seal and hold 2 or more ounces of cannabis per one quart jar.
Gently place your cannabis in the containers (cut buds to size if they are too big to fit in the container) and put the top on. Store the containers in a dark area where the temperature is between 50-65 degrees and the humidity is between 40%-60%.
You will have to open the containers for a few minutes to allow moisture to escape by fanning with your hand. If any moisture builds up on the inside of the cap on your container, wipe it off. Do this preferably 2-6 times daily, at regular 4-12 hour intervals.
You should also re-arrange the buds by giving them a quarter-turn once a day. This will ensure that different parts of the buds are exposed to the air in the container. Keep up this routine for 7-10 days. When properly dried, cannabis will burn evenly when smoked in a join (if stems are removed).
The taste will be a good as it can be, and the THC will have reached a point where it is ready to be ingested or stored. You can keep any cannabis that will be consumed within a few months (1 year maximum) in the same containers used for curing, without having to keep opening them to release moisture.
If the cannabis is to be stored for more then a few months, you can use a vacuum sealer (designed for storing food) to seal the cannabis in an airtight environment. If stored in a dark area that is between 40-55 degrees F, the cannabis in vacuum sealed plastic will remain potent for up to 5 years.
Dry cannabis can be stored in a frost-free freezer, but some of the THC on the outer part of the buds may be damaged when frozen. A refrigerator is in the right temperature range but they tend to be humid (unless you can control the humidity).
If stored in an area of high humidity for months or years, even vacuum sealed cannabis can eventually become as humid as the surrounding air. This will necessitate drying it again before smoking. But, unless mold develops, humidity itself will not degrade the THC or make the cannabis any less potent.
Light will degrade some of the THC, so dark containers can be used for storage. If you place the cannabis in a see through container, it will have to be located in a dark area that is not exposed to light or high temperatures.
Always make sure to properly dry your cannabis potency at a maximum level, keep any exposure to air, heat, and light at a minimum.

HAPPY HARVEST!!!


By Jesse Martin