Growing Fatter Trichomes

PDX Dopesmoker · May 2, 2016

I talked to a very successful professional cannabis grower yesterday, this fellow's stuff fetches top dollar in it's market and is probably some of the best pot in the universe. I asked him what he does that he thinks other growers don't do and he told me that most people don't let their trichs ripen full and he was also generous enough to pass me a sample of his impressively frosty bud. Just to the naked eye you could tell the trichs were huge, but I took a few macro pics of the stuff and check out the fat head on this trichome:

So does this mean that the grower I talked to wasn't bullshitting me and that most people growing pot are harvesting the stuff too early?

lordperezident · May 3, 2016

I don't understand what he meant by full ripen? When cannabis trichs fully ripens or matures it turns an amber color. I would be interested to find out what kind of nutrients he is using.

blastfrompast · May 3, 2016

most bud could stand to go more than the standard 8weeks alot of people seem to stick by....

Loupe them girls....

Also there is some interesting reading about thc levels and flowering times out there in the interweb....goes into cost of lights vs thc content in the bud and how much difference an added week made...then 2....vs the costs of lighting.... PHD working for GW pharma wrote it...

PDX Dopesmoker · May 4, 2016

blastfrompast said:
most bud could stand to go more than the standard 8weeks alot of people seem to stick by....

Loupe them girls....

Also there is some interesting reading about thc levels and flowering times out there in the interweb....goes into cost of lights vs thc content in the bud and how much difference an added week made...then 2....vs the costs of lighting.... PHD working for GW pharma wrote it...

Thanks for the info, GWPharma seems to be doing all sorts of interesting research.

amanda88 · May 4, 2016

I agree often I find my harvest date moves a lot come nearer chop day, often due to personal reasons, storage space, drying area available, above all ....FEAR! of mold or rippers

cheers

Betterhaff · May 4, 2016

Not to question the rep of the person the OP is talking about but a lot has to do with genetics and environment. Genetically the impact would be the size and quantity of trichomes and, as important, the quality of the substances they produce. As to the environment, the goal is to optimize the genetics.

Surely with any genetics a good environment and proper harvest time will achieve better results over a shoddy grow harvested to soon or to late.

Colby · May 17, 2016

The Largest Trichs I've ever seen were on Pre'98 Bubba Kush. Anyone know of other strains with noticeably large trichs?

Easy7 · May 17, 2016

Old school afghans have fat glands. Sativa tends to have smaller glands. I like uniform glands lined up not stalks that look flimsy like they can't hold on. It's all strain dependent yet UV helps build those oils and actives.

amanda88 · May 22, 2016

PDX Dopesmoker said:
I talked to a very successful professional cannabis grower yesterday, this fellow's stuff fetches top dollar in it's market and is probably some of the best pot in the universe. I asked him what he does that he thinks other growers don't do and he told me that most people don't let their trichs ripen full and he was also generous enough to pass me a sample of his impressively frosty bud. Just to the naked eye you could tell the trichs were huge, but I took a few macro pics of the stuff and check out the fat head on this trichome:
View Image

So does this mean that the grower I talked to wasn't bullshitting me and that most people growing pot are harvesting the stuff too early?

I suspect some truth to this, recently harvest my DF White Widows, on time and schedule, check them trics and chopped,
...but forgot about my air layer clone I took some months back and found that a good 3-4 weeks later, OmG I couldn't finish the 'J'
...just way to strong a hit ....lol

cheers

Arf · Nov 22, 2016

I have one sativa plant atm at 60 days, with a lot of trichomes but most of the trichomes especially on the calyxes, are headless stalks, what's that all about, does it mean a bad pheno and no THC? Do I just keep waiting to see if heads form?

rjrom90 · Nov 22, 2016

With certain nutrient profiles, trichomes can take longer to mature which allows for extended flowering times (10+ weeks) even with indicas. This combined with uv-b and infrared lighting will grow massive trichomes.

seeded · Nov 22, 2016

All a grower does is help a plant reach is maximum potential. You can't force feed them, stress them, etc. into growing beyond their limitations so the only way to get bigger trichs is to phenol hunt a plant with bigger trichs.

I reckon others are right in saying he's just bringing his plants to full maturity. A lot of growers buy into the advertising of seedbanks and think 50-55 days is enough but never factor in that was a pheno hunted individual used for the description that most like doesn't have the preflowering stage factored into the total flowering time and was taken a week or so early to claim a much earlier harvest window as well. This can result in the faster strains losing a good 3 weeks of flowering and considerably longer for sativas when it matters most. Now you compare your average plant taken way too early compared to someone who's got a 1/100 girl harvested at her peak and you're gonna swear they've sacrificed a child to get their buds that good.

DocTim420 · Nov 23, 2016

I do know this...if you want to tweak your THC% for "test purposes", the greatest number is achieved prior to trichcomes turning amber (clear and milky), but the best smoke reports almost always are from buds that "ambered up".

The sweetest smoke I ever had was from a plant that flowered for 100 days...whooa! The buds were ginormous and the leaf color was a golden/red--not a smidgen of green.

mack 10 · Nov 23, 2016

Arf said:
I have one sativa plant atm at 60 days, with a lot of trichomes but most of the trichomes especially on the calyxes, are headless stalks, what's that all about, does it mean a bad pheno and no THC? Do I just keep waiting to see if heads form?

that's normal, the heads will fill up soon.
keep watching them. you'll see them grow.
that is as long as they haven't already been nocked off?

some strains have higher amount of thc per head,
I believe what he meant was most people always cut too early and
that you should watch your resin heads very carefully to see when they reach peak swell. Some strains will amber up when fully ripe.
some don't.

Arf · Nov 24, 2016

mack 10 said:
that's normal, the heads will fill up soon.
keep watching them. you'll see them grow.
that is as long as they haven't already been nocked off?

some strains have higher amount of thc per head,
I believe what he meant was most people always cut too early and
that you should watch your resin heads very carefully to see when they reach peak swell. Some strains will amber up when fully ripe.
some don't.

I thought that might be the case. I only got a decent microscope about 6mths. ago, so detailed trichome observations are new and exciting to me. Different parts of the plants have different trichomes I notice. The headless ones seem to be on lower bud calyxes which have seeds in them. The top bud calyxes without seeds have trichomes showing normal round heads.

FireIn.TheSky · Nov 24, 2016

It's all what you feed your plants I have ran clones, grown once will have jaw dropping resin, grown again with subtle tweaks to nutrients and environment and the resin was mediocre at best.

Resin is everything, it is your potency, it is your smell and it is your taste.

However the greatest limiting factor seems to be genetics, you can't squeeze blood from a stone.

angelgoob · Nov 24, 2016

leds grow potent buds. lol but really they do, somethings missing and stresses the plant into producing more oils.

Mikell · Nov 24, 2016

Colby said:
The Largest Trichs I've ever seen were on Pre'98 Bubba Kush. Anyone know of other strains with noticeably large trichs?

Zed Hashplant produces a large trichome, one can see it easily dwarfs other strains with the naked eye.

Althought whether that is from a thicker cuticle alone is another thing.

BubbaBear · Nov 25, 2016

Diamond OG can be quite impressive.

blastfrompast · Nov 28, 2016

amanda88 said:
I suspect some truth to this, recently harvest my DF White Widows, on time and schedule, check them trics and chopped,
...but forgot about my air layer clone I took some months back and found that a good 3-4 weeks later, OmG I couldn't finish the 'J'
...just way to strong a hit ....lol

cheers

My ww I take anywhere from 11-13 weeks...

Testing proves it is worth the wait....

12-13weeks will get me in the 30 club.

11weeks never goes past 26-28% extraction rate....

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