[BudwanaBranch]

You have touched the heart of the subject; the difference between healthy mature plants AND healthy mature plants with high grade flowers. So yes most strains will have mature trichomes when the end of life approaches, wether they are all green OR red, green, yellow and purple…But if the bud is mature and the plant still very green, you get to much nitrogen in the final flower, you goal is to get the plant to spend itself just in time for the end of its life, this can take a week or two. If you are running synthetic fertilisers, this also alowes for the salts to be spent and washed out of soil AND this way of making the plant spend itself also produces more canabinoiids and terps.

[ChomeFactory]

Great answer. Caveat: plants do plant things like try to stay green. Some genetics succumb to senescence more willingly than others so you will see variability which can be confusing.

[BudwanaBranch]

Yup, there are plants that stay greener, they can give good buds also, that depends on strain, soil(or soiless medium) and the general environnment, usualy they tend to get a little pale at the end, but you want to get there without brown leaves in the buds, so it`s all about balance and experience.

[ChomeFactory]

Balance. Isn’t that the key to so many things in life. Growing this plant teaches lessons with so much applicability to life.

[jmystro]

Ripening or senescence is the process of dying. The last few weeks of a plant’s life is when minerals and stored sugars are used for energy and maturation as photosynthesis slows way down as the plant consumes and drops leaves. Energy is not provided by the sun as much as it’s provided by mineral and sugar storage in leaves and stems. This is nature.

Indoors with perfect nutrition, storage is not needed as much during the grow until the last few weeks before harvest when the plant uses that storage to ripen. They don’t need much energy as they’re not producing leaf or stem. They should just put energy into swelling calyx. It’s up to the grower to know when the end is near and start tapering back nutrition. Plants should not be green at harvest if they’ve properly senesced.

[turnster]

Hi, So what can be done if the Trichomes are milky but the leaves are Green, waiting another week without nutrients isn’t really an option? TIA

[jmystro]

Harvest when the trichomes are at the maturity you want. The plant and the trichomes will ideally mature together. Stunted and/or overfed plants will not consume themselves and possibly linger plant maturity while the trichomes still mature. Large swollen calyx with milky trichomes is a sign of peak maturity. Not much sugar/nutrition should be left in the tank at the end. During ripening complex sugars (starches and carbohydrates) are broken down and used as energy while stored minerals are used up to swell calyx. The plant is not growing leaf and stem during senescence so an abundance of minerals is not needed. Providing too many minerals at the end promotes growth and stalls maturity. The result is harsh smoke that’ll burn your throat smoking those starches and certain abundant minerals.

[turnster]

Thank You.

[ChomeFactory]

If the trichs are milky white you’re at max thc. Chop it and dry it.

[turnster]

Thank You