Are you cultivating cannabis flowers for the first time? Before your first harvest, we’ve got a helpful guide of some things you should know to help you on your growing journey!
When To Harvest Your Cannabis
The first thing you should know before your first cannabis harvest is when to harvest the crop. When harvesting cannabis, the timing is crucial to producing a potent and quality flower.
When to harvest is a difficult question because the strain, location, and growing conditions influence cannabis maturity and are different for everyone. There are a few ways to judge a cannabis flower’s maturity—the color of leaves, plumpness of buds—but the most accurate method is observing the plant’s trichomes.
Using Trichomes To Identify Crop Maturity
The trichomes of a cannabis flower can tell a cultivator a lot, including when it’s reached its prime maturity for harvesting. Trichomes are the outgrowth on a cannabis flower—like tiny hairs—that produce the cannabinoids, terpenes, and flavonoids of the strain.
The color and opacity of the trichomes are also an accurate barometer for how mature the plant is. At first, the trichomes will appear white and translucent—but when the plant reaches maturity, they’ll turn cloudy and have a slight orange-gold tint. If the trichomes are dark amber colored, you’ve likely waited too long.
Pro Tip
Get an up-close look at the trichomes of your cannabis crops with a magnifying glass or jeweler’s loupe.
Flushing Your Cannabis Harvest
Before harvesting, you’ll also want to consider whether to flush your crop or not. Flushing is when the cultivator stops giving the cannabis plant nutrients and solely feeds it water to “flush” out built-up chemicals and salts from the plant.
If you’re growing organically, flushing is probably unnecessary, but flushing is a wise idea if you use chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Typically, growers will flush their crops about a week or two before harvesting.
Wet Trimming vs. Dry Trimming
Once you’ve harvested your crop, you’ll have to decide how to trim the cannabis buds, but what’s the difference between wet and dry trimming?
Wet trimming refers to trimming and sorting the buds of the cannabis immediately after harvest—when they’re still “wet” and fresh. Dry trimming involves hanging up and storing the cannabis for months to allow it to dry or cure.
Wet trimming is much faster and requires fewer steps and less equipment—but dry trimming helps make the cannabis more potent, and most cultivators say it enriches the flavor. Try both trimming methods to see which is best for you and your operation.
