Do i dry and cure my harvest with the sugar leaves on the flowers

I'm a first time indoor grow my plant is six weeks into flower a strain called (Anesthesia) it grew into a monster and the hairs are starting to turn a bright orange so I'm not to far from harvest I was just asking what is the preferred method to leave the sugar leaves or not that is the ?

I leave them on for a nice slow dry. Then when everything is dry, I brush the leaves off the bud with a silicone basting brush

Oh ok yes I've been reading tons of stuff on it i was just asking opinions on this because I know some people cut them all off I can't see that they have tons of crystals on the sugar leaves too thanks for the input

Only cut fan leaves off. Leave the rest on. Proceed to dry trim once she's dry.

Bottom line:

• Cut all leaves if your drying room has high humidity, so that the buds can dry easier.

• Leave the leaves on if your drying room has low humidity OR if you want a slow drying process ( which is a good thing ).

I take off any leaf that isn’t going into a bud. I leave the rest. So fan leaves go. Anything I can get to easy without disturbing the buds.

I just want to say that you’re about halfway through flower. So maybe 5-6 more weeks.

Here’s what you want to look for. Most of the hairs will be brown. The calyx will swell and almost swallow the hairs. So EVEN if they’re brown doesn’t mean they’re done. The calyx most times will turn purple when swelling too. These are all signs you’re getting close. I’m including the pic to show you what to look for. These are getting close

@Wattzzup why did you remove the post? It was correct lol
Yeah @MmmBIGBUDSmmm sorry brother but you're no way near the end... Have patience tho, you'll see she will get thicc af with time

I’m really high and noticed I posted 3 times in a row.

It felt weird

Millo said:

@Wattzzup why did you remove the post? It was correct lol
Yeah @MmmBIGBUDSmmm sorry brother but you're no way near the end... Have patience tho, you'll see she will get thicc af with time

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Oh I think I made a comment about how big they were going to be. But I wanted to ask about his light first.

So OP about your light?

IrkinBollikans said:

I leave them on for a nice slow dry. Then when everything is dry, I brush the leaves off the bud with a silicone basting brush

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I've been thinking of getting the canna brush and it's bristles look thicker, so I am glad to hear basting brushes can work as well. How many pounds can you do with how many brushes? You need to freeze them and knock the resin off once they get gucked up right?

Whether to wet or dry trim is one thing, whether to leave on the sugar leaves permanently is another. Personally, I like to dry as slow as possible, so I hang the whole plant and dry trim. With the sugar leaves, it just depends. Some sugar leaves are so encrusted with trichomes and stuck up against the bud it doesn't make sense to try to trim them. I do usually trim them if they are sticking out. It also comes down to whether you are mainly vaping the bud or if you're smoking it (or selling it). If you are smoking or selling it, it behooves you to trim as much leaf as possible, because it smokes harsher than bud, but if it's for personal use and I'm vaping it, I won't be as anal about trimming the sugar leaves. You are probably going to process them somehow, so sometimes it's nice to trip even the potent sugar leaves so you end up with higher quality bubble hash or whatever. Good luck!!

DaFreak said:

I've been thinking of getting the canna brush and it's bristles look thicker, so I am glad to hear basting brushes can work as well. How many pounds can you do with how many brushes? You need to freeze them and knock the resin off once they get gucked up right?

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Lol I wish I knew about doing multiple pounds man. I just tried it on my last harvest and it seemed to work pretty good. I'm sure stiffer bristles would help. Only one of my strains had greasy sticky resin. The others had more sandlike glands so it didn't give me any trouble as far as clogging

I'm growing in a custom 4×3 grow box with temp controls from 90 to 75 degrees and humidity controls can regulate from 45%to90% im growing in 5 gallon buckets with fox farm forest growing medium and tiger bloom with a maxsisun pb1000 full spectrum led can you tell i was bored during covid

IrkinBollikans said:

Lol I wish I knew about doing multiple pounds man. I just tried it on my last harvest and it seemed to work pretty good. I'm sure stiffer bristles would help. Only one of my strains had greasy sticky resin. The others had more sandlike glands so it didn't give me any trouble as far as clogging

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So you’ve used this brush and it works well? It seems like it would wreck the trichomes.

IrkinBollikans said:

Lol I wish I knew about doing multiple pounds man. I just tried it on my last harvest and it seemed to work pretty good. I'm sure stiffer bristles would help. Only one of my strains had greasy sticky resin. The others had more sandlike glands so it didn't give me any trouble as far as clogging

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I only do up to 2 pounds, but I usually have 3 scissors that I rotate so was just wondering how many brushes I should buy.

Wattzzup said:

So you’ve used this brush and it works well? It seems like it would wreck the trichomes.

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I liked it better than scissors. I just did it over my trim bin to minimize the loss. I also dry far longer than others, so that may have a lot to do with how well it works. No hurry to get it into jars over here. I dont try to get all the leaves off, just what wants to let go.

DaFreak said:

I only do up to 2 pounds, but I usually have 3 scissors that I rotate so was just wondering how many brushes I should buy.

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2 should be fine unless you've got some really greasy resin. Perhaps then you would see a loss of performance.

I usually remove all of the leaves before I chop (wet trim) then toss them in my pharmaceutical freeze dryer from harvest right w/ leybold pumps. Which then get turned into dry sift hash rosin.

Ningen said:

I usually remove all of the leaves before I chop (wet trim) then toss them in my pharmaceutical freeze dryer from harvest right w/ leybold pumps. Which then get turned into dry sift hash rosin.

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I wet trimmed for 20 years and my back couldn't take it anymore so I switched to dry, never going back. So much nice and quicker if you dry them right.

MmmBIGBUDSmmm said:

I'm a first time indoor grow my plant is six weeks into flower a strain called (Anesthesia) it grew into a monster and the hairs are starting to turn a bright orange so I'm not to far from harvest I was just asking what is the preferred method to leave the sugar leaves or not that is the ?

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You got some good answers about trimming. I just want to make sure you also realized you aren’t even close to done flowering yet. Minimum 5-6 more weeks.

Before even thinking about harvesting take a look at this and see if your plant is actually showing you all these signs.


The signs of ripeness are pretty standard.

First a few of the pistils begin turning color and start receding. Your plant is just starting to ripen. Depending on the strain you could still have two months to go. We're just starting this journey.

Two to four weeks later you'll notice that most of the pistils(>80%) have now changed color and curled back into the bud. It's frosty, way bigger than it was a few weeks ago, and smells dank! It's time, right? Not a chance killer. Patience is a virtue

Over the next 2-3 weeks it doesn't look much different, maybe a little more swelling in the calyxes, and the rest of the pistils change over, but the stems ars starting to bend under the weight of the buds. These ladies are putting on weight and now the buds are doing their final ripening.

Now you begin looking at trichomes, on the calyx not leaves, and harvest according to your preference. When looking at trichomes it’s essential to look at them from the side. The bulbous heads can magnify the opaque stalk under it. Looking from the side allows you to more accurately see the condition of the resin in the trichome head.

There is still no rush to harvest, the window just opened, and you have several weeks before you MIGHT start having to think about it possibly beginning to get too ripe. It takes WEEKS for plants to mature not days.

It is very easy to harvest a plant to early. It is very hard to harvest a plant to late. I’ve never seen someone accidentally wait too long.