harvesting question

Iv heard you should harvest when 50 percent of the pistils are brown. On my plants I would say that 50 percent of my pistils are brown but my buds still seem very small. Flowering started three and a half weeks ago. If i harvest now I won't get that much. What's going on? And what should I do? Thanks guys.

if they are only 3.5weeks into flowering then wait. there are all kinds of factors that play into your situation, lack of water, ferts,temps etc etc.
i would wait to harvest because if you do, you are going to have that little voice in your head saying, what if i waited,what would they
be like. so save your self the peace of mind. you put all that work into it so u mine aswell follow through.

I would let them continue flowering.

It's very normal for pistils to turn brown, and even die off, during flowering.

Go to RadioShack and pickup a magnifier for $12. They have one that magnifies up to 30x, and has a light. You can even see a small Abe Lincoln on the back of a penny with it.

If you see the trichomes get milky white, they're getting pretty darn close to done.

At least let them go until mid-September. Most females needs at least 7-8 weeks to be fully mature, and some sativa's, twice that.

You harvest when the trichomes are cloudy to amber....pistils have nothing to do with it

yea dude when i first started growing i thought the same thing but believe me.....DONT TRUST THE PISTILS....look at the trichomes with a 30x mag glass and when those are 50-75% amber then cut it....all the pistils are gonna be brown so theres no point in looking at them. You probably have 5 more weeks and the get soooo much bigger

khm916 said:

You harvest when the trichomes are cloudy to amber....pistils have nothing to do with it

Click to expand...

Succinctly put!

Post that on your garden gate.

Pistils will often turn brown prematurely for cultural reasons. I had one Durban Poison plant drop all its pistils mid way through flowering. It also stopped making new flowers, but every calyx swelled the size of a large pea, and were covered tightly with large trichomes. Good smoke.