So let me ask you this. Do you let the trics turn a hint of amber at all so you know its reached peaked potency? Or do you know after so long when there perfectly cloudy with no amber what so ever so the thc isn't degraded?
To begin with not every trichome will begin as a colorless clear. Most will these day because of the mutt genetics, the Heinz 57 Variety genetics that modern breeding has created. In the past, and still now and then, trichomes will begin as a clear yellow or a clear amber. If you see that you wait until they all cloud and then as soon as you see any darkening, it is time to harvest.
In the case of the far more common colorless clear trichome that then turns cloudy/milky you wait until you see a very small percentage of light amber trichomes show up. If you don't wait that long a fair number of trichomes will likely still be totally clear or only slightly cloudy/milky and not reached max THC levels.
If you are growing a pure 100% sativa, or a cross that is very close to being 100% sativa you want to harvest a little earlier. A totally pure sativa, or very nearly pure sativa, will reach peak THC levels just before the trichomes begin to turn cloudy/milky. In those you wait until you see a small percentage of trichomes turn cloudy. That will be a sign that the rest that are still clear have reached or nearly reached their peak level of THC.
In either case, a pure or almost pure sativa when clouding begins to occur, or a cross where amber begins to occur, the longer you let that progress, the more cloudy/white or amber you allow to occur the more THC you are losing to oxidation and the CBN levels will be increasing beyond what someone should want.
I still do not expect many amber trichome lovers to believe this, but like it or not, reject it or not, it is a fact.
They love couchlock and they wrongly believe what they are getting when they lose THC and increase CBN gives them a better buzz. They pick the wrong strains to grow. They mainly look at THC percentage, THC percentage, THC percentage, but seldom if ever at CBD percentage and then they try to play pot-alchemist and get what they want. If someone wants couchlock, pay less attention to THC percentages and more to higher CBD percentages because the two are very seldom found in the same strain.
The problem is the 'Dutch Masters' have darn near bred CBD out of modern crosses in their mad scientist quest to find the Holy Grail, and that leaves true couchlock lovers with fewer and fewer high CBD strains to pick from, so they take the wrong route and try to get it through trading off THC for increased levels of CBN.
Juiced Marijuana Offered to Medical Users as Alternative to Smoking
June 15, 2010
A California physician is offering his medical-marijuana patients a liquefied version of the drug that he says won't produce much of a buzz but does contain chemicals helpful in treating a variety of illnesses, the
Washington Post reported June 1.
Willets, Calif., physician William Courtney, M.D., said that marijuana with high levels of cannabidiol (CBD) seems to have the most medical potential;
ironically, CBD levels seem to be lowest in marijuana strains of the plant that are highest in THC -- the main psychoactive substance in marijuana.
"What has happened is, almost all strains available in America through the black market are THC concentrates," said Ethan Russo, senior medical adviser to GW Pharmaceuticals, which is developing the marijuana-based pain medication Sativex. "The CBD in almost all cases has been bred out. The reason is cannabis in this country has been cultivated for its intoxicating effect."
Medical-marijuana advocates want to see more research into CBD. "The bridge to legalization is medical marijuana," said Addison DeMoura, one of the owners of the Steep Hill Medical Collective in Oakland. "I believe the bridge from medical marijuana to real science will be CBDs."
If someone wants couchlock, pay attention to the first two lines of the piece of the article below.
Why Modern Medical Cannabis Strains have Minimal CBD
Sam the Skunkman says that nearly all modern cannabis is pretty much CBD-free or the levels are so low as to be miniscule, landrace indicas are the way to go.
Right now there's simply no strains available where cbd will make up more than 2% of the overall cannabinoids (.5% of the flower weight) and no way of cultivating a noticeably higher cbd content. For the most part conversion of cbg into cbd is controlled by a single gene (Bd) which is codominant with the gene that converts cbg into thc. For example a plant that inherits a Bd gene from one parent and a Bt gene from the other will have roughly equal content of Cbd and Thc. However, if the plant is homozygous for Bd it will have very little thc and if its homozygous for Bt it will have very little Cbd.
While it is true that afghani landraces can have a high cbd content. Since having a Bd gene will replace half of the thc content with cbd seed companies always remove the Bd allele from the gene pool in order to maximize thc potency and stay competitive.
Grower tokers hang out on sites like this and get their heads filled with personal opinions, myths, urban legends, half-truths, misconceptions old hippie folklore and in some cases absolutely totally incorrect information .. and they soak it in like a sponge, they swallow it hook line and sinker just because some person they do not know beans about, and who does not have a clue of what they are talking about, said so. Then it is repeated and repeated and repeated and said over and over again until it proves what Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels taught Hitler about politics. If you repeat a lie enough times it eventually becomes the truth and the bigger the lie, the more believable it will be.
The combination of strains lacking in high percentages of THC, mainly thanks to the 'Dutch Master's all trying to outdo the competition for the latest 'flavor of the month' strain that will give tokers Mr. Toad's Wild Ride and in doing so breeding most of the CBD out of their products, and then some little clown shoe confusing trading off THC for increased levels of CBN being the best way to go and claiming amber trichomes mean higher potency and more true couchlock, the myth was created and it spread like wildfire until almost every modern day puppy believes it is as much of a fact as time and tide and gravity.
I have grown so very tired of attempting to debunk the myth, that is so overwhelmingly prevalent, and nearly totally believed here, that it is one of the list of reasons why I likely will not remain here much longer. It has gotten really old continually beating my head against a very thick wall of ignorance and not even chipping or denting it because the myth is so firmly believed by growers who totally believe and rely only on personal opinions and inaccurate beliefs but know few, if any, facts.
Sorry for the rant at the end but the older I get the lower my tolerance level for ignorance falls and when I get on the subject of trichomes I do become a tad bit intense at times.
