When to Harvest Weed: Read the Trichomes and Pistils

The right time to harvest cannabis is when most trichomes have turned milky white with a few going amber, and 60 to 80% of the pistils have darkened and curled. The calendar depends on whether you're growing indoors or outdoors and on the strain, which can push harvest earlier or later. Your eyes on the buds have the final say.

To nail the ideal moment, the sweet spot for the chop and when to start getting ready for it, use the info you have on your seed or clone, and factor in the conditions your plants are in and the kind of result you're after.

On the seed side, most seed banks list an approximate flowering time for each strain, plus a rough month when it finishes. That gives you a ballpark of when to act.

Beyond those first guidelines, which give you a rough idea of harvest day, there are key signs to watch for on the plants themselves.

What the seed bank recommends

Like we said, when you buy a pack of seeds from a reputable, certified breeder, you can expect an approximate harvest date. Use it as a reference point so you know when to start paying close attention.

Just as important: whatever the seed bank says, the actual harvest can shift with latitude in an outdoor grow, or with the conditions in an indoor one.

How do you know a bud is ready?

Figuring out when to harvest weed can feel confusing, even hard to call. But there are two main methods you can use right at harvest time. Use them separately or together; combined, they let you pinpoint the ideal moment and how to go about it:

Reading the pistils

Pistils are the little white "hairs" that usually sprout in pairs from the calyxes of cannabis flowers (the buds). Their job is to catch pollen from male plants and form seeds.

In the first weeks of flowering, pistils are bright white and stand straight up. As the plant matures, they turn brown or orange and start to bend and curl.

Pistils keep popping up through almost the entire bloom, so you'll find them at different stages at the same time. And they don't always change because of maturity.

That's why this method can fool you and isn't the most reliable way to check ripeness, so we recommend pairing it with the next one. Pistils can go brown for plenty of unrelated reasons: rain, dry spells, strong dry wind, foliar sprays of certain plant-protection products, or pollination. Any of these can change how pistils look well before harvest time. On top of that, some strains just keep throwing out fresh white pistils.

How to tell when to harvest cannabis flowers

• Your weed is ready to harvest when 60 to 80% of the pistils are mature (that is, brown or orange).
• Always factor in what the seed bank says.

Reading the trichomes

Trichomes are tiny epidermal growths on the surface of cannabis flowers and leaves. They start out as a little sphere and develop a stalk until they look like a tiny mushroom. Trichomes hold the plant's main psychoactive compounds, like THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), along with some terpenes.

To check them you'll need a jeweler's loupe, a microscope or a digital microscope with 45x to 200x magnification. Trichome color is what tells you they're ripe, and when and how to harvest:

• In the first half of flowering, trichomes are almost clear, like glass.
• Through the second half of flowering and ripening, they turn whitish or milky, until they're an almost opaque white.
• As trichomes degrade or oxidize, they turn amber.

When to harvest your weed

• Ideally, chop when 80-90% of the trichomes are milky and about 10% are light amber. If you want the effect the strain is known for, we don't recommend harvesting while most trichomes are still clear, or, at the other extreme, mostly amber.
• Trichomes don't all form at once, so they won't all be at the same stage at the same time. So when and how should you harvest your plant? When most of the boxes are checked.

What happens if you harvest weed too early?

In the final weeks of flowering, cannabis plants put all their energy into ripening the flowers.

During this last stretch, plants don't grow or bulk up anymore. They just produce the compounds that protect the flowers, stored inside the trichomes. This is also when a lot of the cannabinoids, terpenes and essential oils really start to come through.

Signs it's too early to harvest

• Too many clear trichomes.
• Too many white, upright pistils.

Harvest too soon and the CBN content in the plant will be lower, but so will the THC and CBD, so the effect comes out milder. You'll also end up with weed that has less aroma and flavor.

What happens if you harvest too late?

Even if you know exactly how to harvest a cannabis plant, you might let it overripen for one reason or another. The problem is that a big chunk of the cannabinoids, like THC, will have broken down into CBN, so you lose psychoactivity and get a heavier, more sedating effect.

The overall quality and makeup of the weed also slips, which means buds with weaker aromas and flavors. Cannabis terpenes, the compounds mostly responsible for smell, are more delicate and can evaporate with heat and air, so the longer you leave the plants exposed, the more you lose.

Harvesting cannabis: signs of a late harvest

• Trichomes that are amber to dark amber.
• Almost all the pistils are brown

At this link you'll find more tips on how to harvest a cannabis plant and the best way to do it.

 

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