Week 10:
This point in the plants life is when flowering begins to conclude its course. Your buds will become tighter, denser, and full of resin. Pistils will also begin to display various colours with secondary fan leaves beginning to yellow. You may choose to flush your soil from any nutrients which may still be lingering in your mix. Doing so provides you with a better tasting product by improving bud flavour. Flooding the soil with as much water as it can take will begin removing the nutrients from the potting mixture.
Buds may still be in the process of developing at this stage though. Maintain the same feeding and lighting you would usually until the plant has reached it's full maturity, consider it being a week or so earlier in its maturity stage. Bear in mind that some autoflowers may take longer than others to reach full maturity. Keep a close eye on the plant to determine when this stage has been reached.
Ideal conditions to maintain for your tent:
40% - 50% RH (Relative Humidity)
22°C - 26°C Temperature
Week 11:
After continuing to maintain your usual feeding and lighting for your plant, your buds should now have put on the weight and resin you were looking for in the previous week.
Once your pistils begin to darken into an orangey shade, and begin curling which is a good indication of bud maturity and it is a good time to begin preparing for harvesting your nuggets of joy. If the buds have still not reached this point, some more days should do the trick!
You can make use of a magnifying glass to inspect buds and determine readiness. Trichomes should appear to be cloudy or frosty white and resemble the shape of a mushroom. Should you have extended your grow to this point, you may begin flushing the plant to improve your yield's flavour. This will cause leaves on the plant to brown and even fall over the coming days.
Defoliating is also ideal to encourage light exposure. You may trim away smaller leaves, or canopies which have become overgrown. Doing so may increase the risk of moulding, so regular inspection is ideal to avoid that. Remember including airflow in your grow tent is a great way of combatting this.
Ideal conditions to maintain for your tent:
40% - 50% RH (Relative Humidity)
22°C - 26°C Temperature
Week 12:
It's time to harvest!
This may have come earlier for other plants as mentioned earlier, though it's all down to the individual plant and genetics. If it's grown any slower or any quicker, it's all good! Now your buds should be caked in white trichomes. Some buds may also mature earlier than others, and these tend to be the ones closer to the light. Removing these will allow buds in lower areas absorb more of this light. By using shears you can begin snipping your plant. There are various ways to do this. Being in Malta you may wish to trim buds off the plant and keep them on a drying tray after. Due to humidity, keeping buds on the plant may keep them hydrated longer and slow drying, and possibly result in moulding too. However, if humidity is well maintained, you may wish to snip the plant at the bottom of it's stem, and hang this upside down to begin drying. You can use string, or even a clothes hanger to do this.
Keep the buds in a dry and dark place for drying, light can cause chlorophyll aroma and taste to linger which can affect your experience when enjoying the buds. This should take between 7 - 15 days depending on the environment they are kept in. Once plant branches begin to make a crunch or snapping sound rather than bending, you know you're ready to cure!
Ideal conditions to dry your buds:
30% - 50% RH (Relative Humidity)
20°C - 24°C Temperature
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