Growing You Own in Hawaii (Part 3)

Harvesting and Drying Your Buds

In my last 2 blogs, I have talked about growing marijuana at home with your 329 card that will legally enable you to grow up to 10 plants in Hawaii. To obtain your 329 card, go to 329MJRX.com where you can get certified by Dr. Louis Mandris via telemedicine without having to leave your home. In this blog we will discuss how to harvest, and dry your buds.

So you nursed your marijuana plant from seedling, through the grow phase, and now your plants are blooming. When do you harvest? There are a few ways to determine when the best time to harvest is. Your buds have fine white hairlike pistils which usually collects the pollen from the male plants (which your have kept away from your female pistils). If your female buds are not pollinated, they will keep getting bigger and the smell will get stronger. Just touching the buds will leave a strong cannabis odor on your fingers. The white pistils will start to turn brown. When most of the pistils are brown, many growers will then harvest the buds. A more accurate way to determine the "ripeness" of your buds is to examine the trichomes. You will need a jewelers loupe ( a small magnifying device that you can get from Amazon.com for around $12) which magnifies 30X or 60X. You then can clearly see the trichomes which look tiny mushrooms with a stalk and a round bubble at the tip.

Magnified Trichomes

The trichomes contain the THC and CBD. The trichomes start out as filled with clear fluid. As the bud matures the trichomes become cloudy white. As the buds ripen further, the trichomes become tea colored. You want to harvest when the trichomes are mostly cloudy white. If you wait until the trichomes are mostly tea colored, your buds may be over-ripe. Over-ripe buds tend to be more sedating and can lead to "couch-lock" ( a condition where you do not want to get up off the couch). Some buds mature sooner than other buds, so you may want to harvest your buds in stages as the younger buds and the buds closer to the main stem may be immature as compared to the top bud and the buds on the outside of the plant.

It is now time to harvest. A branch that has several buds is called a cola. When you harvest the colas, cut off the branch. Remove all the leaves that have stems. Trim the buds, removing the protruding bud leaves. Some of the inner leaves of the bud are covered with trichomes (they look like they are covered with sugar, hence they are called sugar leaves), and you want to leave the trichome covered portion of the leaves with the bud. You will then be left with a branch (cola) that has several buds attached. Place these in a container that will allow air to dry the buds.

Trimmed buds

You will want to dry the buds until the thinnest branches snap rather than bend. Drying time will depend on the humidity. In Hawaii which is always somewhat humid, it will take 5-10 days to dry properly. While drying, your buds will smell like freshly cut lawn grass. This is the chlorophyll being released. The buds will not be dry until that smell is gone. When the chlorophyll smell is gone, and you can break the thinnest branches, you are now ready to cure the buds. This will be covered in my next blog on curing.

Remember that you need a 329 card to legally do all of this. Go to 329MJRX.com and get registered by Dr. Louis Mandris via telemedicine to get your 329 Medical Marijuana card.