i am new to growing and have had a little project on the go for a while now.
i got some mandala seeds from this site and started them in a propergator then veged using a little energy saving 20w bulb, went on hols and my mate looked after them on a window for a week and they grew alot so when i got home i built a little cupboard and put them into 12hr on 12hr off, got my mate to sex them and was left with 4 females. i took cutting from them and i did plan to wait till harvest and see which was best and then just use that cutting to make 4 more plants.

anyway all is well and even though i have no fans or filters or decent high wattage lights the 4 are all in there final stages of flowering, its been about 6 and a half weeks of 12-12 lights and i have some nice buds but they all quite small.

if i leave them another couple of weeks more than the recomended 7 will they get bigger or will it ruin them?
being a novice i am looking for a answer to get them bigger. i reckon there is about half oz on each at the mo which is brilliant for my 1st experiment but the top buds are massive and all the lower ones are very small and not compact. could i harvest the top buds and lower the lights to try and make the lower ones better or have i just paid the price for using small cheap lights?

cheers all
happy toking

p.s about 60% of all the little hairs have gone brown and the other 40% are still white
if i leave it till all the hairs are brown will it ruin the smoke cos at the moment when i touch the top buds and smell my fingers its the best smelling weed ive ever known and would rather harvest bang on 7 weeks if that delicious smell is gonna dissapear over time if left.

sorry for going on but can some1 tell me if i leave them till all the hairs have gone brown will it still be a decent smoke?

cheers all
seeing is believing tokings misbehaving

Hi there windowsilllowryder,

Congratulations on reaching your first harvest.
Indication of a plants ripeness are the trichromes, you need to get yourself a pocket microscope 30x, to see the little beauties.
These globulles, turn from white when full formed, to milky and them finally amber. Once at amber the harvest window is fading and they are starting to die back.
There is of course a healthy debate about when to harvest (different effects are available from the weed, depending on when you harvest) but somewhere between milky starting amber is my favourite.
If the buds are ripe at the top and the ones lower down not so, then as you suggest, remove the top ones and lower the light, give the lower ones a bit more time/light, check them with the microscope and harvest when ready.

Hope this helps.

nice 1 dave, cheers for the usefull info.
i have read about looking at the trics through a microscope but aint got one, i was hoping there was a similar way to check by the amount of hairs that have turned brown but it looks like i will have to bite the bullet and buy myself a little eyepiece magnifier.

thanks for replying though geez and i will harvest them top buds today and give the rest another week or 2

cheers and have a good day

actuallt thinking about it we use these little black eyeglass things at work, i think they are about 10 or 15 x magnification?

will one orf them be magnified enough to see the colour of the balls on the ends of the sticks / trics or whatever they are called?

yes should be good enough.

but like urself i aint got a mag/glass so im going by the pistols/hairs. ive read on hear when there about 60/80% brown is best to harvest. but as the last person said it depends what type of high u want. the longer u leave them the more stoned the effects are. the earlier u havest the more THC and a up high buzz is.

all the best anyway.

have u got any pics

bowcon

no pics afraid,
but i have recieved my 30 X magnification jewlers loupe eyglass through the post.
its annoyed me though as while waiting for it to arrive i decided that as 75% of the hairs had gone brown, that i should chop the top buds off and drop lights to smaller buds to finish off.
did this and was quite happy but now its arrived i can see that on the remaining growing plants the tric's are still totally see through and not even milky white let alone amber so im thinking if i had left them in 12/12 a bit longer till the trics got coloured/went amber this would of allowed more time for the top buds to get bigger and more compact?

have i fucked up my chance of a bigger harvest and will the weed be equally strong as it would of if left another couple weeks till them trics took on some colour?

dont worry about it m8 at the end of the day its ur 1st grow an theres always a little trial an error,the smoke u get off it will b better than most of the shite weed that dicks try 2 sell u anyway!so i hope u enjoy ur 1st toke an try an get urself a good light an equipment,belive me u wont b sorry an the doe u spend is very little compared 2 wot u shell out on medeoka weed!

i agree i have been tucking in to my nicely dried buds and they are lovely just wish i could of got a bit more of a bigger yeild, still always next time and yeah they do beat 90% of the other dealer weed i could of scored

nice 1 all

happy toking