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How to get more color at harvest?
- Thread starter Landwolf
- Start date
Greetings,
I used to live in an area that had wide temperature swings in a day, sometimes as much as 60°. This occurred in the fall as buds were ripening. The other thing I would suggest is reducing nitrogen just before flowering starts. This is easily done if feeding liquid fertilizer. If using fertilizer in the soil, just don't use so much nitrogen. Cannabis plants are fairly heavy feeders. Nitrogen will run low by the flowering start. This will reduce overall quantity, but the buds will be less leafy and of better quality. I know people that prefer indoor bud.
I think the HPS lights make buds less leafy. People thought my bud was indoor. Less leafy buds appear more resinous.
This opinion is not popular. I have accidentally done this in the extreme, and the difference can be dramatic. In one instance, a plant's stalk split down the middle. I wrapped it back together to save the plant. The plant nearly died, but it hung on. The buds were tiny, yellow, but resin was more concentrated. That was great weed. There are rumors of farmers impaling their plants to achieve this. I wouldn't do this, and I have doubts about this rumor, but...
A good long cure will allow the buds to change color. I've had buds turn golden yellow that I had in the freezer for a couple years. I was saving a sample for a friend that I hadn't seen in a long time. Not only did the gold bud look very impressive, it was still excellent smoke. Some people don't want to see a good well cured colorful bud. I just don't understand people. LOL
There is a thread out there about cob curing. You might want to check that out.
I used to live in an area that had wide temperature swings in a day, sometimes as much as 60°. This occurred in the fall as buds were ripening. The other thing I would suggest is reducing nitrogen just before flowering starts. This is easily done if feeding liquid fertilizer. If using fertilizer in the soil, just don't use so much nitrogen. Cannabis plants are fairly heavy feeders. Nitrogen will run low by the flowering start. This will reduce overall quantity, but the buds will be less leafy and of better quality. I know people that prefer indoor bud.
I think the HPS lights make buds less leafy. People thought my bud was indoor. Less leafy buds appear more resinous.This opinion is not popular. I have accidentally done this in the extreme, and the difference can be dramatic. In one instance, a plant's stalk split down the middle. I wrapped it back together to save the plant. The plant nearly died, but it hung on. The buds were tiny, yellow, but resin was more concentrated. That was great weed. There are rumors of farmers impaling their plants to achieve this. I wouldn't do this, and I have doubts about this rumor, but...
A good long cure will allow the buds to change color. I've had buds turn golden yellow that I had in the freezer for a couple years. I was saving a sample for a friend that I hadn't seen in a long time. Not only did the gold bud look very impressive, it was still excellent smoke. Some people don't want to see a good well cured colorful bud. I just don't understand people. LOL
There is a thread out there about cob curing. You might want to check that out.
some strains are triggered more easily than others.
when i lived in an area with a hard winter every year, the cold (night) temperatures did the trick to turn colors on some varieties indoors. you just have to be aware of the temperature difference and need to have proper ventilation and air circulation to prevent possible budrot.
when i lived in an area with a hard winter every year, the cold (night) temperatures did the trick to turn colors on some varieties indoors. you just have to be aware of the temperature difference and need to have proper ventilation and air circulation to prevent possible budrot.
Most modern hybrids will turn purple to some degree, I like to keep temps optimal but most still colour when maturing.
A few weeks later
This are typical not unusual.
Some weeks later
I think you're sure to see purple growing from seed.
A few weeks later
This are typical not unusual.
Some weeks later
I think you're sure to see purple growing from seed.
What week of flowering would be a good time to start giving them the cold temps at night?
@ThaiBliss Thats interesting info. I'll have to give that long term freezer a try. And I'll def check out cob curing, I saw a pic of that somewhere before. Grape vines that struggle produce good wine I bet there's something related going on between these species. That is some great-knock-your-socks-off fall color there. Didn't know they turned red like that. One of my plants is kinked when I trained it down. I wonder if that will effect things upstream of the internal fluid flow. I have a foggy recall of one of my teachers at school saying if you kink the plant it will produce a bigger flower or fruit after that kink...
@aCBD What would cause the budrot? If the buds got too cold?
@CocoNut 420 I've got two plants, one with some purple stems. Here's a picture of them in my other post:
@ThaiBliss Thats interesting info. I'll have to give that long term freezer a try. And I'll def check out cob curing, I saw a pic of that somewhere before. Grape vines that struggle produce good wine I bet there's something related going on between these species. That is some great-knock-your-socks-off fall color there. Didn't know they turned red like that. One of my plants is kinked when I trained it down. I wonder if that will effect things upstream of the internal fluid flow. I have a foggy recall of one of my teachers at school saying if you kink the plant it will produce a bigger flower or fruit after that kink...
@aCBD What would cause the budrot? If the buds got too cold?
@CocoNut 420 I've got two plants, one with some purple stems. Here's a picture of them in my other post:
Hello, my quest
Hello all! I've been interested in marijuana for a while. I live in a state where its legal to grow it. And I want to share and learn about how to do that better. I'm specifically interested in landraces. My quest is to one day grow a landrace and see what I notice in the effects. I'm...
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If you want to get colors, what colors are we talking? Purples are fairly easy towards the end of flower. My take on this, somewhat science based and observational:
Purple is Anthocyanin, a protective photopigment. It comes out towards the end if
1: its in your plant to start with
2: if you push senescence flushing your plant properly. The green of the chlorohyll is very visible to the human eye. So when the plant finishes with a nice flush the chloropyll gets pulled out of the leaves, leaving other colors behind. If you do it well you get taht yellow/purple fall leaves and hopefully on buds, buds are a bit harder since there seems to be some sort of genetic components and light dependant aswell. For example a friend of mine got all sorts of purple and pink pistills when adding uvb led 285nm. But pheno dependant. Leaves may get other colors aswell, if still some green chlorophyll you might see darken towards black, sorta darkgreen and purple at the same time but never reaching purple quite.
How to have anthocyanin in your plant? First, its the same thing as for purple stems which isnt considered a good thing. Reflect on why you have a need for color if its just showing a plant that had to adapt to adverse conditions. Anthocyanin seems to happen whenever the plant is unhappy but especially in whats described as high irradiation response.
This basically too much light intensity+ too low temps for the amount of light. As easy as that. Around nature youll see the purple in the part of a bush that gets the most light. The warm day cold night, well i guess its cause if youd go cold both day and night youd have plant problems.
There is one light aource that is always best for this type of conditions: typically white based led lights. Not sure if white or blurple works best but it definitely happens with white base. Other colors as blues are a mystery to me.
@Rocket Soul In person you can tell the purple shows up on the stem facing the lights like a type of sun tan as you describe. I want purple because one of my plants has it and I like the Jimi Hendrix song about purple haze. But any of those fall colors like yellow and red are welcome. And it would be easy for me to make colder nights. I'll look up flushing before the time comes and make sure I do that.
I only see color tones when the temps slowly drop during night time.
High intensity during the grow and and makeing sure you have flushed well and maybe a bit early. Cold nights should also help but we get purples on all top leaves without any extra attention to night temps. You can also reduce day temps a bit towards the end, if you can do 25C days for the last weeks with full intensity you should get both colors and terp preservation.
Basicly you have to be slightly unkind to you plants towards the end, and push them real hard during.
If in coco you need to have your flush in mind and balance ec out as you progress so you know you can get down low in the end, coco is terrible for flushing, always like to keep nutes in the substrate.
We never had reds with leds, only purples and yellows. Ymmv
Douglas.Curtis
Autistic Diplomat in Training
My temps don't ever get over 70F (usually 65-68F) if I get what I want. Though I do not run hot days, I've noticed each strain has their own color at harvest. I've had light and medium green plants right next to deep purple plants, with the only difference being genetics. 
How hard do you push your plants with light? What type of lighting? How hard do you flush? Im interested in how much genetic and how much environment determine thisMy temps don't ever get over 70F (usually 65-68F) if I get what I want. Though I do not run hot days, I've noticed each strain has their own color at harvest. I've had light and medium green plants right next to deep purple plants, with the only difference being genetics.
Douglas.Curtis
Autistic Diplomat in Training
1K HPS, 4x4, cool and dry environment. Transpiration is very high. 5 days of pure r/o before harvest, but the colors show up before then. All the same environment and treatment, different colors by genetics.
