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I don't go by crystal color but rather how the plant looks--which takes crystal color into consideration but not as a primary indicator. I look at the shade leaf to make sure the plant is flushed. The leaf turns yellow as the plant tries to salvage the older leaf for as many nutrients as possible before it dies. The yellow tends to start at the tips and works toward the bud. I always chop the plants before the yellow reaches the bud.
You get budding out at the end of the plants life cycle; where the individual flowers start to 'ball' up and look more like a mini flowers. There is usually a new growth spurt that shoots new branches from the flower.
Showing a flower before it buds out. It swells up for a few weeks before making that final push to bud out.
You can see them forming; namely the white areas.
You can see the cola on the right has started shooting out, whereas the one on the left has almost no budding out, just getting fatter all over.
This photo you can see two of the shoots near the top. They pop out then fill in. I chop before or after that phase. Not all strains act that way, but a lot do. Its usually a 2-5 week extension if I want to let it bud out. Sometimes its worth it; it really depends on the strain. Some put on a lot of extra weight while others just fluff out to airy leafy bits with more stem than what its worth. Try to take a plant to 13+ weeks and you'll see a whole new side to your plants.
There are products that induce that bud phase early; I've used House & Garden's Shooting powder. I liked the results and have been waiting to try it again to see if it works a second time. I had to get the plant get to 13 weeks to finish that end-budding phase. I think it was a bit too much stem but I couldn't let it fill in any longer.
Grapegod turning slightly purpleish at 13 weeks. The purple tint wore off when trimmed, but the bud looked like it had a purple sheen. The under leaf was most of the purple that got trimmed away.
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Bamboo Bongs I make | Perfect Dry and Cure | Grapegod under LED “Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune intoned in the distance by an invisible player.” ~ Albert Einstein