I had to leave town for four days,
I left my plant in the care of someone with zero experience.
I had on auto light schedule. Had her water once in the middle.
I had been managing humidity manually. I got home, all my fan leaves and a lot of sugar leaves had turned yellow and completely dried up.
My trichomes are milky, almost none are amber.
Can I afford to wait a week or should I just harvest now. Buds are healthy.
if the right amount of time has passed and you have all milky trichs I would harvest…
with that much white pistils it is surprising for you to have all milky trichs… and where is all that yellow you spoke about…this picture looks to be a healthy girl…
I apologize. This is not recent pic. I was just trying to emphasize how small it is. I messed up my photo period, put into flower to soon I believe
Will I gain or more importantly lose anything by waiting a week
IMHO you will not gain anything if trichs are milky and the correct time has passed…
Ok. One one question. Should I leave in the dark for 48 hours before chopping. I’ve read that.
I believe the opposite…when ready to harvest put light to 24 hr on for a day then harvest…
Just curious what this does, I’m a first time grower
it is suppose to freak her out and cause her to put our more trichomes for defense… the utah proffesor said this and also said the lights off did nothing…
Interesting my friend 
That’s is really interesting and I think I will try it out. I did read about trichomes as the plants defense so some people try to give it little amounts of stress to further produce.
I think of it like she has been sitting in the shade 12/12 and now 24hr of sun she starts to feel hot and get sunburn so she puts on sunscreen, which is the trichomes …
Plants need energy to make trichs and they need light to make energy. No light, no energy, no trichs. Not to mention the amount of trichcomes a cannabis plant can produce in a day or two isn’t huge even with light. Remember that for the plant tricomes are an afterthought. It doesn’t even have to produce any to survive and reproduce. Better to just focus on what you can control like the drying environment
I like the dark period.
From what I have read this stops the large nutrient uptake to the plant. Don’t know if it works. I don’t notice a difference either way. I do it most of the time anyway just in case.
I do know that IMO new trichomes are not ripe. So what is there benefit other than looks.
Try different things for harvest and go with what you like. It all smokes
As for your plant its not dead wait for the trichomes to be where you want them and harvest. You have time to let them amber if you want.
UVA or UVB do that to the plant, if I read correctly.
Invoke “sunburn” response?
That has become a very interesting conversation! Im a week or so out so ill be watching this!
Interesting! Unless somehow the ripeness is more about the age of the plant. I just pulled a few buds last week cause im out! So not fully ripe. But im pretty stoned right now! Lol.
So i wonder if the process would benefit from a combined approach! Like 48 hours of light followed by 24 hours of dark, then chop?