MJBiz - August 2023 - 31

Cues It's Time to Harvest
Historical data, visual and olfactory indicators as well as scientific
evidence inform harvest decisions
By Omar Sacirbey
E
arthy, life-giving and
dependent on the elements and
environment, harvest is among
humankind's most primal endeavors.
But so are innovation and science. And
in the modern marijuana industry,
they are coming together in pursuit of
better cannabis products.
Nic Robertson, vice of president of
operations in Massachusetts for 4Front
Ventures, said commercial growers have
moved away from eyeballing the color of
trichomes and squeezing buds to gauge
moisture content in favor of scientific
methods to evaluate when cannabis flower
has reached an optimal point for harvest.
" Over the last seven or eight years,
I have been proven wrong by my
aesthetic view of how mature I think
that plant is at that time, " Robertson
said. " Getting those test results and
showing higher levels of CBGA-the
precursor to a number of other
cannabinoids-than I would have
expected indicates that that plant
could have gone another few days or
another week before it truly reaches its
maximum potential. "
Today's cannabis cultivators have
more scientific approaches to decide
when their crops are ready to harvest,
such as rigorous data collection,
frequent testing and tools such as
microscopes and moisture meters.
History as a Guide
" Once we first grow something, we
figure out how long it takes to finish. Is
it eight weeks, nine weeks, 10 weeks? "
said Kevin Sparks, lead cultivator for
Insa's operations in Pennsylvania.
Knowing the window when a strain
historically finishes helps cultivators
plan their harvests months in
advance-or even at the start of the
growing year, Sparks explained.
Robertson agrees that keeping a
detailed history is important, adding,
" We are always learning from the crop. "
If a strain from the previous crop
finished on day 58, then the strain
from the ensuing crop likely will finish
on or very close to day 58, assuming
" everything goes to plan for the next
crop, " Robertson said, " and there were
no stressors that would cause the plant
to finish early or cause the plant to
delay and finish late. "
That's a big " if, " however.
" Oftentimes those crops are not
exactly duplicated. Certain things are
out of our control, " Robertson said.
In commercial settings-especially
large or medium-sized grows where
production schedules require crops
to be flipped five or six times per
year-cultivators often must decide
between the perfect and the good.
" Every harvest that we do is based
on the harvest that is right before and
the harvest that we've scheduled right
afterward. So, we only have a small
window of time that we can say, 'OK,
we're going to pull these plants a little
early, or we're going to give them a
few extra days without that domino
effect being introduced into the rest of
the schedule, " Robertson said. " Some
connoisseurs might raise their nose
to this, but over time, I have noticed
there's not a massive difference in a
two-day window. If it works better for
our labor scheduling to harvest on a
Friday rather than having to call 25
people in on a Saturday, I'm harvesting
the room on Friday. "
Sampling and Science
For some cultivators, another
important method to help decide when
plants are ready to be harvested is
sampling-or pinching off a small piece
of flower and testing its cannabinoid
profile and potency at that point in
time.
Marco Malatrasi, chief cultivator
at Florida-based Fluent Cannabis,
uses samples to help determine the
" ripening curve " for his crops and
evaluate how plants in a certain crop
are progressing toward harvest.
" For the ripening curve, you need
quantitative measure. From your
batch, you pull down one plant in week
seven, eight, nine and 10, if you have
it ... taking samples all through the
ripening process as you get closer and
closer to that harvest date, " Malatrasi
said.
He added that you don't need to
sample whole plants but, rather, small
buds from different parts of the grow
room (back, front, center, edges)
and different parts of the plant (top,
middle, bottom).
" I'm testing for what's going to end
up in the jar, " Malatrasi said. He does
the sampling twice a week because " big
changes " to the cannabinoid profile
and potency can occur in only three
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