MJBiz - August 2023 - 33

Trichome production is one of the signs that cannabis is ready for harvest. Photo by Marvin Sandoval
(Malman, Jushi's head cultivator) and
I can have conversations weeks in
advance of any harvest and generally
know where things are headed, " Cook
said. " We have our own analytical labs
and our own microbial labs inside the
facilities, so we have the ability to test
far in advance. That allows them to
gauge the potencies weeks before we're
prepared to harvest.
" We've got full-on harvest prediction
planners, where we can see from the
clones that I took this week when that
plant is going to be harvested. And
ideally, we're working in a way that we
say, 'Hey, in 16 weeks, I need half of that
product going to flower and half that
product only to extraction,' " Cook said.
" We are able to make some adjustments
at the end of cycle near harvest based
on measurement, but we try to make
those determinations earlier. "
Wrapping Up
While scientific measurements
are a much larger part of cannabis
harvesting than they used to be, the
old-school tricks that once informed
growers aren't necessarily obsolete.
Whether you're using an HPLC
machine, a microscope or jeweler's
loupe to examine your plants, you are
still looking for the same visual cues.
" When you know it's done, it's
usually by trichrome production, "
said Frank Golfieri, chief cultivator for
Insa's Massachusetts operations.
Flower to be used for fresh-frozen
extraction is best harvested slightly on
the early side, when the trichomes are
clear to a little milky. Earlier means
that there are more terpenes because
fewer terpenes have been lost to heat. If
you harvest for flower, wait a few days
longer, when the trichomes are milkier,
Golfieri recommends.
All of Jushi's cultivation facilities
are equipped with digital microscopes
that can take high-resolution photos of
trichome size, shape, color and density.
" The age of the plant and what
the trichomes look like is absolutely
something we're going to look at before
we harvest, " said Malman, Jushi's head
cultivator.
" We're looking at pistil retraction
near the end of the cycle. You normally
see these big, white fuzzy pistils. ...
As those start to get older and more
mature, they will start to retract down
into the calyx. Sometimes they change
color ... orange or brown. Sometimes
they don't, they just fully retract. Those
are visual cues that we look for.
Jushi also watches " the color of
the flower as we're dropping that
temperature near the end of the cycle.
Both in a daytime and nighttime
period, you start to see more purples,
more anthocyanins coming out in the
plant. So that's generally a cue for us, "
Malman said.
Golfieri agreed: " If (the hairs) are all
white, it's still too early to cut down.
You want them to be orange. And the
flower should have a velvety, sticky feel.
If the hairs are red and some new white
ones are sprouting up, that means
you're feeding it too much nitrogen, "
he said.
Off-gassing aroma also is a sign that
plants are ready to be harvested.
As the end of cycle approaches,
cultivators should lower flower-room
temperatures " to preserve as much of
that off-gassing as possible, " Malatrasi
said. " If you already have off-gassing,
then it's probably time to get the plants
harvested. I want off-gassing to occur
in the dry room. "
mjbizdaily.com | August 2023 33
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MJBiz - August 2023

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