Purplematic CBD

Well week 5 of bloom is complete, and this week brought a few challenges. Humidity in my area has been through the roof, close to 100%. My heavy-duty equipment was struggling to bring my tent to acceptable late flowering levels, sometimes reaching over 60% RH, especially at night when the plant was respirating more. Additionally, her pale yellow color, and leathery leaves didn't excite me too much. If you remember, we had a severe heat wave a couple of weeks ago, which contributed to that. But also, since I messed up the ScrOG training, and regrettably decided not to super-crop her, a fair share of the leaf problems were due to light stress as well, as I didn't want to sacrifice lower colas, so I let it go. My biggest mistake this grow, was not paying attention to her the one day she decided to stretch nearly a foot, and was unable to be weaved into the net the next day without being snapped in half. My second biggest mistake is NOT snapping it in half, and letting it repair itself. I wouldn't have had nearly as much bleaching of leaves I think. This week, and I'm assuming because nearly all chlorophyll was depleted from her fan leaves, I didn't notice much of any change from last week. Her buds seemed to be about the same mass, and the stigmas still had the same ratio of red to white coloration. I suspected she was dead, or dying, or just...done. Not all genetics will transform all of their stigmas from white, and not all genetics will have their trichomes turn amber. So, I did a few things to confirm that suspicion. First, I looked at her trichomes on various buds closely with a microscope. They were almost all cloudy, with very very few amber. That told me that she was at an acceptable level of ripeness, even if she could have went longer, assuming she was still alive. Next, I removed the pea gravel mulch I was using in the raised bed, so I could get a closer look at the soil she was growing in, and more specifically, her roots. The soil, although moist a few inches deep, was not at the level I expected, and I think I have not been watering her enough. I don't think I'll be using a gravel mulch again. On the plus side, it did help prevent fungus gnats, as there was zero the whole grow, apart from an early week when I placed some solo cups to germinate on top of the bed, but after removing them, the fungus gnats disappeared with them. Also while inspecting the soil, I carefully dug down to inspect some of her primary roots. They were actually dry, despite the surrounding soil being moist. This could explain why she wasn't drinking much if any for the better part of the week. So, given her dry foliage, dry roots, and ripe-enough trichomes, I decided it was time to harvest her, earlier than expected. Let's also not forget that I was frightened this week with some high humidity scares, so growing longer, and possibly for no reason if she was dead or barely alive, was not in the cards. I've dealt with my fair share of bud rot before, and I would rather try what I have of her now, than to wait the extra week or so for her to be fully ripe. So, that is what I did, on the last day of the week -- I chopped her down, cut off some larger fan leaves, and hung her upside down. This, of course, was after removing the raised bed. It took me a while to empty about 45 gallons of soil so I could move it, but in doing so, I noticed a lot of beneficial critters, and nothing bad. Such critters included small centipedes, which feed on other insects, and soil mites which eat dead organic matter. I set the tent to dry at around 72F and 55 RH. And now we wait for about a week before trimming. One thing is for sure -- I am very proud of this grow, despite all these flaws. She smells incredible -- like pure citrus emanating throughout my house. This is a very strong-smelling plant. As a bonus, I've included a time-lapse video of the entire grow from start to finish in the last media above. Check it out and let me know what you think. I'll be back for the harvest week for the dry weight in about a week or so, after we're done drying and trimming.