At what low temperature will trichome maturity halt?

[CaptWineTeeth]

Essentially the title. I live in Toronto and right now (late Oct.) the temperature is fluctuating between 10C and 3C (55F and 37F) day to night. I have one plant remaining from my outdoor grow this year and it's got lots of trichomes but they're still mostly clear. It's weird because its sister matured nicely a while back with cloudy crystals, got really beautiful purple leaves and was chopped last week, but anyway.

I know there's an enzymatic process wherein the precursor to THCa gets converted, and that's when the trichs get cloudy. How low a temperature can this process occur? All the searches I do here and elsewhere regarding low temperatures yield discussions about frost and what the plants can survive or not, and not maturity of the trichomes. Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[CaptWineTeeth]

Update: we're getting a bit of a warm spell now and temps are fluctuating between 17C and 9C at night. The plant has been beat up a bit from frost and a snow fall, and many (but not all) of the fan leaves have wilted. Still seems to be a fair amount of healthy sugar leaves and small fan leaves.

Is there any harm in letting it stay unchopped for as long as Mother Nature allows? Can anyone chime in on what happens to a cannabis plant during this time please?

 

[bobrown14]

Not sure what your THCa thing is about??

I live about 75 miles south of you in New York. Chop after this last warm spell, you're on borrowed time. The risk is mold with the RH thru the roof at night. You see foggy conditions with the warm air, thats the dew point and 100% RH.

 

[Regrowth]

It sound's like you're asking about decarboxylation and the conversion from THCA to THC - which will happen with heat.
This will mostly happen during your drying process and why smoking uncured / non - decarboxylated cannabis is impotent.

 

[bobrown14]

Cured or uncured?? I puff both and find the cured seems to gain strength over time.

 

[CaptWineTeeth]

I'm talking about the precursor to THCa which is converted to THCa by an enzyme in the plant/trichomes. After that, when you decard or smoke it gets converted from THCa to THC which is bioavailable.