In the last week of flowering, your plant’s energy is focused on developing essential oils. It’s hard at work producing dense, flavorful flowers, sticky with resin and coated in copious amounts of trichomes — the very units that produce the terpenes, and flavonoids that make our buds unique and potent.
For their nearly-microscopic size, these precious crystal-like hairs punch above their weight, functioning as your plant’s gatekeeper while defending and protecting against environmental threats. However, they are not invincible. In fact, they require an immense amount of care during the final critical weeks before harvest when the plant is no longer producing antioxidants to protect the trichomes from unavoidable factors like heat, light, and air which contribute to the oxidant assault on those trichomes.