The most experienced - by far - grower I knew, BITD said he never pruned.

As to harvest, the most accurate way involves a small, handheld microscope. They used to be about $20, but could be $200 now, for all I know. They key is in the trichomes - the little stalks of clear substance that come off the buds. People call them different things, but they are more than obvious, but also tiny.

They have 3 stages - when they first appear, they are spear-like little growths, then become "capitate," which is pretty much self-explanatory. They take on a sort of mushroom-like appearance, and their near end-stage is when they go from transparent to cloudy. Depending on how you like your product to be - either bright and electric, or calming and dreamy - is how you decide when in the process you interrupt it by harvesting. The earlier, the more "electric" it will be, the later, the more dreamy. I personally MUCH preferred the latter, but YMMV.

There are 3 chemical arcs going on there - CBD, THC and CBN. Everyone knows what THC is, and the other two are called side-chain homologues. CBD rises first, and as it heads "uphill" for maximum concentration, THC is rising. Finally, THC has either peaked or nearly so, as the CBN rises.

As you almost certainly know, there are MANY, MANY varieties available, so predicting a timeline of a given strain from the info gained from another is very unreliable. The fastest ripener I ever had was 8 weeks from adjusting the lights from 16 hours (or more) to 12, and I had another strain that added so much punch in the last couple of weeks that i used to let it go 13 weeks. That was not for the faint of heart - one of the most chronic smokers I ever knew tried that strain, and it made her throw up, but she was very, very keen on the product. Good Housekeeping Seal Of Approval.

Best of luck!!!!