You dont belive that trichomes reading alone is good enough?!?!?! Then what? What ELSE do you look for when you're thinking abouth harvest?
Almost everywhere ive read anything about harvesting say's that trichomes are the one guaranteed place to look if you want to know when its ready. Pistil color, bud size and aroma can vary between different strains, but almost all species' trichomes go through the same level of development.
Thats bullshit.
Trichomes can mature to amber and degrade to black by over-radiating them with excesive light. Some strain show amber trichomes at week 2 of flowering.
The first thing to wait for, with all strains, is for the pods to swell.
If the pods ain't swelling its not ready, no matter what anything else says.
Then the pistils should start to die off and shrivel back to the calyx.
Again, its not strain dependent.
At least 30% of the pistils should do so, with most strains its around 70% when ripe but if less than 30% are dying the plant is not ready.
They can be pink, brown, amber, purple or whatever - they should not be erect.
Only then the trichomes should be observed.
Trichomes are more of a fine tune.
I ran 7 runs to prove this theory and its solid so far.