I Never Seem to get Amber Trichomes

So here I am, a newbie hobby/medicine grower in Northern California, cultivating autoflowers outdoors in 5-gallon pots.

Since I started in March, I've had several 'successful' harvests, but have never seen a significant number of amber trichomes. So far I've brought three Jack Herer X AK47s to harvest -- which never showed any amber, but were obviously ripe by all other standards. Potency and flavor-wise, these ended up being so-so (by which I mean so potent that they would have blown the top of my head off 30 years ago, but today just on the high side of 'meh.')

Here's my Jack before it went to the blade. Raggedy, sunburned, obviously as swollen as it's going to get -- and no amber trikes.



Now I have a mystery Buddha auto (probably a Syrup) at 60 days since first pistils (much nicer looking than the Jack), but also without amber trikes.



This looks ready to go to me, but again:



All my trichomes are white (some still clear).

I don't wan't to leave anything on the table by harvesting too early, but I also don't want the THC to deteriorate too much or the overall stone become too couchlocky.

So counsel me: Patience, or Chop the Damn Thing?

Some phenotypes dont really amber out. Some just sit there and cloud the fuck up, when this happens to me i wait for it to swell then i make sure to keep an eye on the trichs, as they will start leaning over and start to have heads that look "exploded", imo this is a pretty decent indication of a degrading trichome. They will be out of round, and usually slightly smaller then its fully cloudy sister.

I can see degrading trichs on a few pics, take a good look. I swear i also passed some spider mite webbing also.

SPLFreak808 said:

Some phenotypes dont really amber out. Some just sit there and cloud the fuck up, when this happens to me i wait for it to swell then i make sure to keep an eye on the trichs, as they will start leaning over and start to have heads that look "exploded", imo this is a pretty decent indication of a degrading trichome. They will be out of round, and usually slightly smaller then its fully cloudy sister.

I can see degrading trichs on a few pics, take a good look. I swear i also passed some spider mite webbing also.

Click to expand...

I'll have another look this afternoon when the light's right. Obviously, I'm dying to cut the thing down.

As for the spider mites, I'm actually OK on that -- turns out those are regular spider webs; my grow area is very spidery. There's a whole spider tram system of webs between the pots from one large rosemary plant we call "Spiderholm" because of its large arachnid population. I credit the spiders with keeping the pests way down, along with the predator beetles, ladybugs, and dragonflies.

Nonagronomist said:

I'll have another look this afternoon when the light's right. Obviously, I'm dying to cut the thing down.

As for the spider mites, I'm actually OK on that -- turns out those are regular spider webs; my grow area is very spidery. There's a whole spider tram system of webs between the pots from one large rosemary plant we call "Spiderholm" because of its large arachnid population. I credit the spiders with keeping the pests way down, along with the predator beetles, ladybugs, and dragonflies.

Click to expand...

Ah yes, spiders actually seem to be the most effective pest preventitive in areas like mine, i know what you mean.

I just took another look after turning my phones brightness all the way up, i swear im seeing some lightly colored trichs here and there on a few calyx's but its tricky to tell, could be the sunlight idk

Double check these later

SPLFreak808 said:

Ah yes, spiders actually seem to be the most effective pest preventitive in areas like mine, i know what you mean.

I just took another look after turning my phones brightness all the way up, i swear im seeing some lightly colored trichs here and there on a few calyx's but its tricky to tell, could be the sunlight idk

Click to expand...

There are definitely some squashed trikes, probably from me brushing the plant with the camera lens or running my quivering fingers up and down the buds exhorting them to swell . . . I've seen maybe 10 legitimately amber ones on all the buds, but about 2-3% that are, as you say, falling over with disrupted heads.

I'll give it one or two more days and then put them in the dark prior to the beheading.