Go buy a scope of at least 30x they make small cheap ones for about 10-15$. You want min of 30x.Problem is that it's a little hard to tell a white microscopic dot from a clear one, even with a jewelers loop... Amber seems a safe bet, but by then you are too late to really flush.
That makes sense. I'm running a 200w cfl and my trichomes are usually milky with a few clear. So it almost sounds you might just lower the temps to harden or maybe a cfl can't produce the energy to "cook" the resin enough to produce the amber trichomes. Btw the light I have is a feliz 10k lumen 2700k color for floweringI read an article though that said resin production was similar to a volcano that when it flowed fast it was clear and as it slowed it turned to milky and then 'hardend' into amber. It also said that resin production can ramp up and down over the flowering cycle, making cloudy but not milky trics and then back to clear, so looking for amber is one of the more sure fire ways of telling ripeness.
Guess i'll have to dig up the article if I"m going to reference it, it was either in HT or Skunk.
Nice, isn't it just better when you do that? You get multiple varieties of highs from one plant! It's nice to have a strain that you love, and be able to have that uplifting high during the day from the early harvested buds, and then have that coughlock put you down type of high for at night. Gotta love the possibilities when you growI always harvest at differant times,I cut some when the trics start to get milky,then I cut some that are 80% milky and 20% amber
ALSO: give your stem a squeeze in the middle of the plant. If it feels spongy and not hard then it is probably done. I check trichs too but I can never tell if they are cloudy or what. Usually the plant is failing around all over the place for a week or so from the fan kinda like a noodle. At this point I flush one last time real good. Then do 2-3 days of dark and chop. You can also tell when they frost up with cloudy trichs just buy looking at them. Advice is great but after a few times you will know.Time to harvest = when it's ripe.
Indicators
- yellowing or dying fan leaves.
- pistels are mostly brown and curly.
- swollen bud where the pistels connect to.
- all cloudy trics with some bronze.