I would suggest googling Dr Mahlberg THC studies... If you look through pages of studies done by Dr Mahlberg on THC content and colors of resin glands you will see that the advice given in this thread is a little off. Take a look if you care to get answers from the guy who has studied (not talking kids with closets) the matter for many years.
What I pulled from reading his stuff can be summarized like this... THC peak potency, in theory, would be just before a resin gland goes cloudy.. cloudy is a sign of degrading.
I think (not from Mahlberg studies) that the glands continue to change color after harvest.. so, to harvest for x... you harvest maybe 4 or 5 days earlier than x..
In theory (using my -4,5 days and Mahlberg studies).. the perfect harvest would be a plant that is 5 days from every gland turning milky.. obviously, every gland turning color at the same time does not happen.. so , you have to think on averages.
Yes,,, that is right folks... the most THC potent resin gland is clear.. i''de bet the farm on it..
THe thing is.. getting the highest number of average THC potency WILL include quite a few milky trichomes... BUT.. measurements like harvest at 80% cloudy are just a little beyond peak potency.. quite a bit better than the 50% amber though.
That said, what you like is what you like.. I'm not saying what is "best", I'm saying Peak THC Potency.. 2 different things..
Dr Gruber has told me that he finds more medical benefits from amber trichs.. I believe him.. like I said, peak THC potency and preference are two different things..
I harvest for peak THC personally.. It's this one simple god damn thing that made my weed more appreciated and in demand than any other in a pretty wide circle in the area with quite a few growers in it.... not just easy.. it actually saved me time and $.. I shared my cuts with anyone locally (anon), still, the masses appreciated the high THC "early" harvest.
I'm talking hybrids here.. on average 60/40 sat/ind... some sativas have huge harvest windows with different profiles.. some spanned 3 wks.. with different highs, flavors, smells, all pretty good.. but I had my preference obviously.
Even if noone here is a true MJ expert the advise given so far has not been bad, i cannot agree with you. The advise given comes from probably over 10 years of personal experience by several growers who study this topic and simply are trying to help.
I am open for discussion as for what is right and what is wrong, i am here to learn after all! However I or anyone else for the matter wont learn anything by listening to some guy spewing random knowledge. if you want to make an addition to the debate and the topic, you need to back up your claims with some links. By this i mean the specific links desribing this exact thing. Also i never heard about this guy Dr mahlberg, but you are very very wrong if you think cannabis is a plant that is not researched by more than one person with education. Im not saying this guy doesnt know what he is talking about, im just asking for the specific text where he describes this. How else will we be able to have a good debate ? how else learn?
As for Trichome color, its true that not all strains will get milky trichomes. Some strains (i belive mainly pure sativas) wont ever turn milky or amber. As for peak thc, then yes, Peak THC is BEFORE full ripening of the plant, HOWEVER this is still the same as eating an apple that isnt rippen. There are A LOT of other cannbinoids who maybe dont do so much as a compound alone, but together with THC and CBD they help "color" the effect by making the effect longer, more intense etc. Point is, the other cannabinoid compunds give your high balance, and this is very important since THC is psycoactive.
To me, a well balanced pleasureable high that lasts me 3-4 hours i preferable to a 45 min headrush that leaves me exhausted and very bad tempered.
Another thing worth mentioning is that the way cannabinoids in a bud is measured and how they develop. i mean you dont honestly belive that when its said 25% thc in a strain descrition this means 25% of 100% plant material?
well its not. The way its measured is "how many % of the trichome is thc". This means that since THC is earlier to develop ( thc has many stages of development btw ) thc will also be of a "higher %" since you have less amount of other cannabinoid compunds in your bud compared to rippen bud. everytime a new compund is added the THC% will go down, but this doesnt mean that the plant has LESS thc, it just means that the equation is different. The amound of thc can actually be higher since its also about the potency ( concentration ) and variety of cannabinoids.
it all depends on the different mixture of componds. Smoking a bud with "peak thc" will give you a very fast high that doesnt last for long and also makes you very very tired afterwards. Its also fairly known that premature bud that has "peak thc" induces a lot more paranoia than bud that you let rippen properly.
In the end i gues its all a matter of personal preferances, but i must say i dissagre with you. Premature bud is not the bomb, same as unrippen apples dont taste very good. I am however open for debate on this
Something else worth mentioning is that we humans dont even know the effect of halv of the existing cannabinoids OR how they work in conjunction with another. so without an complete understanding of the plant in question, how can we say that one way is better? What it does is leave room for debate and thats it.
Its one thing to say its peak potency when were talking about a product thats not finished and that has a high that is unbalanced and induces paranoia, and its one thing to say peak potency when you talk about a well balanced rippen plant. just my 2c.
Best regards