A 30 power microscope is great for looking at your buds to see if they are ready, and they are also great for looking to see if you have bugs, and if after treating them, to make sure that they are all dead(they might still be on the leaves after treatment, but not moving...... dead). The microscopes take a little getting used to, but once you get the hang of them, you won't want to be without one. To get used to it, just go around the house magnifying different things(your hand, piece of paper....etc.) till you've mastered it. When you are ready to use it, put it up against the bud, and you will see hundreds of little clear globules(don't be afraid to move it around). When 90% of these globules turn milky, it's time to harvest. If you can't get your hands on a 30x microscope(although you should keep looking till you do), there is another way to tell when your buds are ready. Flowers go through three flowering stages. Of course you want to keep track of when you went into flowering with a calender. At the first flowering(which happens around the second to third week of flowering), look closely, and you'll see little pods with two to three hairs(pistils) growing out of them, which will be a greenish white in colour. The hairs will eventually die, shrivel up, and turn red, yellow, brown.... That's where you get the different colour hairs. It's just plant matter that died and shriveled up(kinda like like when a leaf dies), but they will still be attached to the pods. On the second flowering stage, the pods pump out more new greenish/white pistils(hairs)(about 5 to 7), while still having the old withered pistils still attached to the pods. The flowers will be looking quite nice, and you will be feeling pretty proud of yourself by the results so far, especially when those 5 to 7 new pistils start turning red, brown...etc. Now here is the important part. At around the 45th to the 47th day(the beginning of the third flowering stage), the pods will close up and all those hairs will start falling off. You'll go in the room one day(night, cause it's cooler and that's when you should be running the lights), after this happens, and think to yourself that your plants looked a hell of alot better the day before. This is where alot of the newbies will get scared that they went to far, pick the buds, and call it 48 day stuff. Now just hold tight and have faith. What will happen is the pods will start closing up(that's why most of the hairs fall off), and they will blow up like the pods are growing seeds in them(they aren't). At around the 54th - 55th day, the pods will open up, and where you had 5-7 hairs growing out, you'll start seeing 10, 20-30 hairs exploding out of them. When about 90% of these hairs turn red, brown, yellow... It's time to harvest. This time frame is approximate with differentials being growing enviornments, strains, stress...etc.
My credentials are a college basic horticulture course, family owned indoor gardening store(Paradise Gardens Hydroponics) since 1994, and doing a co-op medical marijuana grow op for the past five years.
