I do not know what type or quality scope you might be using to view your trichomes and if you are attempting to hover over the plants and viewing the trichomes under the colored lighting of your flowering lights .. but if you have a decent enough scope and are not trying to hover over your plants while under grow lights it should be a very simple process. If you are hovering … stop hovering.
Pick a plant, pick a section of the upper cola and pick a small trichome covered bud leaf protruding from the cola and nip it. Place it on something dark or contrasting, a dark blue plate, a piece of rigid black plastic .. something totally different from the color of the plant matter. Gaze at it under normal lighting when it is perfectly still and you can get a very good look at the entire area, in focus the entire time.
Do the same for a bud from the upper middle of the plant, lower middle of the plant and bottom of the plant, if growing bushes. If you grow shorties then you need fewer samples. Check each and see at what level of progress your plant(s) are at that point on each level of the plant. Depending on what you find, and what you like, you can then decide if you will wait and harvest the entire plant(s) at one time or take the top half, or whatever, and allow the rest additional time under the lights to finish.
If someone can just nip a bit of bud-leaf, or bud of course would be great, its just that the leaves in those areas will be at the same level of maturing as the bud they grow from so if you are testing a bit early you are not nipping up buds several times until you see your magic color. You can always make the final decision on a test of actual bud from each level you test, it is never a bad idea. The bud-leaf part comes in handy with mystery strains where you do not know if it is an 8 week or a 12 week strain and it just keeps you from hacking up so much growing bud over time if someone begins their testing early and it is accurate enough for at least any testing other than what would hopefully be the final test.
