Harvest question

I've been hearing cloudy heads and others say amber. Someone help me clarify? Please and thank you

60% of the trichs should be amber. Now this may be misleading because you really need a magnifying glass. If you can't afford one right now a digital cam with good zoom capabilities works great. Why I say misleading is because I just finished a run and it looked like maybe 35% of the trichs were brown. Well once I dried it over 90% were brown. I don't know why the hairs stayed white looking for so long under the light. I actually ran them 10 weeks looking for that auspicious "brown/amber" color. Now I research the strain and I give them one extra week in flush. If its 8 weeks they are harvested in 9 if everything looks good. With the digital cam you can see the trichs a lot better it works good if you dont want to spend the xtra $...good luck P.S. I forgot the more brown/amber the more body stone. A lot of folks think that it just sucks because they are so brown but that run I was talking about gives you an ok head high but your bod feels Awesome like if you got a massage or something lol.

Ok cool. I ordered a bud scope. Should be here next week.

yeah, a scope is needed if you really want to get down to the level of the trichomes which are anywhere from 20 - 200 microns in size. I would recommend not just checking a few buds either, check all over the plant if at all possible since i've run into single arms seeming to be ready to pull first. You want an all over average of about 50 - 60 percent amber heads. It is correct that a plant pulled with cloudy or clear trichome heads will be a "head buzz" type of smoke becoming more body as the trics develop. This basically means that you want a 50/50 of the colors. Plants allowed to get more than 80% amber are already headed down the path of less quality, so you should def pull them before that.

I'm running 1000w hps with some apollo 13 and vanilla kush, five weeks into flower with crazy amounts of crystal already developed. I use a 30x scope to check development, but jewelers loupe or something close would give a good view. It's pretty much impossible to really tell until you get down to at least 20x magnification.

I'm surprised people are still saying amber is the way to go. There's been numerous threads about milky vs amber, with most stating that full blown milky is the way to go.

Never understood the whole concept of "milky = head, amber = body". Makes the idea of different strains a bit moot IMO. Just something to think about. Personally, milky with little to no amber is what I aim for.

The concept is based on chemistry. The color of the heads reflect the molecular makeup of the THC and other cannabinoids. There are many forms of each and they come in a cycle. The most potent form for physical impairment tends to appear an amber color while clearer or milky will have a more psychoactive reaction.

It is true that you can't really take a heavy-stone indica and make it a super heady plant by harvesting early, likewise a trippy sativa isn't going to give you major couchlock if you let it grow longer, but there is leeway within the genetic bounds of the plant based on the chemical makeup of the trichromes - something most people without a high quality testing lab can only determine by the color.

Awesome thank you all! I'm outdoor and have been looking for a solid answer

I've always heard that once they start turning amber, THC degrades to CBD and CBN. I harvest once they are 75 cloudy 25 amber. The more amber, the more couchlock.

proof is in the pudding bro. last harvest like i said mostly amber great body stone. the first bowl of it and i couldnt believe how good my body felt. Not since i was in the great northwest have i had herb make my body feel great like that. but i kinda like a head high so i aim for 50/50