I know this is old and I'm not really sure how I ended up here…but I'll toss in my 2 cents anyway, because there is some really bad info out there on this topic. First of all, all this “you'll have shit potency” talk is nonsense. When trichomes first appear they are clear, as they START to go cloudy (which is about mid flower, week 5-6) this is the time when THC levels are actually at their highest, this does in no way mean, the best however. As the trichomes begin to degrade, they turn amber, during this process some THC is lost, but more is converted in to various other cannabinoids (CBD, CBN, CBZ and about 10,000 others). Harvesting around this time is how you control the level of narcotic effect/couch lock, balanced with the energy boost and mind games THC and the balance of other cannabinoids bring to the game. As for the claim that these “test buds” will taste horrible, that too is not always the case. If you are growing using liquid nutrients (hydro or promix/coco/etc) these leave a horrible taste and often give head aches, as most of yiu will know, you need to flush these nutrients out of the buds before harvest, you obviously can not do that during flowering so, if you are using these, sampling is not the wisest, however if you are growing with Organic super soils, than this is not an issue and as long as you are drying over the course of at least 24h with just dry air (a fan and maybe a dehumidifier, depending where you live) the taste should not be very far from that if the finished product. As for stunting the plant, as long as you are not sampling while the sites are still developing, you are very unlikely to effect growth at this time by taking a COUPLE small buds. Also if you must sample, always do it from the smaller side/bottom buds as anything you remove from the top half of the plant would have likely doubled or more in size between week 5 of flower and harvest.