Hi folks, we have a newbie here trying to get through his first grow. I'm on week 12 of flowering. Along the way I made a number of errors that caused my plants to develop slowly. But I think I'm on the homeward stretch now, just monitoring the trichomes waiting for them all to turn cloudy with perhaps a few ambers here and there....then harvest time! But I'm having trouble differentiating between cloudy and clear trichomes. And I've yet to see an amber head on a trichome. But I have seen a good number of trichome stalks with amber coloring inside....I've read it's just the bulbous head we should focus on so I'm ignoring those.
I have a cheap handheld illuminated microscope with 30X. (The light quickly went out so I use a small flashlight directed at the sample for viewing.) I have been placing my samples on a clean sheet of white paper. What I've noticed since the beginning is that most of the trichomes appear somewhat cloudy when looking down on top of the trichomes (with the leaf as the backdrop). But when I look at the trichomes coming off the edges of my sample (giving me a sideways view with the paper as the backdrop) the bulb at the top of the trichome ALWAYS seems to be crystal clear. I keep walking away frustrated not knowing if I'm viewing my samples correctly or how to interpret what I'm seeing. I assumed I was just being ignorant, that the trichomes I thought were cloudy were actually clear. And I figured once the cloudy trichomes started kicking in it would be more obvious and I was just being paranoid and impatient.
The other day, however, I tried using a black backdrop and it seemed to help in differentiating the cloudy trichomes. At least this time I was able to pick out a good number of obviously cloudy trichomes amongst the clear. So using the black backdrop seemed to help the cloudy ones stand out better for some reason...even saw a couple of cloudy ones along the edge with the sideways view, which was a first for me. Since this is my first grow and I'm learning as I go, it occurred to me that perhaps there are viewing techniques or lighting that growers use to minimize optical nuances that my cause one to misinterpret what they are seeing?
Also, I'm wondering how long it normally takes for all the trichomes to turn cloudy once you start noticing them springing up here and there?
I have a cheap handheld illuminated microscope with 30X. (The light quickly went out so I use a small flashlight directed at the sample for viewing.) I have been placing my samples on a clean sheet of white paper. What I've noticed since the beginning is that most of the trichomes appear somewhat cloudy when looking down on top of the trichomes (with the leaf as the backdrop). But when I look at the trichomes coming off the edges of my sample (giving me a sideways view with the paper as the backdrop) the bulb at the top of the trichome ALWAYS seems to be crystal clear. I keep walking away frustrated not knowing if I'm viewing my samples correctly or how to interpret what I'm seeing. I assumed I was just being ignorant, that the trichomes I thought were cloudy were actually clear. And I figured once the cloudy trichomes started kicking in it would be more obvious and I was just being paranoid and impatient.
The other day, however, I tried using a black backdrop and it seemed to help in differentiating the cloudy trichomes. At least this time I was able to pick out a good number of obviously cloudy trichomes amongst the clear. So using the black backdrop seemed to help the cloudy ones stand out better for some reason...even saw a couple of cloudy ones along the edge with the sideways view, which was a first for me. Since this is my first grow and I'm learning as I go, it occurred to me that perhaps there are viewing techniques or lighting that growers use to minimize optical nuances that my cause one to misinterpret what they are seeing?
Also, I'm wondering how long it normally takes for all the trichomes to turn cloudy once you start noticing them springing up here and there?
