Wheredaweedat, you pointed me in the right direction I think. Not all strains will amber. It appears that mostly Sativas will amber. Other things we can look for is changes in trichome color, pistil color, leaf color, and the shape of trichomes. I read that trichomes will start to flop over when ready.
I examined my trichomes for a long time tonight under 60x. I see a few brown, a few droppers and mostly white. Like snow white crystals. Like Supermans ice palace
This is a good article, but leaves me with more questions than answers
http://www.uk420.com/boards/index.php?showtopic=38959
The thing about amber trichomes, is that true amber trichomes only develop in some phenotypes and only with very high potency types!
The way to define it, is that high potency or should I say the type of plant that develops what I call complex psychoactivity, only develop with clear trichome stages, they go from glass clear to very light yellow to amber to red amber as they develop. The onset of the first red amber just showing is when the potency is at its peak.
At all these stages the trichomes are crystal clear like cut jewels! Its only as they start to degrade that they start to go brown and start to cloud ie: become none translucent this finally degrades to a dark muddy colour.
Types that go from glass clear to milky [like frosted glass]. With this type when you get 40 to 60% milky trichomes, new thc production is being produced at a lower rate than it is slowly degrading, this is the most psychoactive point for this type or variety, it will never produce true amber, instead when you get the oxidised thc starting to show, which is more of an amber brown but cloudy. With this type of var as soon as brown trichomes start appearing you know thc production is way over the top and declining rapidly, at this stage psychoactivity is also declining and the effect becomes more and more narcotic. You see this much more with genes that come from hash making type genetics or so called indicas. Its the same thing as fresh lightly pressed hash has a nice medium honey coloured look, but this very quickly starts to darken, becomes brown then black over time as the surface thc oil oxidises.
Real Amber trichomes only happen on a very few varieties (mainly sativa dominant), the order is clear, clear slightly pale yellow, ie [going amber], to clear red amber. [at all stages they remain jewel clear]
With most varieties (indica dominant) you get clear trichomes then slightly cloudy finally milky.
What happens to both types (sativa and indica) is that eventually both milky and amber trichomes will finally degrade to brown, people often confuse this brown with amber, true amber trichome types remain crystal clear until they finally degrade, they are not the same, the final brown is cloudy/muddy in both types, when trichomes are getting to this stage potency is declining rapidly and the buds well over the top.
With sativa dom’s time means little, as soon as you see the first sign of trichome changes ie milky/clear straw, you start cutting a bud every week, then choose the stone you like best, sats take longer to mature especially real amber types, also longer to degrade to the brown oxidised stage.
