I need a magnifying glass to check the trichromes on mah plants but I havent been able to find any with over 2x magnification. What is the minimum magnification I need to be able to tell the difference between cloudy and amber and where could I find a magnifying glass like that? Any help would be nice.
You in America King? http://www.radioshack.com/sm-buy-th...ope-on-http-wwwradioshackcom--pi-2179604.html Radio Shack brotha
Oh and also one more thing (first time grower),should i take a bud and look at it under the microscope or could I just take a leaf and look at it?
You could just pull/cut one of the little sugar leafs off and look at it. Dont look at trichomes in the growroom if you got a HPS light, you will think they are all amber.
Just got home and looked at them under the microscope. One cloudy starting to turn amber and two starting to turn cloudy. Im guessing I have a few more weeks.
Hey King. I wouldn't judge maturity by sugar leaf alone. Often you'll see dead trichomes on the sugar leaf as early as three weeks into the bud cycle. These generally appear amber to brown and can easily be fool you into thinking your bud is ready to harvest. I would instead try to take your sample from inside the bud a bit more. This is a much more accurate way of doing it. Also, a very, very bright light is a great help when viewing trichomes.
So you think a little piece of bud would be a better call? This grow is going poorly tbh. Small buds so far. Only upside is they look/smell pretty dank. I'm expecting maybe an ounce from 3 plants. And one other I think could produce an ounce, but its a different strand and is much older than the others (transplanted from someones house outdoors). It's barely flowering compared to those. But yeah. Back on topic. I guess I'll try cutting a piece of bud before I make any judgement.
Can you pull your plants out and just look at the buds while they are still on the plant? Or are you in a hydro table or something? Hate to see you lose even more weight.
I normally snip off just a couple of the shortest leaves found on the buds... I pull 1 from the top, 1 from middle and 1 from bottom.... gives me a good snapshot of the entire plant's trichs...
No, it's soil based. I took the plants out and looked at the top colas directly under the microscope and the trichromes look pretty similar to the ones on the small leaves. I still have a little while to go. Whats weird about two of the plants is they barely have any hairs at all compared to the other one. The seeds came from the same bag.
get 30-60x magnification. I just ordered a 30X from ebay for 2$ with shipping. http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=300535215755&ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT
I got this one and it has a light built in. It's a lot easier to look through than the microscopes or the tiny loupes. The glass is about 3/4" in dia and you won't have to remove any plant material to use it, nor do you have to hold it close to your eye so you can spot check all over the plant. 40x 21mm Loop Magnifying Magnifier Jeweler Loupe 2 LED | eBay