When to harvest question

[Fortuno]

I have a royal dwarf automatic in 5th week of flowering. As it gets closer to harvest I'm thinking of the best way to determine when it's ready. I have a 120x pocket microscope and I've been trying to take a closer look at pistils and trichomes but it's hard to stabilize the thing so I've taken a sample - 1 small pistil from the top of the bud and looked at it on my desk.

My question is:
When I'm examining the plant this way, is it enough to takie 1-2 samples from the plant or do I need to look at a sample from each big cola? Basically what I want to know is whether the trichomes get cloudy uniformly throughout the plant or if there are significant differences between bigger and smaller colas?

[NickyChicks]

Not specific to your plant, but to answer your question, no a plants trics don't necessarily mature at the same rate from top to bottom. One of the members in here has a pretty good write-up about a 'Staged Harvest'... Type that into the search bar on the forum it should pop up first post. I'm nearing the harvest of my first grow so I can't give you a complete answer to your question but maybe one of the more experienced members will chime in.