Theres this I found....
I been growing the same cut AK-47 pheno for 4 or maybe even 5 years now. I love everything about the plant, structure, yield, aroma, potency but i have never been able to judge the trichomes to determine when it's perfectly ready for harvest.
It seems that the common forum belief here is that when the majority of the trichomes turn from clear to milky and when 20%-50% (depending of preference) turn from milky to amber it is ready for harvest. With this strain the breeder suggests a harvest after 7-8 weeks of flowering yet at 7-8 weeks my plant's trichomes are almost all still clear. I've actually let this strain go as long as 14 weeks and the trichs still never really achieve the 20%+ amber level. Another interesting trait is that the buds never really stop growing...
Weeks 2-4 are the standard pistil explosion of growth shooting from every flowering site on the plant. Weeks 3-4 are steadily adding mass to all the flowering sites. Weeks 5-6 is when the fur-ball looking masses of pistils actually start to appear full bud structure and dense with noticeable calyx development. Weeks 7-8 nothing much seems to happen, there is still some growth but the vigor in prior weeks seems to be put on pause yet the vast majority of the pistils (95%+) are still white and full of life. During week 9 is when the calyxes really swell up and the buds truly appear full, dense and beautiful. Although the bud looks full and ready for harvest, 90% of the pistils and still white and at least 75% of the trichomes are still clear. After 9 weeks the buds begin to get crazy fox tail formations and i tend to start loosing leaves as well as a great deal of yellowing and purple leaves. Weeks 10-14 continue on in the same fashion that week 9 ended, lots of color change in my leaves (losing the green) and lots of fox tailing in bud growth but still never achieving many amber trichs and still at least 50%+ clear trichs.
I've grown plenty of other strains that seem to follow the typical standards peak maturity in the last couple weeks (calyxes swell, pistils start dying off and trichs turn from clear-cloudy-amber) but this strain which happens to be my all time favorite just doesn't seem to follow the rules....
Has anyone gown a strain like this or just want to share their thoughts on it????
and this .....
There are phenos that simply do not get real amber, I know that for sure.
And it's not only a few strains, if anything it seems to get more common today (hybrids without real amber thricomes).
You could wait and get darker brown/yellow thrics, but what you see is overripe bud - not the amber you want.
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This is the gist of the replies I've gotten when I ask your question (similar ones).
I used to grow outdoors when younger, and relatively recently started growing modern hybrids indoors.
I have the same "problem" myself at the moment, and I'm not sure it only genetics - the environment is usually a big factor in everything.
With "problem" I mean no amber, a lot of clear, but still great potency after harvest!
Maybe the plant never get enough clues that it's all over (winter is coming), I wish I knew.
But since you've grown the same strain for several years, and loving the result, the question becomes why is the potency so good, when it still has so many clear thricomes?
I would like to know this, because when this happens you can't help but feel like there had to be more potential in the plant!
But the fact is, I love the potency of my latest harvest - which means all the clear thricomes are irrelevant (no amber, and about 60% milky - the rest was clear at harvest!).
I would love to get real information about this topic.
BTW: After a month of curing, you'll notice yellow/amberish thrics anyway, but that's another topic.
These are just comments from people on other forums, not scientific fact. Hope this helps.