Getting close to chop time. Middle of week 6 of flowering. Doing a ebb and flow hydro grow. I’m wanting to flush for a week and a half or 2 weeks. I’m looking for tips on knowing when to start my flush.
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Welcome ! looking at the picture you still got several weeks to go I would hold off on the flush. Let those buds fatten up. Plant looking good nice and Frosty.
Good luck
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This is a northern lights on 12/17 trying to determine if it ready to prepare for harvest. I grow in soil and use Advanced Nutrients Flawless Finish applied during the last week of bloom
Representative photo of its trichomes. Looking for more amber.
This shows the difference between looking at the bud / calyx and a sugar leaf as pictured here. You do not want to go by the sugar leaves. They mature sooner. I decided to flush today and hope I guessed its harvest correctly.
On 12/20 I pulled it for 3 days of darkness.
A week later on 12/23
Many more amber bud trichomes
The ratio of amber / cloudy / clear looked good so cut it on 12/23
I should say I was monitoring an AK-47 on the same days and applied the same procedures. The difference is the AK is still in the tent and not ready as of 12/26. Sometimes the crystal ball works and sometimes not.
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@beardless. That is by far the best example of how this works that I have ever seen. Very well informed and your pictures tell the story without you even having to. Well done growmie!
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Thanks for the kind words and recognition. Because I am in the middle of the harvest process and I like to use photos to document my grows, they were readily available. Besides, who doesn’t like a good trichome photo.
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I was wondering how you took those 
im like wth. Lol
Very helpful. So I can still have clear tricomes/cloudy and a little amber?
I use a Pluggable 2 USB scope to take the trichome pictures.
Absolutely. At least I do not let them mature much further. Some will prefer more amber but once a very high ratio of amber to cloudy is obtained, the amber ones start to degrade.
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About how long before the amber ones start to degrade? Also how long on average does it take for them to go from cloudy to amber?
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Sorry I don’t have an answer to either question. Regarding AK-47 I mentioned above. I flushed on 12/17 thinking it would be ready in a week or so. I checked in on 12/23, on 12/26 and again yesterday 12/29. I checked multiple buds and could not identify a discernable difference from what I was seeing on 12/17. It is like it has totally stalled out. So, the real answer it depends (on what the plant decides to do). I just have to keep checking it every couple of days. At some point, if it doesn’t do anything, I will say F it and cut it and put the clones I have vegging in the tent.
Not much help but based on my experience this it how it works.
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Thank you for all the information. You have been extremelyhelpful and educational!! But essentially you start your flush when the tricomes start turning from clear to cloudy correct?
I usually flush when I start to see a few amber on the bud. Thought being after a week plus a couple days of darkness it will be in the 10% amber range.
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@Dr.ofSmokology I used this to help me out. Thanks @beardless!
So true and I totally agree with you. I have even discovered that even two of the same plants are not the same. Thank you for sharing you knowledge on this thread! The growers are so awesome on this forum! 
Glad to. Hope it is useful. I go through it with every harvest and with every plant. You can do that, meaning give each plant attention, with small grows.
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