Harvest buds or take whole plant

I have 2 strains growing and just completed 5th week of flowering. I am going to start flushing in a week or 2 to prepare for harvest. I have attached the pics where it is now easy to tell the WW from the other unknown plants I have.

As expected, I have much bigger buds on the main stalk, but lots of little nice ones all over. I can see the tricoms all over, but clearly cant see color yet, and will check them in a week or 2 with my microscope.

When I harvest, should I snip the big ones and let the others grow longer? If I take the whole plant, will the smaller buds have decent potency?

hummmmmmm, maybe.

ok.... once the trics are mature take the plant down from the main stem... unless u want to put em back into veg and get new growth 4 clones... u can take some budz off that have matured and leave others on the plant, its all about trics, just letting them turn from milky to slight anber will b an upbeat high letting them turn dark amber will result in stoney weed soo just look @ the trics they will tell u when buds r ready.

i would start to flush in 3 to 3 1/2 weeks maybe, they look small,for now.
nice looking plants though.

When I checked them today, it looks like that in order to get all the bigger buds from the main stem, I would have to go pretty close to the bottom of the plant to get them all. I am starting to think it is not such a good idea and think I will wait a little longer and just do the whole plant.

What would you do in this situation?

Also, today I took my 1st look at the trichs. I snipped a teeny piece of a leaf on a bud near the top of the bud and put it under my scope. I watched it under 60 and then 100 times. I was amazed at what I saw. They are very cool.

Problem is that I am sure I will be able to tell when they are ready. After all my reading here (many late hours looking at / reading about trichs), I know I want the clear/cloudy high vs the amber/couch high. If I had a little bit of the couch that would be OK, but for the most part, that is not what I want.

My trichs look to be all clear, but on the top round part of them, they are about 3/4 opaque - like a 3/4 moon. I wouldn't call them milky. The stems are all clear, so it is just the top/bulb part that has this in it. I wish there was a way to take a picture, but I have no idea how I would do it. I can see them very clearly under 60x and under 100x you can see individuals with incredible detail. I believe I am 2 1/2 - 3 1/2 weeks off from harvest now so I assume I should check these again next week and then more frequently. I dont want to cut the bud leaves any more than necessary.