Peak THC is when the trichs are about 50:50 clear and milky according to Jorge Cervantes so I've always gone with that. I've tried waiting for amber and it took an extra month wasting power and tying up the grow room for what?
Trichs will amber as the bud ages or if in a rush just leave them exposed to sunlight for a couple days in a sunny window. Amber indicates THC is breaking down to CBN which is supposed to make it more of a couch-lock type buzz but if that's the buzz a person wants they should grow strains that have that kind of buzz.
I used to love sativa strains for chronic depression and grew lots of Kali Mist. Took up to 14 weeks to finish flowering but was well worth the wait. I started getting anxiety attacks from it so crossed it with NL#5 and the right pheno from that worked just as well to lift my mood without panic attacks from a bit too much. Finished up in about 10 weeks so that was nice too.
Also thought if just choopping the top canopy and letting the bottom canopy thicken out.
That's always been my cropping method. I like to trim fresh off the plant so would harvest all the top colas over a few days then let the lower buds fill out and ripen up for another 10 days or more. Any buds smaller than a marble got tossed into the oil pile.
