Best Magnifying Glass for Trichomes

Growing marijuana as a business or hobby requires the use of different tools that other casual growers overlook. One of the tools essential to perfecting the art of increasing the most quality trichomes is the marijuana microscope. A good microscope comes in handy when analyzing the bud quality with the hope of expanding the THC and CBD levels.

A good microscope also comes in handy in checking out if there are any impurities in the buds that could bring down the potency of the final product. Marijuana microscopes come in different types. The most popular are handheld magnifiers, regular microscopes, jeweler’s loupe, and digital microscopes.

The best magnifying glass for trichomes makes harvesting your cannabis at the perfect time easy!

To harvest at the right time, we need to see inside the trichomes.

Trichomes Tell You When to Harvest

It’s so rewarding to harvest your own weed. Not only does it mark the end of a grow and a lot of work, but you’ll soon be able to enjoy the fruits of your labor.

That being said, any cannabis grower who has made it through the flowering stage knows that waiting for the right time to harvest can be a major test of a grower’s patience, and it can be hard to know when is the best time. This is where learning to use a microscope or magnifier to examine trichomes comes in.

3 Most Popular Ways to Determine When to Harvest Cannabis:

• Timing: This is done by just waiting and harvesting when the breeder-specified flowering time is up. Please, don’t do this!
• Pistil Method: When at least 60% of the pistils have darkened and curled in, the harvest window is open. The pistil method has a huge advantage in that it requires no tools! And it’s MUCH better than using the breeder specified timing. However, it can still be inaccurate, and inaccuracy in harvesting means lower yields/potency.
• Trichome method: Trichomes are the “glitter” on buds. When most of the trichomes appear cloudy-white under a microscope, the harvest window is open. While this method isn’t perfect, in my opinion, it’s the best thing we have right now by far. The downside to this increased accuracy(and yields/potency) is that you need more than just your eyeballs to observe trichomes because they’re so tiny!

The only problem is we can’t see the trichomes with our naked eye, so we need help to pick the perfect harvest time.

Why do you Need a Marijuana Microscop

I’ve touched on it a little bit so far, but there are three ways to pick your harvest time:

• Ratio of dark to white pistils
• Time
• Cloudy trichome vs amber trichome ratio

The best and most fool-proof by far is by gauging the color of the trichomes.

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Trichomes are where all the magic happens in cannabis.

These mushroom shaped crystalline structures, also called resin glands, are where the THC is produced.

And these resin glands will let you know exactly when they are at their peak of THC productivity.

Clear trichomes mean your plants aren’t ready.

Once most of your trichomes are mostly cloudy, they are at their peak.

Amber trichomes mean your plants are starting to develop a high CBN count which will give the marijuana a couch lock effect.

You can harvest when your trichomes are anywhere from 2-60% amber.

Any more than that and the THC degradation will start to take its toll on the cannabis.

Some growers prefer the head high and harvest while the trichomes are cloudy, while others prefer the body high you get from amber trichomes.

Either way, you need the best microscope for checking trichomes, or you’re not going to see anything.

How to Use a Jeweler’s Loupe to Check Trichomes

How you use a magnifying glass for marijuana depends on the type of scope you get.

The most commonly used weed magnifying glass is the jewlers loupe for trichomes.

It’s a simple, and small, glass that is only about the size of your thumb.

These typically zoom into about 60x which is plenty enough to see the color of the trichomes.

To use a standard jewlers loupe to check trichomes, flip it open to reveal the lens, and, if it has a light, turn it on to get a better view.

Next, bring the loupe up close to the plant, making sure not to touch the plants.

We don’t want to disturb the delicate trichomes!

Bring your eye close to the weed magnifying glass and browse a few random areas on the cannabis plant.

How to Check Trichomes Without a Weed Magnifying Glass

Is it possible? The short answer is maybe!

You definitely won’t get as good of a view as you would if you were to pick up the best scope for trichomes, but you will be able to get a decent enough view to make a call on your harvest.

You need a new phone to do this trick—one with a high-quality camera.

You can take an up close picture with your phone, and then zoom in on the picture to get an up close look at the trichomes.

• Jewlers Loupe

Jewlers loupes are the beginning cannabis growers best friend.

There’s not much to these little guys, but there are a couple of features that can really help.

The first being that you want to see at least 40x, a lot of loupes will only go to 20x so keep that in mind.

You also want an LED light to get a better picture of what’s going on.

• Microscope

You can also opt to get a microscope, and there are a few advantages of doing just that.

The biggest being is that pocket microscopes can see at up to 120x, and digital microscopes can see anywhere from 250-500x!

Imagine how much more you’d learn with that kind of view of the trichomes.

The biggest downside to going with a microscope over a loupe is the price.

A quality digital scope can set you back quite a bit, while the cheaper pocket microscopes are usually crap.

Conclusion

You need the best pocket microscope if you want to grow the best marijuana possible.

They are an indispensable tool for any grower and should be mastered during your first grow.

Cutting your cannabis plants too early or too late will be detrimental to not only the amount of cannabis you grow but also the quality.