Yeah, it can stop the budding or cause a herm. For your first question, you may be able to see the trichomes with the naked eye. You should have really good eyes though. I can barely see them if I take my glasses off and stick my eyeball almost right on the leaves, lol. If you have even a 10x magnifier it can help. Or if you have a camera with a macro setting you can take a zoomed-in photo and check that way.