<span class="link_user">@GrowLow</span>, hi.
I checked the pictures and.. yes.. they are far from ripe. A ripe bud looks much different, you can find many examples on here, maybe check out the top growers or diaries of the month. You will recognize an obvious difference in ripeness. All the pistils (the white hair) should shrink and turn orange/brown.. the buds also had a lot of swelling to go for.
It is right what you say about the trichomes (the crystals on the bud and sugar leaves) but.. when harvesting we dont consider the trichomes on the little leaves we can see in your picture but look straight at the bud. Those trichomes on the leaves lose colour due to touch by hand or other leaves or other environmental factors.
A nice thing about growing is the learning experience :+1:
Enjoy bro
one more thing: most of the time, in my experience, the average flowering times given by most breeders are quite accurate. Your strain is quite special so I dont know about this one. To consider there is, that flowering does not start at the day you flip the switch but when you see the flowers starting to form. Maybe you trained them just a day before the switch which stunted them a bit and so they took a bit longer to change their hormones and things from growing & schock to flowering.. its like a trauma
i know the colour of the fan leaves suggests they are ready but I think you started to flush them too early and starved them of necessary nutrients for growth and ripening. Stay strong :facepunch:
another thing that just came to mind: when looking at other grows for comparison, dont just look at the pictures in the week of harvest, also look at the weeks right before.. see if you find the stage you chopped yours in reference. I think in some cases you could be 4 to 5 weeks off
(they really look great and I think if you do it like this again, just with more patience in the end, you will be a very happy person)
:alien:
