Are the plants soil or hydro,it matters by about 3 weeks.
Day count for bud should not start right at the day you go to 12/12,a common mistake is to start count but your not allowing for the " transition " phase,this is where the plant shifts its efforts from building structure to filling bud sites.
The transition phase is a variable which depends on several factors,indicas mature fastest,also the older the plant is before its bud the faster it will go through transition,for example,a white widdow grown from seed,one month veg,this plant is not sexualy mature,the transition phase will be long,from 14 to 21 days,the same white widdiw grown from clones taken from a 2 year old mother plant will go thru transition phase ln less than 7 days.
With new or immature strains i mark the day i went 12/12 then watch for pistil development,once the majority of the larger bud sites show multiple pistils i start day count.
An 8 week strain will take 10 to 12 weeks in soil,a week or 2 less in hydro,this is for immature strains.
Also keep in mind looking at trichomes is meaningless with many strains,the more pure the strain is the more the trichs have to do with being finished,some hybrids like my sour deisel will only go cloudy over about 30% of the trichs,then just a few turn golden,waiting weeks will not make more change from cloudy to gold or amber.
Some strains finish maturing after the chop,i look at my deisel after its dry & about 80% of the trichs jave went amber,at chop only a few trichs were amber.
When to harvest is not a hard nailed issue that can be put into exact days,there are way too many variables,its a combination of looking at trichomes,how the pistils look,if new pistils or calyxs are still developing,how much the plants are still growing,i rarely look at trichomes on any of my strains as my only method of judging when to chop,i watch all the signs.
A good sign to watch for is that new calyx & pistil growth has stopped or came to a crawl,a few days later new growth in pistils & calyxs will be seen,it is after i see the new growth spurt is when i chop.
Watch all the signs,if soil add a few days,if no transition add 14 days,if from seed add another few days,could be as long as 3 more weeks.
