Harvesting early ruins all flavor/smell profiles
So does turning leaves yellow or brown
I’m a lot newer at this than Herb and Suds (three grows in the past year, improving and doing lots of reading and listening).
Based on the pictures, it does look like you might have harvested a bit early, and my experience doing the same thing and then getting it right later bears out what infinite others have said, that yeah, this definitely affects flavor, potency, quantity. I think most of us did it in our first/early grows. Having a stash is liberating!
However, it’s definitely debatable at best that leaves turning yellow at the end of the plant’s life is a problem. Some senescence is normal. I’ve listened to several very informed people address this concept, most recently a couple different video casts from the Build a Soil dude. I know we need to filter internet sources carefully, but I’ve found these guys informative and knowledgeable. To try to summarize his points on this matter: Old things have different nutritional needs than new things. He actually suggests that senescence/some color change is a good sign for flavor and potency, and that keeping a plant green at the end of flowering confuses it, as it tries to develop new growth when it should be engaging in the last stages of ripening. He suggested that doing so might actually affect flavor and potency negatively. I know this may cause some debate here, and I may even be paraphrasing incorrectly, but after some time/research, it seems some yellowing/dying off of leaves is a natural part of the process. All annual plants go through this cycle.
I got paranoid recently from a similar response to a thread about my yellow leaves at the end of flower. I could have done better for sure. But some even encouraged me to harvest early due to the yellowing. This would have been a poor decision. I experienced my best harvest yet, and also very flavorful, despite some unhealthy looking leaves at the end of the cycle. Again, I’m newish, haven’t tried or succeeded in keeping things green till harvest, but most sources suggest some senescence is normal and fine. Please educate me if I’m wrong.
But I also see in the mirror everyday: we all go gray.