Here's an interesting take on reaching maturity
"Another way people can end up with unripe cannabis is by taking flowering period guidelines too seriously. If on a seed packet, it states 6 weeks, 7-8-9 weeks, it does not mean they flower them at 12/12 for exactly that amount of time and crop the plants, no, one has to check the maturation of the trichomes by using a loupe or macro function of a digital camera does the job, or snipping a small piece of bud off and putting it under a scope, but the guidelines for flowering period for a particular strain/hybrid are just that, guidelines, often stated as a little shorter to encourage people to buy them knowing hobby growers are looking for fast plants as much as cashcroppers want heaviest yields in as short a time possible. The number of weeks stated is usually a few weeks short of the reality. If they say 7 weeks on the packet you can be sure pretty much that the real number of weeks will be around 9-10 to have mature cannabis, at 7 weeks it will be at that clear into cloudy stage, no amber"
And this
"Curing allows for a further period of oxidation of active compounds and that is beneficial to a cannabis user on several levels. People also tend to use less if* properly mature and well cured because the active compounds do everything they should do and is a superior high/stone than cannabis just cropped and dried for sale, very different to immature cannabis which tends to be a shorter lasting high and people use more as the brain tries to keep stimulated and this often leads the user to use too much, a common issue with speed actually and again a similarity between raw THC D9 and amphetamines. Curing is a necessary part of the process, something which is fast being forgotten in commercial weed terms"