I harvested one of my autos just by the look of the hairs. This one I got a microscope and the trichs arent changing at all also its roughly a 60\40 red to white hairs. I planted both these plants at the same time.
never go by the hairs you always gotta go by the trichs. the hairs have nothing to do with proper harvest time. do lil more in depth research and you will have a better grow next time. imho stay away from autos
while i appreciate auto haters trolling the auto section to discourage people from growing autos. he is correct about the hairs.. i'll have to disagree about the staying away from autos.. for some people autos are the best option. i grow legally but am only allowed 6plants and there are all kinds of regulations about your grow room and security blah blah blah!! so for someone like me who only has a 4x4x8 closet to grow... autos are nice as i can grow several different strains and have a perpetual harvest in the same room under the same lights.. a cpl of Z's/plant every 10wks or so...with 18%-20% THC doesn't hurt either.. and i like to be smoking a few different strains at once as this allows me to alternate and not build a tolerance to a strain so at the end of a jar two hits still gets me baked and i don't have to roll an entire 1/8 in a blunt to get medicated..but ya scope those shits.. tek is correct about the breeders time.. while yes most of them will be smoke-able in the time given they are hardly at their peek.. in most cases two weeks to a month over what is advertised will give you the best results..(but i think tek has had some go even longer then that). but the pics look nice getting all frosty i wouldn't be surprised if they got a little fatter.. but i guess it's all in how long you can wait
when the fan leaves fall off give it a couple weeks best advice i can give to the "finished" question
auto's have rather large pheno swings 3 seeds one could have indica traits , one sativa and one ruderalis they would all flower at different times with different finish times
they all have there own personality
the only person in real life i met that doesnt like an auto
is my previous dealer
and even he liked smoking them