In my own personal experience, its true that this final plumping is a signal that the plant is attempting to breed before it expires, but has no bearing on the ripeness of the trichomes. Most strains would be NOT ripe at that point. Since the buds would be at their plumpest, prettiest state, you'd have great bag appeal, but wouldn't have reached the psychoactive potential. I've seen many people do this to their blueberry for bag appeal, which helps if you want to retain that round nugg shape, but when I smoke, I'm more concerned with thc, cbd/cbn, & terpinoids.
-- Chromo... salvia d..... MNS has a sub forum of medical plants which has a thread devoted to your plant. So why aren't you there yet? Crystal found the medical plant forum & I'm not sure her family has seen her since. Arent you interested in hearing how others use it in their shamanistic practices, etc.... I'm going to hound you till go over & check it out. Dont want you leave here, just broaden your horizons. Its a seed bank too, so a lot of the forum is devoted to history, breeding & genetics. Very large pics too. Go......