I think slightly early harvested smoke is extremely potent and valuable,
It is not a case of harvesting early, not even slightly early. It is a case of harvesting when the glandular trichomes will have reached peak levels of THC, so it is harvesting when a plant will be at it's highest potency.
but most indoor growers try and balance potency and yield. That requires it to be left a bit longer, in most cases.
I think the proper word to you e would have been some rather than; "most" unless you are talking about commercial growers. People I know grow and harvest for potency more than yield. Of course they want enough to keep them supplied but they do that by growing enough plants to cover their needs rather than giving up potency to try to squeeze a few more grams of weaker weed out of each plant.
I actually never look at my trichs, I look at the swell, once they do that, I know it's at peak potency, and flavor. But I grow for myself and not selling purposes, so I become the number one customer, and the customer is always right.
Whatever floats your boat .... and if that is slightly more weaker herb than slightly less more potent herb then by all means it is the right thing for you too do.
But look at it this way. If it takes someone 5 or 6 hits, or maybe more, to get the buzz they want rather than just 2 or 3 hits, even though they may have a slightly larger yield they still may smoke it all up as fast or even faster by needing to smoke more of it at a time and to smoke it more often than if they had more potent pot. If that ends up being the case then where is the actual gain in the slightly increased yield at the cost of potency?
It sort of reminds me of my early days of toking, back before weighed ounces and dealers sold "lids." A lie of average grade Mexican would cost $10.00 to $15.00. A lid of good Colombian would cost $25.00 to $30.00. One of my friends LOVED to smoke. He loved the actual act of smoking. He did not like really good pot because he wouldn't want to smoke as often and he would rather sit around all day sucking on his bong than to just get high a few times. So he would buy the average grade Mexican and smoke and smoke and smoke and smoke. He would get high enough because in those days average grade Mexican was not the same garbage as came along some years later but the average grade was not so great that he would reach a point where he would say no mas, no mas. He used to tell us how we were wasting our money spending more on good Colombian because he was getting good and high off his less expensive Mexican .... but he would go through enough pot that in a given month he would spend as much or more for pot that even though he smoked it all day it didn't get him as high as toking better quality pot just a few times a day. My lids would last and last and last and I was almost always high in those days.
Even though the real reason he did it was because he just loved the physical act of smoking it is still an example, admittedly an extreme one, of lesser quality herb not lasting as long as higher potency pot.
I have had pot that was a true one hit wonder, the type of potency where if you did two hits, a little while after the second hit you would be thinking, man, I really didn't need that second hit, I think I'm going to go to bed and try to go to sleep because I'm too high. It doesn't take a large yield with potency like that to last a very long time. True it is not always easy to achieve that, but the principal remains the same. Higher potency means you smoke less at a time and you smoke less often so it lasts a very long time.
Isn't that what every grower, other than a commercial grower, should be trying their best to achieve?
What would be the logic behind picking a strain that has a very high THC percentage and then intentionally throwing away, intentionally giving up some of the potency so in the end you just have slightly more of what would be equal to the quality/potency of lesser genetics? Maybe to some the logic is with a high enough level of THC they can afford to intentionally lose some, to throw some of it away to get a slightly higher yield ... but too me that is still illogical.
If someone is going to do that it would make more sense to me to pick a strain like Big Bud or maybe Critical Mass, strains known for massive yields, and harvest it when it is at peak potency and still end up with even higher yields of a pot rather than growing a strain that does not yield as much and growing it beyond peak potency and ending up with much less of something that will only be slightly more potent. If yield is of such importance that someone will willingly give up potency for a slightly higher yield why not go whole hog and go for massive yields?
Some might say that goes beyond the idea of trying to "balance potency and yield," but if they are willing to drag their potency level down to what would be equal to lesser genetics when harvested at the optimal time for peak potency, just for a slightly higher yield, then for a much, much larger yield it would make more sense to pick strains that if harvested when at peak potency levels would at least be close to the same. For that large of an increase in yield, since yield is so important, the slight additional difference in potency would have to be worth the trade off to get the much larger yield.
But I guess it is a case of to each their own ... and everyone has their own priorities and everyone finds what they perceive as being a value in different things.
