Harvest in stages question.

Lets see where to start, I have a Strawberry Cough / White Widow strain. I had a friend come over and look and he said to let it go another week or so as I guess I have the trichomes starting to turn. Judging from the pics I took last night what do you guys think? I am in the middle of week 9. They seem to be turning the milky color. I have a 40x loupe which is hard for me to get a good look at the trichomes as it doesnt seem to pull it up enough for me and when I pull the loupe back from the bud a bit to get the most power from it it gets blurry and ends up being just a little spot to actually see what I am looking for in color so if you know of a better thing to use I would like to know what to get to see these things in all there glory?

Two weeks ago I had white hairs now all of them have turned red. In the pics you see some of the leaves turn purple. Which my friend said it is an indication that the end is near. The buds seem to be as big as they are going to get to me. They are still taking about 5 gallons of water a day.

This what I want to do.

This Friday I want to do a water change and give them fresh nutes according to my nute schedule. I use House and Garden nutes. Then start to harvest the top third of my crop. As I go I want to tie up the lower stems so they are not hanging out and get them pointing up. Let it go another week and then do a three day flush or basically change out the nutes with just fresh RO water till everything is harvested.

My question I want to know is.

I have decent buds all the way down to the bottom of the plants but they are not as dense or developed lets say as the tops of course. Not a lot of popcorn buds that you just use for hash or whatever. If I clean up the tops and let the light get in there for another week or so will the lower stuff develop and mature (get fatter) in that last weeks time and while I do my flush?

Not only do I ask this so I can get a better yield but dont want to waste a lot of time getting the plants lower stems tied up so that they are pointing up. I can see that taking a long time to do. Any thought about this?

TIA.

I think those are ready to be chop..and maybe a bit late. but I'm not an expert

those look hella nice, and you are close to ready to harvest if not there as the above said. Nice work bro.

as to your question, I have never found it worth it to chop the tops and wait for the bottom to develop. They are already so much smaller and a week or two wont help them develop enough imo to make them a ton better. Plus I bundle it all together anyway so its not my problem to deal with....
and I always worry about them going hermie if they get stressed that much by cutting em up.
But im interested to hear from other more knowledgeable people on here....

cut those mawfuckas

They look done from here, and they look NICE!!!
I always chop the whole plant at once. Some buds are more done than others, some less mature. I like that it can give me different buzzes from tops to lowers. Plus if you are growing something for the first time it will help you know when to chop next time.

awesome plant, i often will harvest parts as they finish and in this case looking at how great the buds you showed look im confident in your judgement that the other buds lower are pretty nice too must be pretty accurate so i'd let the lower buds finish up.