Mushroom expert here.
the time to pick depends on what your shooting for.
If spores have dropped, then you are already past due.
If your shooting for most maximum potency per gram. then you should harvest as soon as the veil tears away from the cap. (or around 24ish hours later)
If your shooting for maximum yeild. then you should let the caps open a bit more, and get as close to before the spores drop as possible, with out going over.
This can be kinda tricky, because its kind of a blind target, that you dont know you hit till its too late. but once you accidently allow them to drop on you a few times, you start to get the feel for when they are ready, and what they look like right before they drop the spores.
the reason you get more yeild this way, is because they get a couple more grams as they grow just a tab big bigger.
Spores dropping will not hurt anything, but just dont look as neat and pretty. and make the caps look black. but it should rub right off.
(you dont have to rub them off, it dosnt hurt anything)
also if your going to be making spore prints, you want them to open up a little, but pick them before they drop.
this also gets tricky with clusters, because most times, there is a couple less mature in a cluster, your just going to have to pick them with the rest.
also you dont have to harvest all at once, but pretty much after you harvest some that are not attached to the rest, you can give the rest about 24 hours to catch up, then should probally go ahead and harvest everything. and then you can re-hydrate your substrate.
. The 2 bigs one will be picked in the morn.
