Growing from seed and early flowering questions

So I'm curious to learn any information from experienced growers about setting a plant to flower early. I'm working on my first grow and my goal is to keep plants short. I've heard that when growing a plant from seed, It needs to be a certain age before you should begin flowering. What's the expected outcome for a plant that starts from seed and is only given 2 to 3 weeks to veg? What's the worst that can happen from this? I cannot buy a clone and am starting completely from scratch by seeds so I must keep them short and want to know more about setting them to flower early.

I will help you with some answers but first what sort of setup do you have going? how many watts, how much space and how many plants? The size of the plants after 2-3 weeks of veg is different depending on conditions. I don't count my veg time until I see 3 prong leaves from seed. Other ways to keep plants short is to use strains that have a short wide trait, topping, and training. I utilize all of these as I am a short height grower myself...somewhat. As for flowering some guys go 12/12 from seed but that's a multiplant grow in small pots or hydro, it gives a small amount of bud per plant but adds up if you do lot's of them. You have to know your goal, prepare with the right equipment and be there for the plant at all stages of life with the right treatment and you can get what your after.

Topping, FIMming and similar training techniques will help keep the plants short while they mature to the point where they're ready to flower.

One of two things can happen when you flower too early. First, the plant may not begin flowering when you switch to 12/12. Second, if the plant is flowered to early then it may only grow a tiny bit of bud during its flowering cycle. The plant may end up with a very, very low yield.

You also may want to look into starting a clone mother if you're able to. If one of your seeds turns out to be much better than the others, you'll still have unflowered versions of it when you only flower a clone of it.