question about preflowering or when to flower

Hello all

I am after a bit of advice regarding when to start flowering / preflowers. This is my first grow.

I have 3 plants, all grown from bag seeds (good stuff despite a few seeds).
From what i read they all seam to be classic sativa plants (big leaves with over 10 fingers on many leaves, good dark green).

The plants are now around 8 weeks old (inc 2 weeks seedlings) and look very health (posibly stunted growth due to initial bad conditions (cold and low light)), with very dense groth.
They are around 2 feet tall with around 10 nodes each & continuing to grow up and out like mad.

They have been grown in a bubbler with a 200 watt blue enviro light (24/24) using "sensi grow" nutrients, PH kept at 5.5 - 6.2.

I thought i would get some signs of preflowering by now, and i have been keeping a daily watch of them for any signs (as described in books).
I keep seeing small "ball" growths at the nodes but after a few days these just grow into more leaves.

My questions are: Is preflowering the best way to tell when to start the flowering prosess (i.e change lighting to 12/12 and to Bloom food).
Or is it best to "force" them to flower (at this stage) by changing the lighting and the food?

Or is all this a simple case of i need to wait!!?
(FYI i am fastly running out of space!)

Any advice please

you decide when to flower simply by changing lighting to 12/12. should see flowering within 1-2 weeks. do you have any pics to post?

alright man you seem to be in need of some solid advice. First thing I have is a question, that being by 24/24 do you mean your running them 24 light then 24 dark? if this is the case this will just stress the plant, after 18 hours of light the plant has reached its photosynthesis limit and will need six hours to break down the built up starches into usable sugar. Anything over six hours will just let the plant without light and not grow. So first off switch your lights to a 18/6 light dark cycle. The 200 Watt may just be enough for flowering, if not upgrade to a 400W HPS, I personally have used the Hydrofarm Daystar hood with the 400 W catalyst and ballast, pretty cost efficent and the most light reflection and area for you buck.
Now that we've gotten the equipment out of the way time to answer your question. If your plant is showing signs of being a Sativa then your going to have a much longer wait depending on her heritage. Remember that the signs of a sativa aren't leaves (Ive grown indicas with 11 fingered dark green leaves before) its the height, and a sativa will reach between three to five feet before signs of preflowering. If you do have a sativa at two months it could take another two months before it shows any signs of preflowering, especially if started under stressful conditions.
It sounds though from your description of a two foot tall bush that youve got a plant with a strong indica heritage, which is good in this situation. What to look for that shows that the plant has unquestionably entered micro is asymmetrical leaf production at the node. It laymans terms when the leaves at the topmost node, or at the least the branch nodes stop coming out in perfect pairs and start to produce one leaf per petiole junction to the stem, then your in micro.
By this time the plant should start to show signs of preflowering, Im not completely familiar with sensi grow, i hand mix my nutrients or use Grow, Micro, and Bloom. If the sensi is in two parts, then mix a little of the bloom in with a larger part of the veg, this should show signs.
If not, then the only thing to do is put them into 12/12 light dark cycle. Just make sure that if you choose to do this that the stem structure of the plants are strong enough to support the future buds
Last things too, if your running out of space already, then before you start any sort of flowering you need to revamp your area. When they flower they are going to take off in ways you can't even imagine, and are going to need all the space they can to branch and breathe, so make sure your ventilation is also adequate. Plan ahead before you move them.
This should take care of any info you need man, happy grow and good luck

O.K. first do you know that they are even female plants?It sounds like they could be males.do you know?after that all I can say is if it's two feet tall and your running out of space you need to put it in bud now!!Sativa's double or triple in size in bud.Keep that in mind.Good luck

When raised from seed, plants have to be grown to sexual maturity under veg cycle lighting. When preflowers appear at the nodes on the mainstem, about 6-8 weeks from sprouting, the plant is sexually mature.

Preflowers are often gender indeterminate in appearance. Sometimes they do you a favour and send out a couple of calyxes (hairs) indicating they're female, sometimes the preflowers look like little balls, similar to male flowers, yet may come out female later on.

To determine sex with surety, you can either cover one branch of the plant for 12h/day while keeping the plant under 18+hr/day light or you can take a cutting of the unknown sex plant, get it to set root, then flower it under 12/12 lighting.

The GrowFAQ is your friend!

Sexing

First of all can't concentrate on your question with those bouncing boobs "nice tits" did she ask about me Ha Ha!!!! Second growing indoors your god nothing else matters!!!!!