Watching for amber

ok newbie question and i know it depends a lot on individual strain genetics but is 5 nodes the minimum for bud production? i have a small closet to grow in and i let my plants veg for almost 3 months before i switched to 12/12 and i'm afraid my plants may be too large for a good flower.

You'll find many contrasting viewpoints on when the earliest you can effectively flower is. Once you see pre-flowers, once you have sets of 5 leaves, once the nodes become unbalanced, or some count of total nodes are all methods i have read on when to flower. It really depends on your specific grow area and lighting and doing what best suits you. I wouldnt flower a seed at anything less than 5 nodes, however my plants are clones. because clones have the effective age of their mother, they can be flowered whenever you see fit.

3 months of beg is alot of veg time, no matter what type of lighting you have. i mean honestly, that thing is going to be a giant when it flowers. how big is it now? your going to have to do some serious pruning, but dont forget you cannot cut off more than 1/2 of the leaves or the plant will die (general guideline, im sure theres exception cases).

see that is the thing most of them are about 2 feet but one is 3 feet, bag seed, actually each seed is from a different bag. The tallest i started to train horizontally and I put some books under the short ones so they are all relatively close to the light. The two tallest are starting to "cone" at the top and are full of pistols. This is my first indoor grow and my first grow for about 10 years, I used to just plant some seeds in the back woods as a teenager and hope for the best by fall, with less then desirable results.

3 feet isn't a monster, but it is def a decent sized plant. what type of light are you using? thats what really defines how big you can grow your plants. a 3 footer should have 600 watt hps on it, because thats how far a 600w hps can penetrate (read that somewhere on these boards). its good that you are raising up the little ones to the light. that keeps growth more even.

I just had my first harvest...check out the picture and let me know how you think i did.

Wow, all the crystals, looks amazing!!!! I'm using an 8 bulb two foot long t5 system, my next grow i'm going to use a SCRog method, smaller plants, trained horizontal with the grow tips comming up through the screen I've read that will work better with my light setup, I dont have the funds for a HPS, well all the fans that i would have to install to keep my closet cool, and the fact that the t5s have shown no significant jump in the utility bill.

Did you get a weight on your harvest how much did you end up with.

i haven't weighed it yet, its still on the stems drying. once i cut them all off and get them ready to cure ( a few days) ill have a semi-dry weight so i can get an idea

Nugs look real good bro, keep up the good work

Hey on my first grow I had a similar opportunity to do the same thing which is to say it was the perfect little piece that I was in luck enough to see the piece was only ready-dry from the fact that it's indoor and had gotten no a bit of wetness to the budd.... and, damn it was a nice little perk at the beginning of my growing hobbies.