When do you start flower?

hey im deep into my 3rd grow and just realized that ive most likely been force flowering every time. I found that your suposed to wait until the nodes alternate and preflowers appear. However i have been flowering after a month of veg, even though niether signs of maturity are present in that time. I did it the first grow because i had decided to flower at 1', and got in the habit; i then flowered at 4 weeks for the next 2 grows.
So i am now wondering; how many weeks does it usualy take an indica dominant strain to reach maturity. (show preflowers and staggering nodes)
thanks in advance, and +rep for good answers

bumpbumpbump

I have a friend in the Netherlands who owns a grow shop, he told me to put them in flower when they are around 30 cm, or just about 1 foot.

It took my indica dominant strain 6 weeks to show preflowers, but I feel I could have put her into flower earlier.

If your plant is 1 foot tall now, and if I were you, I'd go ahead and put her in 12/12

hope that helps!

Johnny

I usually wait until it pre-flowers, depends on the strain but usually it starts to show when its starts to get 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 feet tall, for me thats 4-8 weeks in veg, by that time hairs will show or balls will start to form, I always expect it to double in size when it goes to flowering so it depends on your space, but once it shows hairs I put mine to 12/12 and then start counting the days, 8-12 weeks later she should be ready to harvest. Hope that helps.

for me thats 4-8 weeks in veg

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+1... Normally 6-8 weeks in veg, I dont go by height so much as I like to keep mine as compact as possible under CFLs until they preflower then let em stretch out a lil under the HPS in 12/12

Depends on the strain for showing pre flowers in veg. I will tell you that Serious Seeds show in about 4 weeks!! Thats about the earliest i've seen. I have only done 2 of their strains but others have chimed into my threads and said the same about other Serious Seeds strains. They only have a few and all are DANK!

Other than that, I normally flower after 4 weeks give or take a week. That is mainly due to my verticle height and my 400w HPS. I just let my plants grow naturally, no bending etc...

hmm interesting stuff. My haze is about 12 weeks into flower btw and starting to put on some gd budage. Probably gonna give her up to 16 weeks just to make sure i get all she has to offer. She was flowered at 3 weeks, any longer and she would have been massive
for my next grow im going to have some amstel gold (passion 1) and maybe some cheese and trainwreck. I have a ton of seeds to choose from i went over board on seed purchases lol. So im trying to predict how long i should veg em for the next grow (not current)
I also have been flowering at 1' or 4 weeks, but i heard that by waiting until week 6 you can increase yield. Perhaps ill stick to the 4 weeks so i can have a 3 month cycle. But the amstel gold is suposed to finish in 6 weeks, and if it does i wouldnt mind giving it more veg time
heres some shots of the arjans ultra haze #2 under a 1000hps in a 3x2 lol temps never exceed 88F

forgot to include my seed list. Ive got 11 packets sitting in the frig, and all of em are fems
GREENHOUSE
white widow x5
trrainwreck x5
alaskan ice x5
big bang x5
AMS x5
The church x5
Lemon skunk x5

MIXED packet
White widow x2
El nino x2
Cheese x2
Himilaya gold x2
Big bang

Dutch passion
Passion #1 (Amstel Gold)

ya it all depends really... I try to flower when I see alternating nodes... that tells me she's ready to flower and also it's about a foot tall (that's for indica's anyway) that's all I grow... what are you growing ? sativa's 3' + just depends on indica/sativa dom

After you go through puberty?

Of course you can flower at any time you want. A good way to ensure your plant reaches maturity is to keep it in veg light 18/6 for up to 3 months this will help your plant produce the most flowers it can. This can usually cause height problem unless you train your plant by using LST or by snipping and triming to keep it short and fill out wider.

Depending on your light (I didn't read what your flower light is?) you may not want to get a full veg and actually trim off all but the main cola and top most branches to get a good canopy and not waste energy developing smaller less dense buds down lower on the plant.

Staggered nodes really don't mean much IMO. I have 3 White Widow and 3 Chrystal that are 3 weeks from seed and are showing alternating nodes and they are far from mature. I am clipping and training all of them now to keep them short and bushy until I choose a mother. I just took some cuttings and hope they throw roots in the next week so I can move them to flower and identify the girls.

Hope this helps!

Stonerguy said:

under a 1000hps in a 3x2 lol temps never exceed 88F

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Unless you are supplementing with CO2 you need to get that temp down. Plants with CO2 enrichement up to 1500ppm can handle higher temps and more nutes.

Temps that high without CO2 will slow development and possibly reduce your final product quantity and quality.

not being critical just throwing in my 2cents