When to flower?

Total noob with what's probably a pretty common question: When to flip to flower mode? My plants are a couple of months old, but proper lighting didn't get put onto them for their first few weeks of life so for their age, theyre pretty small probably. They now seem healthy, each more than a foot tall and growing at approx. average of 1/3 of an inch per day. They aren't showing gender yet and I do NOT want them to get super tall. I know they'll add quite a bit of height during flower, and would rather keep them on the small side for space's sake. If they seem healthy and are growing quickly, can I turn them onto 12/12 schedule at any time? PS, unknown genetics, all from bag seed, but they look like an ind/sat cross.

anytime you want man. Some won't show sex until after u start flowering cycle. You say over a foot tall, and you want them to stay short, I suggest you start flowering them soon.

............ and should i put them in total darkness for 24 hours before flipping to 12/12???

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i am on about the biggest one at the back thay all spruted within 5days of each outher, i would love 4ft buded hight its 1ft (30cm) at the min thare in 25cm pots

what have you had them on 24/7 ? or18/6? 24/7 just do it with in a timeframe that suits you or youre electrisity company if thare on something like 18/6 extend the darkness houres starting from when it goes dark in thare presntly just insted of doing 6 do 12hr outherwise you could shock the plant..

they've been on 18/6. One plant is about 13 inches tall, the other approaching 16 inches.

well im new to this to but ive done alot of resurch as i waant them to pay for thair own grow bacicly, but i think what you want to know is thay should grow a 3rd to twice as tall during flowering we could be talking 17 - 26 inch if flowerd now i hope this hellps,

flowering time is dependent on your grow room, namely ceiling height. for example, lets say you have a grow box that's 6 feet tall, and your lights take up 6 inches of the ceiling space, that leaves you with approx 5.5 feet of of vertical space for your grow. obviously you cant grow the plants right up to the bulbs so you're gonna need another roughly 6 inches of airspace from the top of the plants to the light blubs. this now leaves you with 5 feet of vertical space. as a general rule mj roughly doubles in size once you start flowering. if you have 5 feet to work with you'll want to flower at 2-2.5feet and end up with a 4-5ft plant when you're done. this is a generalization and you will have to work with your plant for more then 1 grow to know how much she stretches during flowering and when is the best time to flower her for your space available. whatever you do try not to overgrow your space, youll end up causing problems that are easily avoidable.

Well, I just wanted to make sure they were old enough and were good and stout before i put them to flower. Thanks for the replies.