growth rates

You guys are all over the place, so, I'm going to bait you into some research and thought by asking a very basic question:

"What act, chemical, etc. triggers (and maintains) the cannabis flowering response?"

I'll jump in here and give everybody my 2 cents worth. I'm a certified master gardener, and during our classes we covered the flowering stages of plants and why they do it. It's because, when they're outside growing in the sun (which we try to imitate indoors, right?) they "know" its time to flower because the days are getting shorter (less than 12 hours of sunlight each day) and the growing season will end soon. So, the plants start to flower so they can reproduce before they don't have enough sunlight to grow or stay alive anymore. Less than 12 hours of darkness a day doesn't "tell" the plant that its time to flower. So, flowering will be stalled or not happen the way it should.