When to induce flowering

hello, I am a first time indoor grower and this is my first post. I have 3 Clones in a 3' by 4' by 7.5' indoor SunHut, a 400w HPS sunmaster bulb with a ballast and reflective hood, oscillating fan, out-take fan, and ducting connected to an A/C unit for temp control. Temp is between 73-83 (depending on time of day) and humidity is at about 40%. I am about three weeks into my vegetative growth. My plants went through some significant transplant shock and had minimal growth for about a week and a half but since have come around nicely. each plant is about 10-12 inches. I have been reading that many growers prefer to flower there plants anywhere between 1 and 2 feet (as opposed to waiting for significant growth) in order to harvest faster and more often and with fewer complications. SO, my question is when is the earliest i can start flowering; will it hurt my harvest or yield to do it earlier rather than waiting for larger plants? Any and all advice would be much appreciated on the question or with my setup in general.

Thanks

you can flower from seed
and yes it will hurt your yeild
more veg= bigger plants = bigger yeild
you have ot be prepared for 3X height when switching to flower
so grow ur plants as big as u can before switching

conepuller2299 said:

you can flower from seed
and yes it will hurt your yeild
more veg= bigger plants = bigger yeild
you have ot be prepared for 3X height when switching to flower
so grow ur plants as big as u can before switching

Click to expand...

Yeah this is right, although i gotta disagree with the x3 hieght increase during flowering. i know we always tell noobs x2, but even that is a stretch. I'd say they grow about 75-90% of thier veg hieght again during flowering, and once you get to about week 4 it's done, no more stretch, no more moving your light...for the most part. i have yet to see a plant TRIPLE in size, and I've seen a lot of plants! If your plants are stretching triple, thats a problem, because you dont want to be doing a lot of trimming or thinning during flower, and if a plant tripled during indoor flower you'd definitely see some pentration problems with the bottom buds. No i havent done a haze of 100% sativa, so obviously these tips won;t apply to a plant that flowers 12+ weeks or is pure tropical landstrain. Noobs don't grow shit like that though usually.

I like to veg until they are about 10-18 inches depending on strain, although some plants like White Widow do stretch out to double themselves, and if a plant looks "leggy" just top under the second true node. A big thing is, they do stretch out, so you can't have the nodes too tight in veg, you can't make them too squat. The more solid that top is teh more bud you get ...period. If you are doing some xmas tree indicas and you don't want a lot of side branching, flower they really fast, at like a foot ofr less and pack them in 4 to a square foot, although i don;t suggest that for noobs. i suggest 1 plant per sq ft, and vegging them to 12 or 14 inches tall of robust thick vegetation.

I think the biggest thing with vegging, and i mean it's one of the onyl things you can fuck up in veg it seems to me ( vegging is easy, they really are weeds) is getting the lights close enough. You want a plant that is really solid and robust. When a girl is ready to go 12/12. i want to look down from the top of her and see a "ball of leaves" Kind of a little measure to go by, if you look down on it and see the dirt in the pot, it's prolly gonna stretch to hell, fuck up your canopy, and yield alot less, with some of the lower buds being shitty. Now i know you don't want that?? lol

Thanks DankShasta, I think they are ready. My light was/is about 15" away give or take and inch. When i look down they seem robust with practically no dirt visible from the top. Two things I wanted to ask: What is so much more difficult about the flowering stage? & One of the leaves started to develop a small brown/ turing yellow splotch. It is less than the size of a dime(total area) and looks like some sort of pest by the way it is forming in little circles around a bigger area but I cant see anything on the top or underside of the leaves.... What is this and what do I do?? I will post pics later today when my lights are on and I have time.. thanks

Nicely put Dank... Ditto! What else would make plants stretch other than light distance?

I was told at one point that underwatering will make your plants stretch, but I think i was high when I heard it

Induce depending on your space limitations. If you drop fresh clones into flower immediately, they'll typically grow at least 3 times their original height, however if you drop a 6' plant into flower, it's not necessarily going to reach 18'. It also has a lot to do with the strain you're growing.