Should I flower?

I was planning on vegging for another week, but the growth exceeds what I expected. I'm starting to think if I wait to long, my tent will be overgrown, and in the end possibly hurting yield. This is my second grow, and the first one didn't go so well so I never had to have that in consideration.



Here they are 16.5 days ago, there about one weeks difference between the two sets.



The bottom square pot is the front middle pot, the top square one is in the top right.

The bigger ones are about 13" tall, and 16-17" wide. Should I flower now, or wait a few days?

Also, they're on different watering schedules, none of the bottom fan leaves have fallen off, but they are limp, so getting in there to water is a pain. Are those bottom fan leaves necessary anymore, can I trim them off?

I'd leave the fans leafs if I were you...and you can flower any time you like. If they're indicas they'll double in height and girth by the end of flowering, sativas even more so.
Good call anticipating if you're going to have room for them...often one of the nicer grow problems.

I would or at least lst
if you put a scrog net in there your yield would be awesome

another option is top the larger ones and let the short ones catch up

...if you top them you're best off waiting a further week or two for the two branches to develop...

you can trim the lowest leaves if you really like with no ill effect just dont go crazy....i would wait until they are at least 18 inches before flowering..you will be happy you waited a bit longer

Already topped the newest growth tip on two of them about a week ago, top left is not topped, most compact one. The runt(VK) had stunted growth, dull stains and kinda twisty leaves that I never figured out from what, growth has gotten better, but I don't trust it on catching up anytime soon. OG is LST'd, grew vertically very fast. Pretty sure it'd be too late for the others, unless I need to tie them down during stretch to keep an even canopy, stem thickness is about the thickness of my middle finger/thumb. And the Bubba is just as tall as the AIs (couple less inches of coco in the pot, was supposed to have 5 in there, and I ran out of coco). I like the scrog idea, but I'm hand watering, always moving plants around while watering, and using very small saucers, so this time around can't .

At this rate 18 inches would take another 10+ days I think (mostly side growth lately), and by then the space might be completely crowded, and if they double in size after that, wouldn't it be overkill for the 4x4 space?

Not all fan leaves, just the bottom ones laying limp on top of the coco, very first two, possibly three sets, haven't had any fall off naturally yet.

If they're constantly lying on the coco I would be more inclined to trim it away.
(I guess this advice makes me either (a) a hypocrite or (b) open minded...I'm gonna take my pick )

long as you can get airflow through them id rather have a full room

well i personally could comfortably grow about 9-12 plants if they are in buckets and quite a bit more if they are in rubbermaids, to the point of 18 or so inches then flower them without a problem all depends on proper training..also the end goal is as much potent pot as possible so imo a bit of crowding beats smaller plants because any slight loss you take from shadowing will be far out weighed by the loss you would take from smaller less mature plants that were just topped!

My Indica tripled in size, and Sativa more than tripled, if that helps any with your height estimate.

Yeah I always ponder the same thing....I now tend do flower even earlier than I want with my clones because lately I have been running heavy sativa like G13 x haze with more indica strains mixed and it becomes a pain in the ass adjusting light height. I would if I were you imo.