How long into flower does a plant typically stretch?

[DirtyDanny]

Anyone have any expierenced opinion on how much a mostly indica strain will stretch during flowering?
Im running a 600 watt LED over a single plant in a 4X4' tent in a 7 gal airpot with FFOF soil.
Shes been in flower for about 4 weeks now and has roughly doubled her height with no signs of stopping anytime soon.
She puts on about 1-1/2" of stretch a day....and I fear im gonna run outta room.
My LED light is VERY intense....so I have to keep it at least 24" from the canopy or it starts bleaching the shit outta the leaves.
I only have about 12" of "buffer" height left in the tent before I start breaching the 24" safe zone.
Whats the typical overall stretch for indoor indica? Thanks in advance!

 

[Resin Raver]

Hello mate. A strain mainly Indica should really only double in size. I've never used LED lights but with good old Sodium your plants really should stop stretching at just gone 3 weeks into bloom. The plants will still grow, but on a slower scale. At 4 weeks in the only real growth should be the fattening of heads. HH....

 

[DirtyDanny]

Thanks HH..........
Maybe its just the LED and Co2 enrichment?
She is still stretching alot and hasnt really started swelling the buds much at all........a little but not much.
This is my 1st LED grow, so I have no idea what to expect? (i always used HPS in the past)
I guess this is a "good" problem to have.........just not what I expected at all.
In veg she didnt grow vertically much at all.......she just grew REALLY wide with extremely tight nodes.
It was just a thick mass of leaves! But now she seems like shes making up for lost time....

 

[Resin Raver]

Whats the daytime temps like mate??? If very hot that could maybe course extra stretch. All the best man and fingers crossed that bitch stops stretching. HH....

 

[DirtyDanny]

My tent temps were about 79-80F up until a week ago........its has cooled off outside from the high 80's down to a more comfortable 70F.
That made my tent temp drop down to about 71-72........so I hooked my Co2 system back up yesterday and sealed the tent back up.
The tent temp this morning was 82F with the Co2 system running in the sealed tent.

 

[donpaul.p]

if the temps are running high then the plant will stretch to reach cooler air, but as your growing indoors this means the higher the plant gets the hotter the temp is so the plant will continue to stretch, but without high temps and the light been to far away you should get roughly double size, so a 1ft indica will stretch to 2ft then stop stretching, but it all depends on strain, some do very little stretch while others will stretch like crazy,

but usually the stretch period is around week 1 of 12-12 and continues up till wek 3 or 4 at the most,

let me explain why the plant is stretching just to do with the lights,
when the lights go off the plant uses its stored energy to repair damaged down during the lights on period, it also uses its stored energy to grow more root mass, but like most plants when the lights are off the plant stretches to find the light again, you can see this yourself by having a plant or a branch thats in the shade, if a branch of plant is in the shade then it will stretch like crazy until it find the light,

so when you go from a veg schedule to a 12-12 schedule the plant stretches during the 12 hour dark period as its trying to find the light just like any plant does thats in the shade, so the first few weeks of 12-12 the plant stretches until it gets used to the 12-12 period and its then in flower so branch growth slows and flower production takes over,

so if its just because of the 12-12 its stretching then id says its not far off finished as long as you have flowers forming, but id have plants stretch for anything from 2 to 4 weeks of 12-12, so id say its about done if its just stretching because of the 12-12 schedule,

the other ways it will stretch is due to high temps, outdoors plants grow to reach cooler air so they do the same indoors but this just brings them closer to the light and into warmer air higher in the grow space, so they do stretch because of this so keeping temps in range will stop the stretch and keep the plants happy,
the last thing id say causes stretch is distance to the light, due to temps been high where i am ive had to raise my 400 watt dual spec hps, now i dont normally suffer with big node spacing but because temps are high and ive had to raise the light i have noticed im getting a lot more stretch this time round, so distance from light and high temps will cause stretch,

if it has high temps late in flower then the buds will stretch to get into cooler air this can lead to fluffy buds so keeping the temps in check with help all round

 

[DirtyDanny]

Thanks for the great "seminar" on stretch DonPaul!
I can honestly say that I never knew any of that ...............I think one of the mods should make that a "sticky".
Learn somethin new everyday

 

[donpaul.p]

its cool no worries, just doing my bit to help,

any problems drop me a pm and ill do my best to answer,

 

[Conradino23]

What strain is this? Are you sure it's 100% indica? How do you count your flowering time? It doesn't start to flower right after you switch to 12/12, it really starts blooming 2-3 weeks after that. If you want to control your stretching, trim the lower leaves, it's gonna take the steam out a bit.

 

[DirtyDanny]

What strain is this? Are you sure it's 100% indica? How do you count your flowering time? It doesn't start to flower right after you switch to 12/12, it really starts blooming 2-3 weeks after that. If you want to control your stretching, trim the lower leaves, it's gonna take the steam out a bit.

The strain is "Motavation" by serious seeds. Its Warlock X Sensi Star...Its supposed to be "mostly indica" but exact ratio is unknown.......
Flowering time was calculated from the time I cut the light back to 12/12......it started budding about 3 days later
The stretching has finally stopped after about doubling her size........just waiting for the nugs to fatten now

 

[donpaul.p]

i find trimming the top set of fan leaves stops upwards growth, it works similar to fimming,

i remove the top set of fan leaves on each stem, then the lower branches catch up and grow while a new set of fan leaves form,

conrad is right about the 12-12, plants dont start flowering strait away as it depends how mature the plant is, if the plants fully mature when you flip to 12-12 then it will flower much sooner often within 7 to 10 days, but if a plant is not showing sex before you flip 12-12 then the plant has to mature before it starts to flower

indoor growers count day 1 of flower as the 1st day you flipped to 12-12
outdoors you start flowering when the plant shows signs of flower so their is some difference in indoor and outdoor flower times, but indoors we say 12-12 is start of flower schedule.

removing any leaves will stunt growth but i find removing the top set of fan leaves slows the main stem down and allows the rest of the plant to catch up, also distance from light will affect the stretch as well.

you can veg with a different schedule which will slow down the stretch when you flip 12-12, if you use something like gas lantern routine or 17-7 then the stretch will be a lot less once you flip to 12-12, it stretches as the plant is used to having more light so its looking for the light again, all plants do this during the dark period and plants in the shade also do the same

 

[donpaul.p]

sounds like your on your way to some very nice buds then,

 

[DirtyDanny]

sounds like your on your way to some very nice buds then,

I sure hope so...........They dont really seem to be getting any fatter but.......... they are getting MUCH frostier!
The sugar leaves are bursting with trichs from stem to the leaf tips, seems to have doubled the frost over a few days.
Im wondering why they arent fattening up????
We went camping this weekend and when we came home this afternoon..............HOLY SHIT........the smell about knocked me over when I opened the front door!
My Ona Gel needs to hurry up and get here.......my house is freakin stankin up in here!

 

[donpaul.p]

the buds really start to fatten up in the last 2 weeks, the calyx or seed pods will swell and look like they got seeds in them, so their is time to fatten up yet, the last 2 weeks to last week is the time when the buds get fat, before then their slowly start joining up into bigger buds then they just fatten up ready for harvest,

 

[DirtyDanny]

Awesome Donpaul.................
this is just the start of week 6 so plenty of time to fatten up i guess?
Im just getting worried cause Im getting lots of orange pistils.....so they seem to be maturing faster than normal.
Im gonna pick up a 100X magnifying glass tomorrow to gauge how far along they actually are.
This is susposed to be a 8-9 week strain.......but they budded really fast so I think they might finish early.
Time will tell............