What height should I flower my plant?

[Urdedpal]

I have people ask me this question all the time and to be honest, I have a hard time explaining the magic number. Some people would say 12 inches, others might say 24 inches. But the height of when to flower depends on the plants genetic traits,type of lights,type of growing method, number of plants, and the grow environment.

Plant genetic traits:
You normally learn the genetic traits after your first grow but if you know the strain, seed banks do put info out so you can get the most out of the plant. A general rule of thumb is that a indoor plant will double or even triple its size. I go by 1 1/2 times to get one number.
Example, if I flower a plant at 14 inches, my finish target height is 35 inches.
Just remember some strains grow at different rates.

Type of light:
Some lights like HIDS (MH and HPS) get real hot so you have to account for that. It is best to keep HIDs 18 to 24 inches away from the plants, air cooled reflector can get closer, 1000w HIDs sometimes have to be as far as 3 1/2 feet away. Flouros need to stay as close as 2 to 6 inches. 6 is stretching it.

Growing methods:
Growing methods such as LST (low stress training) and SCROG (screen of Green) should be trained early and measured from the highest points of the plants. LST and Scrog slow plant height so take that into consideration.

Number of plants:
Every light has a footprint of how much light is distributed in a certain area. Plants don't just grow upward, they get fat too. Light can only penetrate the canopy so far. Its best to try and keep the canopy as even as possible for better light distrabution.

Grow environment:
Your grow environment is your grow room so a lot of that depends on how high you can place your lights. The shorter the ceiling the shorter the plants.

Source: Urdedpal at 420Magazine

 

[Urdedpal]

Any of that gibberish up there helps, give me a rep point please.

 

[POKINSMOT]

my rule o' thumb is flower at 1/2 the desired overall height......24 inches if you want em to be 48 inches...... thats good for the sativas any how.....otherwise i wait til the nodes start to stagger...0.02

 

[hippienicky]

I have heard you can start to flower at like 9 inches, I have never seen it done besides lowryder which is short anyway .In which you could do SoG but they would be like 1 alright sized bud maybe more anyone know about this even if they are not lowryder?

 

[GreenThumbsUp]

I've mothered a heavy indica, a heavy sativa, and a 50/50, and all 3 I flower at different heights due to my cabinet grow only having like 4 feet of useful grow space (if that much). The indica is a 2x, so I grow her to 1.5 feet. The sativa is like 4.5x before it stops so I try to flower it immediately upon the 3" clone hitting the flower chamber and I still usually end up LSTing them somewhat. The mix is about 3x on the money so I usually do her at 8"-12".

Urded is right on the money, it all depends on your grow environment. You'll get the hang of it after you've done the same plants or clones thereof a time or two.

 

[biodieselbenz]

I don't know where along the road I missed this concept of flowering based on a veg cycle height, but I did... and so yesterday I switched the timer to 12/12... it's been about 5 or 6 weeks since germination, and they are now 34" tall. Did I wait too long to flower? Should I have a higher yield as a reward for my patience? Or are there any negative effects of having it get this big before flowering?

Thanks for the input. You'll see a couple of pictures of my girl below... (I have recently taken care of the yellowing around the bottom leaves... they already look a ton better than even just two days ago).

-Trace

 

[Snoogenfro]

What would happen if you had 12/12 for the whole grow?

 

[ganjabang]

can i start flowering at about 7 or 8 inches

 

[Urdedpal]

Guess you did not bother to read the post^

 

[ganjabang]

lol im a moron sorry bout that

 

[Urdedpal]

To answer your Q on a one on one, yes but the plant has to reach maturity.
It would be best to use a clone since it is already mature or set up a screen to do a scrog. You can also tie it down and keep retieing it to keep that height.

 

[Red Eye Jedi]

can i start flowering at about 7 or 8 inches

you sure can. i flowered at 2 weeks when it was still at 7 inches. it's short and bushy and looks like a little palm tree...probably won't yield much, but it does work...i just did it to experiment..and i don't have alot of room.

 

[Jeffry420]

how much longer would u say mine has till its matured

 

[MortalWombat]

Your plant is already showing signs of sex. It is a female. You can see the pre-flowers (looks like little spikes) by the nodes. I suggest topping it and flipping it to 12/12 to start flowering. Your plant will most probably grow about 1.5 times its size now. If you think you will have height issues top her branches low and tie her down.

 

[featherdusta]

Mate i ve heard of people putting their clones str8 to flower in the black trays filled with scoria pebbles his aim was roughly oz per plant.He seemed to have success and it smoked well to.

 

[bezzab]

I'm sorry mortal wombat but I disagree with your opinion of the plants sex, my view of it tells me its a male, if you look at the top node that has started branching out I see a male pollen sac and also on the second set of nodes up from the bottom, the branch on the lefwould please tell us what the true sex was t hand side appears to have a pollen sac too. I cant see any pistils at all and I think you are mistaking new growth for pistils, its easy done though, when new leaves form the blades are really thin until they unfold as they get older, I could be wrong though, or you could be wrong but one of us is right, to be fair the plant is definatley mature enough to show sex because the nodes are no longer symmetrical, instead they stagger which is a sign of maturity and ready for the flip if you wanted to, with it being that mature you should definatley see pistils in the crooks of the nodes/branch stems on the main stem itself but true say you should also be seeing pollen sacs too, the plant will be long gone now, grown, chopped, dried, cured and smoked like it should be [if it was a female] so if the op would kindly tell us what the true sex was I would be very greatfu indeedl, I do hope I was wrong and the op got some quality smoke for his effort.