There are a few things i have been puzzled by because i hear alot of different things on these subjects.

#1: Does Purning increase your yield?
i have heard it does
and i have heard that it just incourgaes it to grow 'sideways' so its shorter rather than taller, but if it is growing two branches from the 1 you cut, wouldnt it yield more?

#2:
I know it's totally up to you when to start flowing, but what's a good time to start for a semi decent yield? im looking to grow enough so i can smoke for free but am unsure about how much i will actually yield

It really depends on how and what you prune. If you prune the lower branches, the ones that recieve little to no light, it allowes the energy that the plant would put into this part of the plant to put the energy where it counts on the main cola and allowes the plant to produce bigger buds.
I believe that your question is more aimed at topping than pruning. Some strains do better topping than others. Topping a plant does produce more buds, but more buds does not mean more yeild as topping a plant will sometimes make smaller buds on your cola's cause there is two main cola's to provide energy to. Other plants (depending on the strain) do better if topped.

It all depends on how much room you have. I would say indoors never let your plant go over 2' before flowering unless you have massive amounts of light. They can be flowered anytime you want but most people wait for 4 to 6 nodes before flowering. Twelve inches or so is when most people flower and end up with a three footer or so. In the end it is all up to you!!!!

Hmm, really, so, i thought that when you go to flower the plant no longer grows? the plant can really grow two more feet? in tht case i guess i will be starting to flower soon if my plants survive whatever is wrong with them at the moment, thanks for calirfying as even readign all of the guides out there you dont get very detailed information out of most of them. that does not include the guides on this site as i just found this site and i am reading them as i am posting

sorry for the double post but i had another question, alot of the guides i have read do reccommend HPS lights but said flouro wasnt that bad, and from what ive read on here so far people here use like alot of flouro lights, im using a 1 4 ft cool white flouro, is that going to effect my bads that badly? and is there anything i should do different becuase i only have this much light? i did think of purchasing a HPS but it would be quite idfficult to get rid of the heat unless i cut a hole in the wall for an exaust fan. lol. should i get another flouro?

You will not produce shit with one floro tube! You need to get a hps or t5 floro's. Compact floro's work good too. I would recommend getting some cfl's as many as you can afford. If you want to stick with floro tubes (t12) you need to get as many as you can. During flowering you want to use warm white floro's as your primary with a few cool whites mixed in. The warm white bulbs but out a red spectrum where the cool whites are more in the blue spectrum.

Yes your plants will double if not triple in size when you switch to 12/12!

If you have the money buy a HID system and use the floro's for side lighting!
The more light the better if you can control temps. If you have no way of venting your room go with cfl's as they work well for growing if you use a lot of them. Get the highest wattage cfls you can find and 10,000 lumen's should be your min to get good results.

More than likely your problem your having with your plants is that they are starving for light. Get more lighting ASAP!!!!

what are cfl's?

compact fluorescents

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- J.C.

im having a problem finding cfls, i went to home depot and couldnt find anything called a compact floro.. is it under a difference name? i play on buying some more of the lights i have now, and also some warm white bubls for flowering, thx for the tip

cfl's are the swirly (for lack of a better word at the moment) bulbs that are suposed to save energy and such.

Attached Images

CFL's.JPG (74.0 KB, 15 views)

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Marijuana: Nature's Way Of Saying High

Just about everyone sells em you should have no problem finding them. Just ask a sales person for energy saving light bulbs and they will point you in the right direction.