Advertised Flower Time compared to Actual?

So I have been growing for a little more than a year indoors, so I do not have I have a lot of experience or anything that is statistically relevant which is why i thought I would pose the question here.

In all or my grows I always have to harvest at least 2 weeks PAST the advertised flower/seed to harvest time on the seeds I have purchased.

example 1. I had auto said 60 days seeds to harvest (sweet seeds speed +; was free seed), at day 60 it still had no amber trichomes so I harvested at 80 days with ambers at around 10%. was my last grow and felt that the environment was near perfect and it yielded a lot for its size.
example 2. Had Jorge Diamonds #1 (excellent strain BTW), which had am advertised flowering time of 8.5 weeks or 60 days. I thought trichomes looks good at 75 days, I did veg it for super long (45 days) so that may of factored in.

I understand that things can effect harvest time, and maybe I am doing something EVERY grow to needless elongate flowering time. Either Way I thought I would ask if anyone else experiences the same thing or if majority of their plants are done in the advertised time. I ask as I have 2 tents, and want to be able to time my veg cycles better but is hard when all my grows go over...

Hey sadface, can't comment on the autos as I don't grow them but for reg/fem seeds it depends on when you're counting from. If you're counting from the day you flip to 12/12, add about 2 weeks on average so if that's how you were counting you're good. Some folks count from the day you start seeing some bud formation, which is typically 10-14 days into 12/12, same thing, just different. Last couple of rounds I stretch them at 14/10 for about 10 days, then flip to 12/12 and start counting at the 12/12 flip, they've finished right about the breeder's stated time. Of course there will be exceptions but it's a good rule of thumb.

Mine always go about the time stated. I count flowering days as soon as its flowering, which is first night of 12/12.
I mean usually some variation in phenos with certain strains. But I find times to be pretty accurate

Interesting, strains and phenos will definitely play into it, haven't had one finish in the stated time. Although I've just switched lights and I'm thinking this round will be finishing earlier rather than later or on time. So even lighting will play into it. Until this round I was running LED's so maybe that's another reason for the extended finish times...

Don't take this offensively, I've never used led. Just from what I hear.....

When I ran cfls my times jumped up about 2 weeks with the weaker lighting I guess. Not spectrum anyway

Letting my plants get root bound at the end of flower cuts my times about a week

Yeah lighting will definitely play into it. No offence taken, I'm not tied to any particular type of lighting, like to try new techs though, tried some cheap chinese LED's to see if they could flower and while they worked, buds were fluffy and no weight. Some high-end LED's are growing nice bud and I'm building some DIY's for smaller cabinets and side-lighting but decided to try something new this round with the Philips CMH and they're like 10-14 days ahead of my last LED round. The LED's though are fantastic for vegging, even the cheaper one's I tried are staying in my veg cabinets.

A huge amount of how long it takes a plant to flower is the maturity level when it begins to flower. Stress and many other variables will also impact it. However if the plant isn't fully mature when you flip it to 12/12 it WILL take longer to begin flowering then a mature plant. I don't usually count days on plants, just keep track of roughly what week each batch I run is in. The plants will finish when they finish, and imho I have never heard or seen a strain that HAD to be harvested a certain day.

I do not begin to consider a plant to be flowering until it actually begins to form pistils and start to flower. The time that it takes for the plants to begin this process is called the transition phase, and is commonly overlooked by indoor growers. It happens smoothly and naturally outside and growers consider their plants flowering when they show the physical traits of flowering. Indoors growers seem to think that just because they switched their lights to 12/12 that the plants spontaneously begin to flower, which in my experience isn't true. Even a fully mature plant will typically take 6-8 days to show the physical traits of a flowering plant, that is the plants transition. A immature plant can take much longer sometimes 2-3 weeks depending on other genetics factors.

Now I'm not saying its wrong to count time from 12/12 or that one way is right and the other is wrong. What I'm saying is this.

The plants aren't gonna be done until they are done, so when you start counting, or when the breeder says the strain will be finished doesn't really matter. I've got about 7 strains running right now, and they all have very different flower times. So the plants just get cut when they finish, not at some arbitrary harvest date.

Yeah, good points, a lot of factors and variables definitely play into it, and the biggest point is it's just a guide, like you said, they'll finish when they're ready.

Thank you all for your very thought out replies. It all makes sense to me, I knew a lot of things could effect peoples flowering time. I always base my harvest on trichomes ignoring the amount of time it takes, but thought was curious that mine always ran longer.

Also subbed to your grow GroErr looks interesting. Thanks again!

-Face