When should I flower?

I am new here, this is my first post and first grow. This is a little over a third week of veg since I started them from clones. I am growing 12 plants in 3 gallon pots. I was wondering if someone could tell me when is the best time to start flowering. I can see pistills so from what I have read they are mature enough to flower but I want to know when is the best time to flip so that I can yield the best amount. Also will plants become over crowded? I have included a picture of when I started the clones and how tall the plants are now. They are about 1' in height.


Strain: Phantom Cookies
Lights: 1 1000 watt mh bulb
Tent: 8'x4x6'
Soil: fox farm ocean forrest

You better flower them now, you're going to get crowded in that tent real fast with 12 plants the size those are right now. The more time you spend vegetating more time there is for things to go wrong. If they're healthy and four weeks old then go for it. They look prime right now. Nice set up

You're going to wake up one night and hear what sounds like a riot going on in there.. Plants pushing and shoving each other.. cursing, Bottles being thrown etc

Looks great. Awesome veg growth. Flower now. If things get crazy crowded just pull out the weak ones. Make sure to keep really good air flow and clean up the bottoms really well. You don't want mold.

You may also run out of height. If that happens super crop them and tie down tall shoots.

I would top and flower the same day, this will reduce the plant growth in flower and give you a large yeild

Flower them now, they will fill the tent easier than You think. Good for first time

Thanks for the replies! I will flip them today.

ide do 10 plants and flower at 25" but I also know how much my plants stretch so that is factered in.

I would start flower now and nice plants

A rule of thumb is to go to 12/12 when your vegging plants are one-half as tall as you want them to be at harvest. So look at your flowering set-up and figure how close to the light your plants would be if they double in size. Most of my veggers go from 24/0 to 12/12 at 20-25 inches. I know they will pretty much double in height while flowering and finish well under my 1000W flowering bulb.

Good luck, BigSteve.

bigbud217 said:

Thanks for the replies! I will flip them today.

Click to expand...

Fine job!

yeah, nice! you can flower a plant at 8 or 9 inches if you wanted to. When I went from outdoor to indoor, the seed breeder kind of recommended that, flower small as not to overgrow your space and to have enough light coverage...

you'll have it figured out for the next time...

and in my experience they can double in size or even a little bit more than double...seen 9" wind up 24"

I run multiple strains...sometimes they grow at different rates...the biggest can be 17" while another strain is just getting to 8" or 9".
As soon as the smallest is at least 8"...I go into flower.

when you go to flower plants indoors you want them very short and bushy, this will give you the best yeild
try and keep a good canopy shape, the last thing you want is a few long shoots in a room, this will give you a low yeild