When Should I Flower My Girls? (1st Grow with Pics)

Hi Rollitupers,

I was wondering if anyone could please give me any advice on when to flower my blue cheeses? They're at about 21 days from seed.

For more info and the rest of my grow click on the link to my journal in the signature. Got a shining silver haze, amnesia haze, A5 haze and a mutated kush as well.

cheers

TheCannabist

Howdy mate! First of all, a warm welcome to the board and to many grows! hehe

Your plants look very nice. I'm also a first time grower, but I can tell your little girls look very healthy. Done any feeding so far? Just out of curiosity, comparing results

Basically, you could flower any day now. You can also flower 12/12 from seed if you want, no problem.But, I myself would want to veg for 30 days at least so that the plant gets time to mature. I waited on mine about 29 or exactly 30 days, a couple of days after preflowers appeared I put it under flowering schedule (12/12 and replaced lights with warm whites; not sure what you're using). Look for preflowers, as they're the plant way way of telling you they're ready to produce bud. You might want to procure a magnifying glass for this though, makes things easier. The preflowers can also be seen with the naked eye, 3-4 days after they start developing starting from the 4th node above. You just really need to look and you might think at first they're very little shoots forming. If you see 2 little white "threads" coming out of them, there you have your preflowers. Now I know male preflowers look different so don't panic if you don't see the "threads" - the pistils actually. Some preflowers just don't show them. On my plant only half of the preflowers had pistils, the rest didn't. Turned out female

If you don't want to wait, you can also go now. Would like to see what an experienced grower has to say about this, I haven't got very much experience on my hands and I don't want to talk out of my ass.

Well then, these are my 2c I guess...happy growing once more!

Flowering at this point won't give you the yield/taste a prolongued veg periode does.
I've grown 12/12 from seed, it depends on strain, but in general i got sh***y yields.
I can see you got plenty of room, just wait till they reach about 50cm, then you flower, keep in mind that size doubles-triples in flowering so keep height/room between plants in check.

just like dude said above.. you could flower any time you want. Factors to keep in mind would be: 1) HEIGHT - during the first few weeks of flowering your plants will STRETCH.. ALOT (depending on plant, 1.5-3x initial size of plant going into flowering is normal), so if you're low on height for your grow, flower earlier. If you're limited on room, it's good to leave your metal halide or other blue spectrum bulb on them for a week (or mix red/blue).. it will lessen the stretch. Remember that you need some distance from the bulb (especially HID) so keep that in mind. You can also use Bushmaster, which will make your plant bushier, stop height growth, and reduce a possibly week off flowering 2)STRAIN - some of the purer sativas only need a 2-3 week veg period, and that's all you want really, because they will get very tall. 3) EQUIPMENT - if you don't have a nice big 400w+ HPS for multiple plants, then you are going to have problems with light penetration unless you are lollipopping, because the density of the foliage is too much for proper lighting to get to the bottom of your plant. Also.. unless you have good ventilation or a cooltube.. you will have to keep the light farther away to maintain good temperatures, which MAY increase stretch (more heat = bigger stretch = less potency) 4) YIELD - if you have the room, you have the light, and you are going with a more indica dominant strain, you're going to want to wait longer, if you have the time, that is. Longer the wait in veg, the bigger yield (obviously), so it's something to keep in mind. If you're plant is throwing preflowers, it's a clear sign it's ready for flowering.. but the wait is all up to you, your room, your equipment, and your expectations.

hope that helps.. if you want more info.. please be more specific about your setup.

On another note, personally, I started flowering @ 18 days from seed.. I'm limited on height and only using 400 watt HPS.. Now 22 days into flowering.. All plants have thrown preflowers everywhere, after throwing some extra nodes, and lateral branching.. and are still growing pretty fast.. FINALLY slowing down. They were 5-8" in Height when I started flowering.. and they are now @ 27-32".. some height was caused from heat stress, more yet from using HPS, the rest was from mostly sativa dominant plants.

ValiD said:

Howdy mate! First of all, a warm welcome to the board and to many grows! hehe

Your plants look very nice. I'm also a first time grower, but I can tell your little girls look very healthy. Done any feeding so far? Just out of curiosity, comparing results

Basically, you could flower any day now. You can also flower 12/12 from seed if you want, no problem.But, I myself would want to veg for 30 days at least so that the plant gets time to mature. I waited on mine about 29 or exactly 30 days, a couple of days after preflowers appeared I put it under flowering schedule (12/12 and replaced lights with warm whites; not sure what you're using). Look for preflowers, as they're the plant way way of telling you they're ready to produce bud. You might want to procure a magnifying glass for this though, makes things easier. The preflowers can also be seen with the naked eye, 3-4 days after they start developing starting from the 4th node above. You just really need to look and you might think at first they're very little shoots forming. If you see 2 little white "threads" coming out of them, there you have your preflowers. Now I know male preflowers look different so don't panic if you don't see the "threads" - the pistils actually. Some preflowers just don't show them. On my plant only half of the preflowers had pistils, the rest didn't. Turned out female

If you don't want to wait, you can also go now. Would like to see what an experienced grower has to say about this, I haven't got very much experience on my hands and I don't want to talk out of my ass.

Well then, these are my 2c I guess...happy growing once more!

Click to expand...

Cheers for the advice mate! Will look into the preflowers, but I'm pretty sure there aren't any yet. Cheers for the compliments I'm glad someone else thinks they look good. I will keep waiting for a while longer definitely, but just want to gauge at want point i should switch them.

BTW i'm using a 600W hps, but for all the grow info and the rest of my grow check the journal link. I haven't fed the BC's yet as I'm using plagron royalty mix which has a lot of slow release nutes in it. I actually gave a couple of the older girls slight nute burn when i fed them so playing it safe with the BC's. The two sativa looking phenos are showing slight signs of burn without me adding anything, but it could be something else...

Merry growing to you too!

TeAmoMota and Skataman thanks very much for the advice! that really helps guys and I think I'm probably gona switch them at the end of this week. I have a 600W hps with an Adjust-A-Wing, this should help with lollipopping right?

Cheers!