we just switched it to 12 hours light 12 hours dark three days ago. When will the buds start forming? how long do we let it bud before cropping the plant?
A minimum of two days before the first preflowers, or it can take as long as a week. Any longer and there's likely a problem. Giving the plants extra Potassium can cause preflowers to appear faster. Enough K can even cause vegging plants in 24/0 to preflower.
depending on the strain and phenotype it could be anywhere from a 7 week flowering cycle to a 12 week flowering cycle, from that picture it looks kind of smaller and bushy, so i would say it is more indica so it will flower faster, as far as how fast flowers start to form i would say anywhere from 2 weeks to a month depending again on strain and phenotype, but they will kick into flowering mode, another good way to trigger the flowering process faster is put the plant in darkness for 24hrs, and depending on what nutrient line you use the better results you will see with bloom boosters, and base nutrient mixes along with sweetners and bud hardners, i would recommend going to your hydro store and getting some good flower nutrients i recommend advanced nutrients they are worth every penny! you are going to want a nutrient solution with more Potassium and Phosphorous then Nitrogen good luck Blade!!!
yeah, the indica is more dominant. thanks for the advice, its growing really good right now. Its already gotten a bit taller since we switched the lighting hours. Although, im not sure what strain it is. Were just going to have to wait until it starts budding.