Hello all, i'm troubled as most noobies are as to when to flower. I've read tons of articles and i know the idea is to judge it by how much vertical space you have left before they are at risk of being burned, but it seems as though my problem is horizontal space .... I'm growing THC Bomb from bomb seeds http://www.bombseeds.nl/thc-bomb.html I'm using 6 buckets, 5 gallon each, all connected to a main reservoir, sort of a half DWC half Aero set up. I've been using a 1000 Watt HPS since they sprouted so needless to say they are EXTREMELY bushy little bitches. They are roughly 15" tall, and about 22" wide! I have 50" of space until they hit the light from the top of the bucket (bottom of the plant) to the bottom of my air cooled hood. I have a powerful fan sucking air through the hood from the tent and out of the tent, so i'd say they could probably get to about 10" from the light and be fine, leaving them 40" of total space. Now the website say that they are Indica/Sativa mix but from what i've seen they are mostly indica, with how damn bushy they are. Either that or it's just the high penetration of the 1000W light. SO vertically speaking, i'd say i could allow them to get to 20" safely before flowering, HOWEVER they are starting to overlap each other something major. Alright now with all that information being said, my 2 questions are as follows: *Should i be safe and flower now?! Or wait until they are 20" tall for a better yield. *Do indica Dominant strains tend to double in width like they do in height when flowering is induced? OR will they stay their current fattiness and stretch up? I know the second is a bit of a tough question to answer if you have no experience with my strain. However, i'd love to hear some advice. As of now i'm leaning towards flowering them ASAP to be safe incase they stretch something fierce. I just dont want to be a noobie who flowers too early and hurts yield. All advice welcome! Ps. sorry i can't add pics
I would flower now. Plants can stretch up to 3x in flower, which would put you 5" over your 40" limit already.