When should i Flower? & how much Yield to expect

[PresaGuy91]

Good day All,
So my license is coming in the mail from Health Canada finally! which is good because i think my plants need to be switched to flower soon.
For equipment i have got 1 1000W air cooled reflector grow light, connected to a 600W Bat wing(which im not a huge fan of) reflector hood.
at the top of the tent i have a Carbon filter attached to a 6" inline fan blowing at about 400 cfm.(not sure exactly)- this is connected to the 1000W hood and connected to the 600W hood and vented outside.

i have venting running from the AC vent in the room directly to plant level inside the tent to keep things nice and cool and i have 2 oscilating fans, one with a CO2 boost bucket connected to it for CO2 for the ladies

Right now i have 13 plants going and i have LST'd most of them- even (especially) the autoflowers-(there are 4 autos) and topped the ones getting too tall as well and plan on topping the rest. Right now i have 1 Northern Lights x Big Bud Auto and 3 Dutch Passion Think Different Autos. and for the regular photoperiod plants i have 5 Jock Horror sativas, 1 Pink Kush, 1 LA Chocolat, 1 Afghan Kush, & 1 Critical Sensi Star.

So, the Pictures of the plants in the Big buckets are the most updated..probably from 3 days ago. I am wondering if i should switch to flower now, or wait a bit and how much yeild i should be expecting with these girls.
Thanks!

 

[Coke420]

Re: When should i Flower? & how much Yeild to expect.

Transplant if they are root bound and switch to flower!

 

[Fuzzy Duck]

Re: When should i Flower? & how much Yeild to expect.

Well end yield is effected by many different factors... to many to explain over my morning coffee.


Over all size of plant is one of them the larger the plant & in theory the greater the yield... the smaller the plant the less yield - SOG, sea of grean use's this method of many smaller plants grown in an area to effectively give a massive yield.

Super cropping can enhance yield with LST being one of the more beginner friendly methods.


Method of cultivation also has an effect whether grown in soil, coco or hydro may effect end yield also... but a lot of this is down to experience of the grower over many harvests.


At present size of the plants i would expect some where between 14g to 28g dry weight per plant if put into flowering at that size...

I would personally give em a couple more weeks of veg !




Oh ye on a side note - ya air cooled hoods are some distance from the plants.... kinda defeats the object of air cooled hoods when they can be much closer to counter the square law of light effect when compared to using regular open hoods


Basically means more light energy to the plant the shorter the distance of source of the light, effectively may enhance yield !

 

[PresaGuy91]

Re: When should i Flower? & how much Yeild to expect.

Okay, so I should be putting my lights closer? Right now the lights are about 1.5 ft from the tops of the plants. The picture with the plants and light hood together is fron a few weeks ago. Now the plants are in 8 gallon pots and are closer to the lights.
Thanks for the replies.

 

[Fuzzy Duck]

Re: When should i Flower? & how much Yeild to expect.

1.5 ft to 2 ft should be fine with the air cooled hoods...


Any closer than 1.5 ft keep an eye out for heat stress as ya got some pretty big wattage bulbs in em !

 

[PresaGuy91]

Re: When should i Flower? & how much Yeild to expect.

1.5 ft to 2 ft should be fine with the air cooled hoods...


Any closer than 1.5 ft keep an eye out for heat stress as ya got some pretty big wattage bulbs in em !

Would a good sign of heat stress be some of the fan leaves getting weak and dark green? If so then I think I need to raise the lights a little bit.
Thanks!

 

[Fuzzy Duck]

Re: When should i Flower? & how much Yeild to expect.

Heat stress is normally asociated with the outer margins of leafs curling upwards...

Dark green leafs could be sign of to much N-nitrogen leading to nitrogen toxicity...

Not to much of a problem in veg ! but late flowering if the leafs are really dark green & curling down like rams horns may effect end results as in smoke being more harsh due to excessive nitrogen build up... but can be sorted by a longer curing period of a few months depending on ones own taste !

It could be all very strain related tho as all strains are some different from each other ! & only would be concerned when leafs are extremely dark green & curling like ram horns...

 

[PresaGuy91]

Re: When should i Flower? & how much Yeild to expect.

Heat stress is normally asociated with the outer margins of leafs curling upwards...

Dark green leafs could be sign of to much N-nitrogen leading to nitrogen toxicity...

Not to much of a problem in veg ! but late flowering if the leafs are really dark green & curling down like rams horns may effect end results as in smoke being more harsh due to excessive nitrogen build up... but can be sorted by a longer curing period of a few months depending on ones own taste !

It could be all very strain related tho as all strains are some different from each other ! & only would be concerned when leafs are extremely dark green & curling like ram horns...

Oh! Okay, Thanks a bunch thats great to know. ill keep an eye on it i think with my last feeding i put in a little bit too much of the one mix so i've been just giving them water to help flush them. im going to let them stay in Veg for a few more weeks and get a bit more growth. The LST job i did on them seems to be working well on most plants so im pretty happy about that! ill keep updating my pictures in the gallery as things progress.
Again, Thanks a million for your input!

 

[KarlJay]

Re: When should i Flower? & how much Yeild to expect.

Many have asked about yield before and it's really hard to get an idea of what to expect.

I ended up with about 3lbs from 10 plants that were in the range of 5' tall with an indoor soil grow. I put pic of the harvest in my grow journal (link is in my sig). I didn't do anything special and the main cola/buds weren't huge, I just had a lot of them.

That was my 1st grow.

The 2nd grow is likely to be harvested in a about 2 weeks, amber trichs are just now showing up. The buds are larger on most and only 2 things changed.

1. I used molasses sooner
2. I trimmed the lower branches and killed off the baby-buds near the center of most of them.

The 2nd grow is 26 plants and they are about 6~10" taller than the 1st grow. The strains are all the same between the grows (Mr NiceGuy and Rascal OG) The 1st grow averaged near 1/3lb each, so if I hold the same, I should net about 7lbs in the 2nd grow.

I haven't updated my grow journal in a while, but it's moving along nicely and some of the colas/buds are probably 25% larger than the 1st grow was.

One last note, yield is also based somewhat on strain, some just simply yield more and also when I clone, I pick the bushiest/tallest plant to clone from and any setbacks (nute lockout, heat stress, over/under watering, bugs, etc) can effect the yield.

 

[PresaGuy91]

Re: When should i Flower? & how much Yeild to expect.

Many have asked about yield before and it's really hard to get an idea of what to expect.

I ended up with about 3lbs from 10 plants that were in the range of 5' tall with an indoor soil grow. I put pic of the harvest in my grow journal (link is in my sig). I didn't do anything special and the main cola/buds weren't huge, I just had a lot of them.

That was my 1st grow.

The 2nd grow is likely to be harvested in a about 2 weeks, amber trichs are just now showing up. The buds are larger on most and only 2 things changed.

1. I used molasses sooner
2. I trimmed the lower branches and killed off the baby-buds near the center of most of them.

The 2nd grow is 26 plants and they are about 6~10" taller than the 1st grow. The strains are all the same between the grows (Mr NiceGuy and Rascal OG) The 1st grow averaged near 1/3lb each, so if I hold the same, I should net about 7lbs in the 2nd grow.

I haven't updated my grow journal in a while, but it's moving along nicely and some of the colas/buds are probably 25% larger than the 1st grow was.

One last note, yield is also based somewhat on strain, some just simply yield more and also when I clone, I pick the bushiest/tallest plant to clone from and any setbacks (nute lockout, heat stress, over/under watering, bugs, etc) can effect the yield.

Thanks for the reply! Were they 5' at harvest or when you put them into flower? I havent used molasses yet, never really heard of doing that....whats the benefits of it and how would I use it? I have lst'd and topped the plants and they are coming along nicely...im thinking of giving them a couple more weeks in veg and then turn it over to flowering.

 

[KarlJay]

Re: When should i Flower? & how much Yeild to expect.

5' was at harvest for the 1st grow, the 2nd grow is getting closer to 6' which is close to the max I would want for an indoor grow.

I don't know a lot about molasses, I was told at 1st it was for flavor, but others have told me the plants love it during flowering and grow larger because of it. Molasses is cheap compared to other "bud/flowering" enhancement products. Some of the products can be really expensive and I really don't know if they really make any difference.

I do know that my 2nd grow had bigger buds than my 1st, and I have only changed a few things, removing lower branches and more molasses and started molasses sooner in the flowering cycle.

Some have told me to expect the plant to at least double their height in flowering, I haven't seen close to doubling. I go into flowering based on 3 factors:

1. Room/space. My flowering room is 9x11 and can't handle much more than about 30 plants because you have to move them around to water/clean/etc. I have 1 flowering room and 1 veg room (both 9x11) and 1 drying/cloning room (bathroom size).

2. Height/size. I stay in veg until about 4' tall so that I tend to get more yield

3. cloning schedule, I'm trying to have 1 harvest/month. It's not working out that way. I'm trying to take clones about every 6 weeks or so, but I'm only on my 4th grow. I'm expecting to take clones for the 5th grow in the next week or so.

All things considered, I think a harvest every other month would be about right.

If you check out the pics towards the end, you'll get an idea of about what a 1/3 lb plant looks like. A 1/3 lb plant is pretty large for most indoor grows. About 5' tall and pretty wide.

This harvest is going to test the theory of removing the lower branches to enhance upper bud site. The theory is that if you remove the lower and smaller/inner growth, the plant will put more energy into the main bud sites, so far, it looks to be somewhat true. (not to mention easier to trim, I spent about 20 hours trimming 10 plants last time)

When you harvest, you should take some pics with a tape measure so others can get an idea of the size/yield.