Good evening friends!
I have an existential question:
I’m growing indoors and I’d like to know how long you leave your babies in the growth / vegetative phase?
Personally, it’s been 3 weeks and I don’t find them very tall (but very bushy!)… Should I leave them for another 3 weeks in an 18/6 cycle or can I switch them to 12/12 red light?
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I normally do a 4-6 week veg (45 days on average) and then flip to flower and end up with some pretty decent size plants. I’ve also been learning that flipping to early at times can stress and herm them if genetics aren’t that strong to begin with but not always the case
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Generally around the 4-6 weeks @Smokey101 suggested you will see the nodes beginning to stagger, this indicates the plant has reached maturity and is ready to flower. Flipping before she reaches maturity is when you can see the stress related herms mentioned, but I think that is pretty rare if you’re running solid genetics.
You can veg as long as you like to get the plant mass you want prior to flipping them; just keep the stretch in mind, a sativa will generally stretch twice as much as an indica strain.
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On my first indoor grow, I flipped at 6 weeks and my plant stayed shorter than I would have liked, given I had plenty of height in my tent. Next time I think I’ll wait a bit longer to maybe 8 weeks, depending on size. I think my stunting may have been partly due to too much light in veg as my plant was on 24/7 light due to a mistake in setting the timer.
Re ‘very bushy’, my Northern Lights photo was also very bushy. I defoliated maybe too much. Nebula from Grow Weed Easy has a really nice tuto on folding back big leaves to expose bud sites without early defoliation. A first grow is above all a learning experience imo. Good luck!