I started counting once I see the pistils, however that's typically ~2 weeks into 12/12. Should I count the time from switch, or count once I start to see pistil and bud development? I'm creeping closer to the 7 weeks from pistils and 9 weeks from 12/12 and she's looking fantastic.
Flowering begins when the plant starts forming flowers. Its very simple biology. It sounds like you have been counting correctly so far. Also flowering doesn't end at a specific day or even week. Breeder times are just loose estimates. Your grow environment and the specific phenotypes of the cultivar you are running will effect over all flower time greatly.
Plants don't instantly begin to flower when you switch to 12/12, it takes time for them to transition from veg to flower. That period of time can be as fast as 5-7 days with fully mature genetics, and a good grow environment. OR it can take over 20 days or anywhere in between if the genetics are not mature at the switch or if the environment has issues. If you had plants out doors you wouldn't pick a date and say ok its flowering. You would watch the plant and consider it flowering when it starts to form flowers. Outdoors the transition phase goes un-noticed because humans don't switch the lights, but it still happens. The plants start to change their hormones based on the amount of darkness they get each day, and they stretch and then begin to flower.
Counting from switch date is totally arbitrary and means absolutely nothing because different plants take different amounts of time to transition. Thankfully counting all together isn't really necessary so, in the end, it's not about when flowering begins, it's about watching the plants and learning when to properly harvest. I stopped counting days/weeks years ago. I put plants in to flower when I want, and take them out whenever they are ready. Putting an arbitrary time frame on it all never made my weed better
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I'll also add that its VERY easy to harvest plants too early. Letting them FULLY ripen is going to give you the best quality smoke, period!
It is VERY hard to harvest plants too late. In my 14ish years of growing I have NEVER seen someone accidentally harvest a plant to late, it just doesn't happen.
