Hearing a lot of contradicting things, need some SOLID advice please.

I see this on this forum as well as other forums.
Some people say a plant can't be forced into flowering, other people say a plants stages of life are determined by the hours of light.

So I started a grow 14 weeks ago, hoping somewhat that by now I'd only have 2-3 weeks left to harvest.
I posted pics and people told me I still have preflowers, and apparently its only had preflowers for 8 weeks of flowering. I thought they were tiny buds, I guess not.

I'm hearing now that heavy sativas/hazes can take a looong time to flower. And I'm assuming thats what I have. So doesn't that kind of rule out the whole "you can force flowering concept"? I wish people had said "you can force flowering ONLY on specific strains", then I could have went about this differently.

I was on 12/12 and now went to 10/14. I don't care about yield anymore as the plant is already touching the cieling in my grow house.
My main question now is HOW LONG can it possibly take to harvest this plant?

Today I went out, bought a tomato cage, a bunch of wire hangers, clamps/string and what not. And I have to now tie this plant down so it starts growing sideways and not up anymore.
NOT a big deal.
What will be a big deal is if I have to flower this thing for 2 more months, and at that point theres simply no way to contain growth anymore.

I took a clone from the plant, and its already 16" and showing preflowers. I was told the clone will flower a lot sooner.

Should I risk flowering the main plant any longer? In all honesty at the pace its buds are developing, for all I know it could take 2-3 months to harvest.
I was stupidly hoping I was gonna get a quick grower like a lot of people on this forum have, but that will be next time when I buy some seeds.

My question:
I need little plants with big buds. This plant is massive, and has tiny buds. Its just not looking good at this point.
Should I cut the mother and waste 14 weeks of growing? Then maybe try to see if the clone will grow buds at a smaller size?

Or just trash the entire strain and start with new/good seeds?

I know its my decision to make. But I don't have the experience to make an educated enough decision. If the plant is ALREADY touching the top, but still only taking up 1/4th of the width, I mean is there a chance I can keep tieing it down and just HOPE it doesn't overgrow its home?
How long can a sativa/haze possibly take to finish flowering? On 14/10? I could wait like 6 more weeks, but 2-3 months is not gonna work and its gonna get too big.

I guess theres no way to really manipulate a plant like this? Would dropping light to 8/16 be a terrible idea? I just want it to flower asap so I can harvest in the near future. I don't need a big yield, I just need it to be done.

Just running out of ideas really. I fixed my tiny light leak, dropped day hours, but what time frame can I still be looking at?

Thanks!

(pics have been posted in another thread too) And is it possible for "preflowers" to have orange hairs? I was always under the impression orange hairs meant it was flowering. The right side of the plant has quite a lot of them.

go ahead and top them or cut them down to the size you want, they will get bushy that way. also if u have light leaking in during their night time they wont flower. top them above the node you want then put them back on 18/6 or 24/0 for couple weeks, then switch to 12/12. gl

Lack of nutrients or PH lock will also prolong flowering.

you're plant is definitely flowering. and yes you can force flower a plant, but when you flower with CFLs it's only natural to get smaller buds.

what kind of soil are you using?

Ok thanks guys. They get nutes and a stable ph (6.4). Right now the soil is an organic potting soil with 30% vermaculite by volume. There was a light leak (very small) which was fixed recently. I think at this point I will top a good portion thats hitting the cieling, and will always make sure its growing sideways.

I'm happy to know that it IS at least flowering though, I was worried that it was still in preflower stage. Its ok if the buds don't get big, because theres about 30-40 flowers all over the plant (hard to see in pics) and as long as they would fill out a bit it would still be a yield I'm happy with.

I'm gonna keep them on 10/14 however because I wanna give it a couple weeks and see if it will drive the buds to maybe fill out more. But if it continues to grow as slow as it is I'll eventually have to make the decision to just kill it. Maybe I'll try the 2 weeks veg thing and back to flowering, but I most likely won't have the patience considering how much time has already been wasted on preflowering.
Next time I'm going with online seeds (this was my first grow and I used bag seed), but for now I'll give it a bit more time and see if anything changes. I 100% understand at least why people buy seeds. I realized strains were different but was seriously not expecting this one to be as slow as it is.

Thanks for the advice!

14 weeks of 12/12?
did you 12/12 from seed?
if not... maybe you shoulda.

don't top when it is flowering. you can grap the top and crimp horizontally (LST) so that you maintain a low profile and light will distributed more evenly.

Tinyturtle: No, 14 weeks total. I did 6 weeks veg and 8 weeks flowering. If I had ANY idea it was gonna take this long I ABSOLUTELY would have flowered from day 1. And its possible it would be somewhat near harvesting by now if I did. It pisses me off cause I kept pushing flowering back cause the plants were so damn small back then, and worried it would reduce my yield. But now the plants are too big and its too imature. So definitely my bad on that one.

Upthearsenal: Ok I will not top it, but when you say crimp do you mean that technique where you break the branch partially on a specific side? That sounds like a great idea I think I will do exactly that thanks!

Woah!!!! a PH of 6.4 is locking out Calcium and Mg.... Calcium is required for growing strong stems and new cell growth. You need to raise your PH. Many say 6.5 at a minimum, however all nutrients can be absorbed at 7.0 in soil without being so close to the border line. If you need a source to back up my information, feel free to search for the "Marijuana Garden Saver_Hanbook for Healthy Plants" and go to page 22.

haha! no that's not what i mean, by crimp i meant bend. sorry for the misunderstanding, but really you shouldn't do anything that will stress too much her at this point, it will only push back her progress.

just bend the plant carefully till you feel you've gone far enough and tie it down, you can make a hole on the side of the pot and run a string through that, or just get yourself a bamboo stick and tie her to that.