thinking about flowering early

My four plant's are 3 1/2 week's old and each have about 3-4 nodes right now. The plant's are looking really good and healthy and im thinking about flowering at about 8" or 6 nodes, whichever comes first. I am not trying to get a huge yield, as this is my first grow. But I don't want to veg for a long time just to have 4 males. What do you guy's think about my, "8" or 6 nodes, whichever comes first" idea. I know it's early to start flowering, but I hear that the plant's do quite a bit of growing when the flowering process starts. And, im using 6500k CFL's right now, can I keep using them for flowering, or do I need to change to HPS or what not? Thank's!

go ahead and do it, although you will need to lower the spectrum for proper flower

If you're growing with cfl, a smaller plant is better. Those plants are going to really shoot up when they start to flower and CFLs won't have the lumens to get the lower growth of bigger plants.

i flower at 6 inches under cfl. have switched to hps now on them, but you want short plants with all veg at top, cfl's don't penatrate to lowe branches.

but thats also why you add some bulbs down low, easy fix

Hassan said:

but thats also why you add some bulbs down low, easy fix

Click to expand...

yep, did that.
let me explain my setup and why i went to hps.
i had 17 23 watt/100 watt replacement bulbs each at 1600 lumens. 391 actual watts. 27,200 lumens. the only way to benifit from that is to be 3 inches from canopy. way too hot even with 2 fart fans and 2 reg fans, so wattage was around guessing 490. slow growth rate in my mind for wattage. i paid around 300 for all electrical supplies and bulbs, plus $70 month for power.

i changed over to 150 watt hps (16,000 lumens) which is about $15 a month for power to run it, i paid $90 for the fixture, moved light to 10 inches so not as hot which turned off 1 fart fan and 1 reg fan. running for 2 days now and even with lower lumens i am now using all of the lumens. (cfl's lumens drop off fast the further the light is) the plants have definitely benifited from the new light. its all about efficient use of the lumens. funny to think hid is more efficient than cfl.

are u using a growlight or a converted hps light?

there is no rules to this...grow it the way you want and enjoy...