2-3 weeks old and already flowering? What do I do now?!?

[jackbillings]

Newbie grower here, but I'm pretty sure this isn't the way it's supposed to happen. My plants are 2-3 weeks old, 5-7" tall, very thin and spindly which I know is from lack of light. I fixed that problem, will probably bury the stems when I re-pot to encourage more roots and stouter plants.

Now I'm seeing what sure looks to me like signs of female flowers. Very small, I have to use a magnifier to see it, but it looks like all the pics I've seen of early female flowers.

Did the lack of light cause the flowering stage to kick in early? Would putting them under 20 hours of light now just confuse them? Should I go straight to a 12/12 cycle and hope for the best and maybe get some clones out of them?

[dmahny88]

Well man I am going through my first grow with you. And i think you are mistaking your plants for flowering when they are really not(they are rather "preflowering"). Heres why. I think you are just seeing the typical first signs of sex organs on your bud sites but all plants do this and it starts very early on and VERY small. If you could imagine those becoming big bud sites later, well, this is what flowering is not just showing their sex organs like you are seeing. I don't know what would happen if you were to force flower them into 12/12 now but changing the light from 18/6 to 20/4 to 24/0 during the veg. stage(which I'm still in) did not show problems for me.
Thin and spindly, sounds like my grow. I had lighting issues as well;) but they be looking better every day since i switched to CFL's. One pointer that can never be mentioned on this site enough..is patience, patience, patience and let mother nature take its course:thumbsup:
PEACE and gl:jointsmile:

[jackbillings]

Great advice, and thanks for the info about pre-flowering. I had not read that anywhere before. I thought I had screwed them up royally with the initial light problems.

It sounds like I should keep them at 20/4 cycle and just watch them and be patient like you said.

[NotSoTwiggy]

I forced my plants to reveal their sex, by putting them on 10 hour of light and 14 without. I think yours may be too tiny to sex right now, mine were about 7 weeks old when they started to show. I also had to use a magnifying glass to make sure they were female and not male, and now that they are big enough you can see them yourself. I also had tall spindly plants, I put a fan on them for a few hours almost every day and that helped them to stand better and to develop thicker stems (all advice from growers on here). http://boards.cannabis.com/plant-problems/169317-skinny-tall-seedlings.html#post1991928 I also planted my very thin plants into 24 oz Pepsi bottles (the kind you buy in 6 packs) and planted them up past the first set of leaves. Those are doing well. I figured the bottles were thin enough to give them plenty of support. I put only an inch or so of dirt in the bottle, placed the plant then filled it up to a healthy set of leaves. My one mistake - not putting a drain hole in the bottom before planting. The water does evaporate as fast out of the Pepsi bottle, but I just watered them a lot less than the other plants in peat pots (they get moldy) and 4" plastic pots. I also started using CFL Grow lights to help them be less thin and spindly, which I purchased from here Compact Fluorescent CFL Grow Light Bulbs: Express Light Bulbs (http://www.expresslightbulbs.com/compact-fluorescent-cfl-grow-light-bulbs-p-2.html) . I now have the plants back on 24 hours of light to return to a vegetative state. Good Luck and Happy Growing!

[NotSoTwiggy]

I meant to say that the water does NOT evaporate out of the Pepsi Bottle as fast, so you want to be careful not to cause root rot by over watering them if you use the bottles (unless you poke a few drain holes in them first).:thumbsup:

[the image reaper]

NEVER use a container, that doesn't have drain holes ... one very important thing to remember, cannabis MUST have good drainage ... :smokin:

[NotSoTwiggy]

Thanks for that advice...it's always appreciated:thumbsup: