Hi folks,
I'm no expert but here's basically how it works...weed biology 101
Outdoors, the plants, especially an annual like MJ, get about 14 to 16 hours of light a day from spring until late summer. (this varies depending on your location relative to the equator) When the days start to get shorter,
June21 is solstice and the longest day of the year, it triggers something in the plants that says "hey, days are getting shorter so it must be heading in to fall/winter, better concentrate on getting laid before I die." This effectively redirects the plants energy towards reproduction as opposed to growth and voila, males and females begin to flower. Males usually flower as week or so before females. Indoor growing is basically an attempt to reproduce this process as well as improve on the conditions that cause the growth of flowers. Lights are run about 16hrs a day for the first couple of months of the plants life and are kept as close as possible to the plants to maximize the growth potential. (the theory here is that the bigger and healthier the plants, the more buds it will produce) At a certain point the light is cut back to 12 hrs a day and the nutrients required for flowering are pumped up to produce maximum yield. The one other thing that is done indoors and outdoors as well is to interrupt the process by killing all of the males which forces the females to continue bud production in hopes of getting some pollen. All of that sticky stuff on the buds is designed to catch the pollen as it flys by in the breeze.
Hope that helps a bit.
BG