How to Induce a Marijuana Plant Into Flowering

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People who are growing medical marijuana understand how easy it is to make a plant go from the vegetative stage into flowering stage. This question is probably going to be read by far more beginners than experienced growers so I am going to use basic terminology.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Marijuana Plants
Proper Lighting
Electric Timer

Step 1

The vegetative stage is the time in a marijuana plants life that it grows. From a seedling up until it begins to flower it is considered to be in the vegetative stage. This stage is often referred to as the veg stage on the internet.

As long as a plant is getting enough hours of proper light it will remain in the vegetative stage. Most marijuana growers keep their vegetative plants under 18 -24 hours of light. It's probably best to give your plants 18-20 hours of light every day. This will give your plants and equipment a rest. It will also help conserve electricity. To control the hours of darkness and light use one of those electric timers. Make sure you get something that is rated for your lamp. 15 amp timers usually work good with HID (High Intensity Discharge) lighting.
Step 2

Once your plants become old enough you trigger them into flower mode by giving them 12 hours of total darkness every day. !2 hours on 12 hours off.

Most growers use a High Pressure Sodium HID lamp to flower their plants under. This still seems to be the top technology for producing the best quality and highest yields. There are alternative light sources but they pale in comparrison.

There you have it though. All you have to do is give a healthy marijuana plant 12 hours of darkness to trigger flowers. Some strains need less than 12 hours of darkness but 12 hours is enough dark time to make almost any strain go into flower mode.
Step 3

Of course there is a type of marijuana called Ruderalis that auto flowers. The dark period has nothing to do with when it begins to flower. The thing about Ruderalis lines is they lack potency and have to be bred to potent high quality Indica and Sativa lines to increase the THC level enough to be useful for many medical marijuana users.