How long after this final transplant should I wait to flower? (First Grow)

I'm anticipating a switch to flowering soon as I'm sort of running out of grow space but I still have roughly half a foot of horizontal room to work with. The current plan is to transplant my 4, very root-bound plants from their 3 gallon pots into 5 gallons tomorrow, but this leaves me with my main question... how long should I wait and give the roots time to expand as to not hurt my yield potential, or if I could switch immediately if there's not much shock?

Here's a picture of the current garden (I haven't trained in a few days, don't mind some unevenness of the current canopy in this picture):


I'm running a 400w HID setup in a 3.5x3x7 Closet, on a 18/6 light schedule, the plants are 9 weeks old and unknown strains (Indica/Indica Dom hybrids, from what I can tell)- (they spent their first month under 20w CFLs ) , planning on keeping the MH bulb in for the first 10 or so days of flowering to help minimize any stretch as I'm a big fan of the current structure of my canopy right now.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated, please and thank you!!!

a half of foot won't be enough for the stretching ...bend you tall tops and tie them down or chop a foot off the plants .....the general unwritten rule is to grow in veg until half as tall as your area then switch that way you are covered .... repot them , tie them , wait a day or two then switch to 12/12 ..... feed GROW nutes for 10-14 days after the switch then switch to bloom nutes

dickiefickle said:

a half of foot won't be enough for the stretching ...bend you tall tops and tie them down or chop a foot off the plants .....the general unwritten rule is to grow in veg until half as tall as your area then switch that way you are covered .... repot them , tie them , wait a day or two then switch to 12/12 ..... feed GROW nutes for 10-14 days after the switch then switch to bloom nutes

Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply dickie, I'm not sure you can tell in the above picture the length of nodes but I'm pretty comfortable with the size of my canopy so I think I'm going to be switching soon after this transplant .

So you think I should be fine switching to the HPS and not letting them flower with the MH for a while, since they're short plants to start with? I'm not going for tall plants at all, main objective was for as even of light distribution I could get with my setup, focusing primarily on horizontal growth and pumping out as many colas as I could .

Here's some pics I took today of the canopy size after a few days worth of top growth after training:
Top:


Side:


So I'm definitely due for a training sesh after I get them in their new pots .

And here's just an extra pic taken a few days ago of the canopy after LST for perspective of what I'm aiming to go into flowering looking like:


Thanks for the process/order in which to do things advice too, that's greatly appreciated info!!!

Ignore dickie! (except for the 2 weeks of veg nutes before bloom nutes)

I transplant for a final potting and let them sit only 8-10 days and flip. Lets the roots run and not get root bound. I might consider 7 gallon pots for those and a 14 day lag! Up to you and the 5's will work - go 8 days, not 10 and flip.

NICE plants btw!

dickiefickle said:

a half of foot won't be enough for the stretching ...bend you tall tops and tie them down or chop a foot off the plants .....the general unwritten rule is to grow in veg until half as tall as your area then switch that way you are covered .... repot them , tie them , wait a day or two then switch to 12/12 ..... feed GROW nutes for 10-14 days after the switch then switch to bloom nutes

Click to expand...

Horizontal = side to side not up and down.

whorizontal.....a whore is always laying down......5th grade teacher taught me that 1...lol

Dr. Who said:

Ignore dickie!

I transplant for a final potting and let them sit only 8-10 days and flip. Lets the roots run and not get root bound. I might consider 7 gallon pots for those and a 14 day lag! Up to you and the 5's will work - go 8 days, not 10 and flip.

NICE plants btw!

Click to expand...

Dickie said 2 days, not 10?

Op your plants could double in height once you flip so make sure you have that much room or your buds will be up in the lights and bleached/burned buds aren't nice! You might need to take some off the top if you don't have space for them to double in height. If you're plants are root bound already then they might need a bit more time to adjust after transplant but I usually leave it a week before the flip. Seaweed extract is really good for the roots and helps prevent transplant shock.

They are very, very good looking plants

Cannacat said:

Dickie said 2 days, not 10?

Op your plants could double in height once you flip so make sure you have that much room or your buds will be up in the lights and bleached/burned buds aren't nice! You might need to take some off the top if you don't have space for them to double in height. If you're plants are root bound already then they might need a bit more time to adjust after transplant but I usually leave it a week before the flip. Seaweed extract is really good for the roots and helps prevent transplant shock.

They are very, very good looking plants

Click to expand...

2 days = need longer (8-10) for some root growth into the new media!

I DO like your Kelp extract suggestion! I take it for granted sometimes, that we all use the kelp.......sigh, getting to soon oldt and too late schmart...

Dr. Who said:

2 days = need longer (8-10) for some root growth into the new media!

I DO like your Kelp extract suggestion! I take it for granted sometimes, that we all use the kelp.......sigh, getting to soon oldt and too late schmart...

Click to expand...

Oh I misunderstood your statement, read it the other way, sorry yeah you're right.
I've just discovered kelp, well I kept seeing you mention it actually lol so I got myself a massive bottle for about a fiver and it's miracle juice! I've got 100% of clones rooting now, had nowhere near that before, love it.

Cannacat said:

Oh I misunderstood your statement, read it the other way, sorry yeah you're right.
I've just discovered kelp, well I kept seeing you mention it actually lol so I got myself a massive bottle for about a fiver and it's miracle juice! I've got 100% of clones rooting now, had nowhere near that before, love it.

Click to expand...

I try and tell people!
Nice to have you on the band wagon!
KELP till I die!

Thanks so much, guys!!!

Cannacat said:

Dickie said 2 days, not 10?

Op your plants could double in height once you flip so make sure you have that much room or your buds will be up in the lights and bleached/burned buds aren't nice! You might need to take some off the top if you don't have space for them to double in height. If you're plants are root bound already then they might need a bit more time to adjust after transplant but I usually leave it a week before the flip. Seaweed extract is really good for the roots and helps prevent transplant shock.

They are very, very good looking plants

Click to expand...

That means a ton to me, thank you for the kind words!

As for height, it's not an issue whatsoever haha - I have about 7.3ft of clearance in the closet these plants are being grown in . The main reason for LST this first grow was for practice for future grows (I had no clue how to LST a month ago...), and plus I just damn prefer the way this canopy looks with my light setup as I'm hoping for as many equal sized bud sites in the sweet spot for light as I can manage to get!

Only PITA is how densely packed the nodes are with the genetics and training I've done, it makes it such a bitch for watering... I feel like I'm going to need some type of hose setup as to not splash water on buds during flowering :X.

Dr. Who said:

Ignore dickie! (except for the 2 weeks of veg nutes before bloom nutes)

I transplant for a final potting and let them sit only 8-10 days and flip. Lets the roots run and not get root bound. I might consider 7 gallon pots for those and a 14 day lag! Up to you and the 5's will work - go 8 days, not 10 and flip.

NICE plants btw!

Click to expand...

This is an entirely organic grow, using Neptune's Harvest Fish (2-4-1) and Neptune's Harvest Seaweed (0-0-1) so luckily I got the kelp covered already, I had no idea it was useful for transplant shock either...sweeet!

As for final pot size, these are bagseed plants and since this is my first experimental grow, I didn't want to go too crazy with it so I'm thinking of sticking with the 5 gals as their final pots (which is already more than I wanted to do), seeing as I may be killing off 1 or 2 most likely, don't want to put anymore unneeded resources into them to only be let down, you know?

Next grow, I'm for sure doing like 2 feminized and working my way up to 10 gallons or 3 feminized and on up to 7gals .

I'm now just waiting for more fish fertilizer from amazon before I make the switch to flowering so that will give the girl(s) some time in the 5 gals regardless, hopefully not too long though.

Cheers for the compliment, it's so nice to hear opinions that my grow is looking good from other people's point of view!

a new gas or water siphon hose works pretty well. i elevate my watering 5 gal bucket. squeeze the bulb a few times, and then it just flows nicely. i put my finger over the end to move it to the next pot.

Growdict said:

a new gas or water siphon hose works pretty well. i elevate my watering 5 gal bucket. squeeze the bulb a few times, and then it just flows nicely. i put my finger over the end to move it to the next pot.

Click to expand...

That's a great idea, I will have to take a page from your book for sure as it sounds like it would work great for what I need . I was thinking of something like that but w/ small holes at the ending of the hose (say, 6 pen sized holes, 3 on each side) for a more even spread of water (and only filling the bucket reservoir with enough water for 1 plant at a time) - any thoughts/criticism on this idea with your setup?

Do you keep the hose in a static position when watering a plant or do you move it around as to get all of the soil saturated?

Thanks, dude!