How tall to let mainline get before 12/12

So I ultra mainlined a plant, godberry, and sent her to flower. She got wayyy to tall for my 7’ tent. What is a solid size to let it get before the flip? Sucks adding two gallons of water a day to dwc to keep a plant happy. I’m looking for goodnyield and quality. I’m sure everyone is as well haha

My main concern is only doing 4 weeks. One topping and a bunch of lst makes them about a foot tall. I’m worried 4 weeks isn’t enough. Would yield double if let go for 6 week

Get a pepertual grow going of the same plant then you can grow them out how you like, could try different techniques to really iron out all the creases.

I like variety. I rarely do the same

Really depends on how much your strain is going to stretch. The more indica based strains, the general rule of thumb is to flip to flower when the plant is about half as tall as your desired final height. Maybe just a bit less than half as tall. Most indica strains will stretch between 100% and 150% of their height at the end of veggy. Now, with Sativa strains, there are a different set of parameters as Sativas can stretch as much as 200-250% of their vegetative height. So, while 4 weeks may very well be enough for a plant that hasn't been topped or LST'd at all, if you want to top your plants and LST them then I would say to let it go just over 4, as you suggested about 5-6 weeks. But if your plant hits that marker of being half as tall at 4 weeks as you want it to be at the end of flower, go ahead and flip. If, at 4 weeks, you still have some space to let it grow, then absolutely do so. You may also investigate ScROGging. I just started that grow style msyelf, and it can really help you to have longer veg times for more budsites and larger plants without your plants growing so tall vertically. It's particularly well suited for people like us who like to top and LST our plants.

Logan Burke said:

Really depends on how much your strain is going to stretch. The more indica based strains, the general rule of thumb is to flip to flower when the plant is about half as tall as your desired final height. Maybe just a bit less than half as tall. Most indica strains will stretch between 100% and 150% of their height at the end of veggy. Now, with Sativa strains, there are a different set of parameters as Sativas can stretch as much as 200-250% of their vegetative height. So, while 4 weeks may very well be enough for a plant that hasn't been topped or LST'd at all, if you want to top your plants and LST them then I would say to let it go just over 4, as you suggested about 5-6 weeks. But if your plant hits that marker of being half as tall at 4 weeks as you want it to be at the end of flower, go ahead and flip. If, at 4 weeks, you still have some space to let it grow, then absolutely do so. You may also investigate ScROGging. I just started that grow style msyelf, and it can really help you to have longer veg times for more budsites and larger plants without your plants growing so tall vertically. It's particularly well suited for people like us who like to top and LST our plants.

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Thank you for taking the time for that response. I tried scrogging my first time but did it improperly. I didn’t know you’re supposed to weave it through the net horizontally. I took each individual cola (had lots of them) and assigned them to their own square. While it did work I realized my technique was improper. I really enjoy the method where you top into a T. (The bottom of T is in substrate and then manifold aka train track 8-12 colas upwards. I did that with a supreme haze and trimming was a delight. Not to mention it sure had some cola sway when moving them. Haha. I tried this manifold with a bubblegum but I guess that strain does not like manifolding and wants to be Xmas tree. It was odd. Do you think manifolding intona scrog net while doing bubble bucket dwc is doable or is a recirculating system required?

Also do you double net scrog or single?

No problem at all! Yeah ScROGging is kind of weird, but as far as I know you can either choose to weave branches through squares, or (my more preferred method) you can just pull the budsite under the screen and push it further outwards to the next square over, or whichever square you're wanting it to go to. It makes harvesting far, far easier and you can always move a branch later on should you decide that you don't like where it's at. Whereas weaving, once a branch is woven, it's pretty much set in cement. Anyways, yeah I do believe that you could ScROG a plant that's manifolded as you'd just let the budsites growing off of your mainlined branches grow up and into their own square. I would think that it would work as long as you could get the screen in place before you flip to 12/12. After all, ScROGging is kind of similar to manifolding in the way that you top and then stretch the dominant branches out, just using a screen instead of string or what not to do so. As far as DWC goes, yes you certainly could do that, that's exactly how I've done mine. My journal is in my sig if you'd like to see it in detail. You just have to make sure that you have some way of doing water changes once your screen is applied. For mine, I did a setup where each 5gal bucket has it's own individual screen that is actualy mounted to the netpot so that I can still lift up the netpot and put the plant in a spare bucket while I dump out the old water, wash the bucket etc. You could also drill out a hole large enough for the hose of a shop-vac to fit down into your res, letting you suck up all of the water without having to move your plant at all. Either way would work. As far as a double or single screen goes, I orginally wanted to do a single net scrog. But due to some problems I had to let my plants veg way too long, putting the colas at well above 6-12inches above my first screen. So I decided to apply a second screen, but it was more to help support the larger colas that had grown a bit tall for the first screen. I just placed it 2-3inches above the first screen. Sorry for the rambling, just trying to throw in any info that may help ya...here are the exact ScROG screens I used for my dwc plants. Feel free to look on my journal, all the specs are on page 1, it may help you decide how to do yours.
My ScROG screen: https://www.horticulturesource.com/fresh/product/scrog-kit-21x21/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwp5_qBRDBARIsANxdcik1V9HBAswtzwNM1N1exiDIpV7H_584uR5eK4B-0r1W5RyzSIYjTLoaArzwEALw_wcB
You could easily do a DIY version, I just haven't the time or really the DIY know-how to build one as quickly as I could just order it!