How long does "the stretch" last & how late can you continue plant training

Grow Cycle Preparations
1

The Grow Bible and many other sources make broad references to “The stretch happens early in the flowering stage of plant development”, but they are not clear about two points which have suddenly become somewhat urgent for me:

  1. How long (in days or weeks) does the “stretch” phenomenon of rapid plant growth typically last?
  2. How long into that process (in days or weeks) is it still ok to use supercropping and other training techniques to manipulate the direction of plant growth?

For those wondering why I’m suddenly obsessed with this: My 16 plants (all mainlined to multiple tops and trained for 7 weeks of veg) just plain don’t fit in my 4x4 tent. I have a 5x5 being shipped to me from USA, and I may have to buy another light and separate the crop into TWO active flowering tents (!). BUT THE PEOPLE AT FEDEX SENT MY TENT BACK TO USA FOR NO FUDGING REASON! Then they caught their mistake and it left Memphis this morning, presumably headed back to Chile where it will have to clear customs for a SECOND TIME!

This is going to delay my access to a bigger tent for maybe another full week. Meanwhile, now that I flipped my plants into flower, they are GROWING LIKE CRAZY! And they are not getting the light they deserve in this important stage of growth because my 4x4 is too fudging small.

I’m tempted to switch back to 18/6 just to slow everything down and wait for the new tent to arrive before switching back to 12/12 and allowing flowering (and the stretch) to continue. But I think that could seriously shock and confuse the plants, so I won’t do that unless more than one of you guys says its safe to do that.

If this “stretch” event continues for a full month, well shit, I should have the new tent within a week and hopefully I can just move the plants into the bigger tent, maybe install a SCROG net, and actively train the plants which have been growing tight up to the edges of the 4x4 to spread out and use all the new space. But what I really want to do is fill BOTH tents edge to edge. My 16 plants are enough to use up all that space in both tents, but I fear the “stretch” will be over before the new tent arrives.

Any ideas guys?

Thanks so much!
xPat

2

Forgot to mention… I flipped them into 12/12 on March 4, i.e. five days ago. They’ve almost doubled in height since I did that in just 5 days. What would be the risks/downsides to putting them back on 18/6 to delay further stretch and flowering until the other tent arrives and I can break the crop out into two separate flowering tents before switching back to 12/12? Would this switch from flowering back to veg for maybe a week at most and then back to flowering cause a damaging shock to the plants?

Thanks!

3

Watch the F bombs. Please read forum rules. Edited your posts accordingly.

4

The stretch usually lasts a few weeks. You can train them until the branches harden off and are no longer pliable. I would not set them back to 18 hrs or they will start to reveg.

5

Yikes! Sorry about that. Thanks for letting me know and I’ll make sure not to repeat the mistake.

6

I have had various grows where the stretch was three to four weeks. happy growing :rofl: :bat:

7

Yeah stretch usually 2-4 weeks from what I have seen… No way 16 plants would ever fit in a 4x4… Unless you had 1 bud per plant lol