How to Force Flower your crops

When they have started out with the basics of hydroponic growing, lots of beginners wonder about how they can ‘force flowering’ or induce the flowering stage in plants. Some of this depends in your semantics -- while there are several ways to push plants toward the flowering stage earlier, there are only a few ways to actually induce flowering in plants, and they only really work on a case-by-case basis.

Here are some of the tips for getting plants to flower at a particular point in time.

Taking Away Light

The consensus in the growing world is that the most effective way to get plants to flower is to put them in a sudden dark phase -- with over 12 hours of consecutive darkness, many plants will start to flower.

There are several ways to pursue this, based on the locality and the climate, and where the plants are being grown. In general, you need to be able to seal out light. That's why it works best to actually take advantage of night cycles if possible, but there are other ways to go about this. A thick black tarp or cover can work, but you have to take care about the amount of heat that is generated under this cover, because a drastic change in temperature can hurt plants.

Flowering Enzymes and Products

Hydroponics companies also offer various kinds of products containing enzymes or hormones that purport to induce flowering. These types of ‘auto flowering’ products may work, but again, it's best to try it out on a trial and error basis, to see whether these would be effective for your plants.

The Hydroponics Equation

Efforts to push or induce flowering must take place within the parameters of the overall hydroponics atmosphere, which depends on elements like temperature, humidity, pH value, carbon dioxide levels and more. Hydroponics growers have to micromanage all of these elements in order to keep an environment where plants can flourish. Work on inducing flowering schemes against this control condition to really get the best success with your plant cycles.

For more, check out all the equipment that modern manufacturers and retailers offer to help you make the most of your hydroponic experience.