Do outdoor plants take longer to grow?

If you are growing outdoors, you have many factors at play. If I assume you are in a USA Zone above 7, and the weather patterns arent permanently FUBAR, I have for decades used March 1st as my target for my 'seeds wet date'. 20 weeks is actually short IMO for outside. March to September for an average time, with many sativas landing around October 15. I expect my landrace to run 38-40 weeks. Theoretically, if you have a 12' high greenhouse that is ventilated like a wind-tunnel, you could do it, but I would hate to troubleshoot what would happen with bugs & humidity.

No, unless you want trees! Planting late in the season, right up to the summer solstice will keep plants more manageable and harvests will be sooner. Flowering time is about the same, it is just the vegetative cycle that is longer if planting outdoors earlier. Indoor space limitations mean people only veg for 4-6 weeks for a total cycle of around 10-16 weeks. If you plant about a month before the summer solstice, you get 5-7 foot bushy plants that will also have an entire cycle of 10-16 weeks, depending on genetics. These days I plant late and have a large assortment of smaller plants, rather than planting early and only having room for a few large plants. This way I get to try many more strains and do not end up with a mountain of the same things or a mountain of something I don't really like. This is with photoperiod plants outdoors, autos don't perform that well out side, they are more suited to indoor cultivation, however I will never grow autos again, they just don't offer what I require in a plant. Hope this helps, Organoman.

If u want to have a short vegging outdoor youll have to give it a 48 period of darkness. After that 12 hours darkness everyday. And u can flower it earlier. Otherwise its up to nature. The bigger the plant the more difficult bringing total darkness will be

No - this is just cuz most ppl indoor are pressed for space and veg for 4-8 weeks only. Outdoor most ppl plant in April or May and don’t control the light so it starts flowering on mother nature’s watch. So outside you get 12-16 weeks of veg sometimes before flower.

Indoors happens to be quicker because we can control the light duration. Outside I can’t make the sun go away when I want. So you’re typically waiting on the days to get shorter in order for the plants to start flowering. Indoors I reach maturity and I switch the light to 12-12 and boom done. You can veg out a plant indoors as long as you’d like but most growers are in the business of making quick turn around from seed to harvest.