forceflowering versus autoflowers...pro's with experience !!

I was just wondering if having autos is beneficial in an indoor grow in the slightest. If i vegged a regular photo plant for 3 weeks and switched to 12/12 (around the same time an auto flower starts to fower) then will i end up (generally speaking) with smaller, the same or bigger buds ??

I know auto flowers are good for outdoors but what is the real appeal. I did an indoor auto grow this year and im thinking of just having a photo strain grow on 12/12 instead next time because it will reduce the amount of electricity needed to get the plants to the end.

autos generally go on a 20/4 cycle, but photo strains have just a 12/12 cycle to flower.....so are the bud sizes/quality, better in autos or photo plants ?? Thanks in advance

just to be clear, my grow space is very small which is ideal for autoflowers, but im guessing that a photo plant vegged for 3 weeks and put on a 12/12 will end up with the same kind of height and structure as an autoflower

There's a lot of debate about photo vs. auto with some people being diehard fans of either. Autos will always be small, but you're right about going 12/12 from seed for a photo as well. I like autos because electricity isn't much of a concern, I can plant it and not have to worry about how much the plant is going to stretch if I turn it to 12/12 and I don't have to worry about the slightest light leaks causing my plant to hermie.

Photos have a lot more choices in genetics, but that's just because autoflowers haven't been around nearly as long. As far as quality there's plenty of strains that are just as potent as their photoperiod counterparts, being an auto doesn't mean it's lower in thc, it's strain dependent.

thats right, and im particularly wanting to get some pure white rhino, some ak-48 (i attemted it before but got spider mites from going outdoors to indoors) and other photo only strains like sour kush and purple wreck etc etc etc on a 12/12 from 2-3 weeks veg and see what happens. As long as they dont stretch too much i guess they should be fine. i cant wait !!

Personally, I like both. I think autos have their place, great for new growers or when cultivated by pros can produce awesome results (see http://www.dutch-passion.nl/en/news-and-development/new-auto-mazar-world-record-350g-harvest-from-single-plant-here-is-the-grow-diary/)

I think they both have their benefits, the major benefit of autos is their quick turn around, I've grown 'Fast bud' and it was finished from seed in 8 weeks 4 days.

Also if your worried about plant height just do a little LST and you can easily reduce the height of the plant

I am sure an Auto will always be less potent seeing as 1 of its parents had no/very little thc.

Shouldn't be one of it's parents? It takes at least 3 generations to get a 100% auto. The pure auto should only be it's grandparent if you will. How much of a thc difference do you think F3 autos have vs. their photo counterparts? I'm guessing not much. 1%-3% maybe?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VUuom5dYjLA

Watch this video on this auto, pretty sweet

with more hours of light, it would seem autos would be the better choice since they could photosynthesize up to 2x more in a life time(although 24/0 isnt the best with all of em), but many autos arent well bred and turn out to be about a 1 tall by the end. theres many autos out there that are starting to get bigger and better, OGRE from secret garden(thanks to corso for showing me this one) as well as onyx or blue himalaya diesel from short stuff are a few outlying autos you could say, they do grow bigger and yield better, some would say the buds are just as potent as well. mdanzig also offers some well bred autoflowering plants, however many would just want photoperiods so they could have the option of vegging for longer to get a larger yield, so there is pros and cons to the autoflower gene, i think a few years from now more breeders will see the advantage of autos but for now, many are just buying auto seeds for sog grows, but are forced to go back to the breeder for more seeds, unless they themselves breed them. i would honestly go with a semi auto, they will flower under 14 hours of light due to their short season parents but they also offer the advantage of clone-ability. short season strains like iranian short season(supposedly a selected pheno that was bred from guerrilla gold) offer these advantages. so if your doing autos, plan on ordering seeds unless you put aside a male for some breeding.

Can't you just use colloidal silver to make it a hermie?

Cloudz2600 said:

Can't you just use colloidal silver to make it a hermie?

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yeah but then you have a bunch of unsmokable bud, seeds that have the possibility of being hermies since it is in their genepool, and if you like the strain you get, its unbreedable, and uncloneable. so youve lost that strain forever.

for some people that say autos are only short, if you got the lights with the nutes look at what it could become. this is not me but i follow the dude on youtube got some killer grows with autos and not autos, one of his grows he had like 5 doubledieselryders and pulled justabout a pound if i remember correctly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dzt_PA4QPr8&feature=plcp

Yes u could 12/12 a photo and have a plant to harvest like an auto. However the great thing about an auto is that u can flower it while vegging ur photos. They dont require 12/12 to flower. I think autos are great. Specially if you only have one grow room. While im waiting for my photos to veg i can completely grow and harvest my auto. Then throw my photo plants on 12/12... autos work great for stealth and pc grows too. I think they definitely have a place...

Cheers for all the input to the thread. I do perrsonally udnerstand the pros to havving autoflowers, and the ones i did earlier this year are lovely smoke. Im wasnt really asking what are the pros and cons of photo and autos in general, but specifically if a photo is put on 12/12 after 2-3 weeks eg, will it (i know there will be variatioons in genetics) compete at the same level as an auto. thats all im asking, basically i really like autos, but wanna know if anyone who has grown autos and photos on 12/12 in very small spaces notices whether the photos perfrom less well than the autos. i.e. does going from 2 weeks veg into 12/12 make the plant deformed in any way or will it not produce tight buds like autos are now designed to do. Im gonna try it out on my next grow anyway with some femmed sour diesel and just see what happens. It seems autos are perfect for small spaces but i wasnt sure whether regular photo plants would get too big or just generally grow out during flowering in a completely different manner to how autos seem to grow (relatively short internodeal spaces for nice tight buds, in a very short time period) Thanks again for the input

Typically a photo switched to 12/12 will grow 2-3 times in size. There's really no way to say x photo will grow as fast as y auto if you veg the photo for 2 weeks. Different strains and ever different seeds of the same strain will always have different times.

All a shorter veg time means is the plant will be smaller. More time in veg=larger plants, it's as simple as that. If you're concerned about space either grow autos or go 12/12 from seed and not 12/12 two weeks in. Internodal spacing is wholly dependent on the light source, assuming you're growing the same strain. More lighting=less strectching=tighter buds. Sativas will obviously have longer stems than indicas and some strains are bred to be bushier than others.

Cloudz2600 said:

Typically a photo switched to 12/12 will grow 2-3 times in size. There's really no way to say x photo will grow as fast as y auto if you veg the photo for 2 weeks. Different strains and ever different seeds of the same strain will always have different times.

All a shorter veg time means is the plant will be smaller. More time in veg=larger plants, it's as simple as that. If you're concerned about space either grow autos or go 12/12 from seed and not 12/12 two weeks in. Internodal spacing is wholly dependent on the light source, assuming you're growing the same strain. More lighting=less strectching=tighter buds. Sativas will obviously have longer stems than indicas and some strains are bred to be bushier than others.

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exactly, couldnt have said it better.

ok I didnot read all the reply's but it's quite simple math... most autos take 2-3 weeks veg. then 5-6 weeks budding...that's 7-9 weeks so average 8 weeks or 6.5 harvest a year 12/12 from seed still takes 3-4 weeks veg before they start to bud and then 8-9 weeks to finish bud.. that's 11-13 weeks so say 12 weeks or 4.3 harvest a year now take it one step more...12/12clones vs auto.. if you start you new auto seeds 3 weeks before your last crop is done so your sexed and ready to go...you can have a 5 week turnaround...or 10.2 harvest a year 12/12 with rooted clones that take 8 weeks to bud is 6.5 harvest...

RawBudzski said:

I am sure an Auto will always be less potent seeing as 1 of its parents had no/very little thc.

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Virtually all of the modern autos are bred from already hybridized parents that are 8-10+ generations removed from the original hemp-like autoflowering ruderalis plants.

So this statement isn't strictly true. They're mostly started from with parents of respectable potency.

To answer the original question, see here:

https://www.rollitup.org/auto-flowering-strains/502366-pros-cons-info-needed-autoflower-3.html#post6925856

lowblower said:

I was just wondering if having autos is beneficial in an indoor grow in the slightest. If i vegged a regular photo plant for 3 weeks and switched to 12/12 (around the same time an auto flower starts to fower) then will i end up (generally speaking) with smaller, the same or bigger buds ??

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Hard to say, because it depends on the strains you're comparing.

But lots of people will grow ordinary photo plants 12-12 from seed to keep them small.

Its controversial whether doing that is "better" or worse than autos. It depends a little bit on what you're trying to accomplish.

If you're starting from CLONES (not seed) running them 12-12 can be just as fast as running auto plants, or possibly even faster.

I know auto flowers are good for outdoors but what is the real appeal. I did an indoor auto grow this year and im thinking of just having a photo strain grow on 12/12 instead next time because it will reduce the amount of electricity needed to get the plants to the end.

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See my last post, on why you might want to grow autos. I agree growing "stealth" plants outside that mature during non-usual harvest times is probably THE single best reason.

Indoors, if you have a really limited space, dwarf autos might be a good fit, because they'll be naturally short and compact, and won't need the same kind of training that most photos would need.

If you're ALREADY growing photo-plants and have seperate veg/flowering areas, with extra space in your veg area, you could use it to FLOWER a photoplant.

In terms of saving on your electric bill, since yield is at least proportionate to light received during flowering, this is false economy. Yeah, you'll use less light but you'll also end up with less bud!

Note that you "can" run autoflowers at 12-12 too, if you wanted to (eg if you happened to have auto seeds and wanted to run them in the same flowering area as conventional photo plants). But again, this will just lower your yields.

autos generally go on a 20/4 cycle, but photo strains have just a 12/12 cycle to flower.....so are the bud sizes/quality, better in autos or photo plants ?? Thanks in advance

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Again, this depends on which exact strains you're comparing.

The best auto strains aren't as good as the best photo strains, but they're still VERY good nowadays.

Jogro said:

If you're starting from CLONES (not seed) running them 12-12 can be just as fast as running auto plants, or possibly even faster.

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well if you are talking apples to apples you would be comparing Clones to 2week old sexed Autos...not clones vs seed...

12/12 a rooted clone and it still takes 8-9weeks to finish a fast photo strain...
pre sexed autos are going to take 5-6 weeks for fast strains to finish...