Growing autos

Hey everyone, I'm fairly new to this site as this is my first post. I have had many successful outdoor grows the past 5 years here in Ontario, Canada. Honestly, my best grow was last summer where I did not use any nutes at all - completely organic.

Anyway, I've recently started an indoor grow with a 2ft 4 bulb t5 cfl set up for seedlings/vegging and a 600w hps for flowering. I bought a crop king seeds mixed 10 pack of auto seeds. I got a 10/10 germination success rate with one kind of deformed seedling where both first two leaves were stuck curled up after sprouting, one fell off but I can it's doing its best to recover. (If anyone has experienced this please share with me what it issue may be or what you did to help recover).

So, aside from the deformed little guy, the other 9 seedlings are about 3 inches tall and all are forming nice big fat healthy fan leaves.

Now, I just want to talk about light schedules.

Everyone always debates on wether they should go 24/0, 20/4, 18/6 etc. I understand that it may depend on the strain of auto that you are growing, but here is what I have been told by a professional from Dutch Pro, as well as another professional from a local hydro shop here in my area. ( I am unaware at the time of what strains I have, but crop king seeds have 5 strains, so I at least have a couple strains out of the 5, and all seedlings ( except the one) are performing relatively the same compared to one another).

I have been told that with autos, they always take longer from start - finish than what the package says.

It is best to start the first two weeks of growth under 24/0 of light, wether it be MH, CFL or LED. Now, this is ONLY the first two weeks.

Now, first of all, autos can pretty much grow in any amount of light, for how ever long it takes it to finish. Lighting schedules may vary and if it is recommended differently by your seed, nutrition, or hydro equip suppliers, then by all means that is probably best suited for you.

This is what I have been told, also have a weekly schedule made up and this is it.

Seedlings/cuttings
Week 1-2
24/0

Vegetative growth
Week 3-6
18/6

Flowering growth
Week 7-8
16/8 **** now I have been told that this optimizes flowering growth. This allows to maximize growth during flowering for the remaining weeks

Flowering growth
Week 9-11
18/6 **** as you can see the light goes back to 18 hrs. Apparently this is how it maximizes growth during the flowering cycle

Flowering growth
Week 11-12
16/8 *** back to 16 again.

Week 13-14
14/10. *** week 14, always flush with water. Some people even recommend flushing both week 13 and 14.

Anyway, I know I am no pro. But it seems like from the two weeks of research I have been doing on autos, everyone is guessing. If you find yourself guessing, this should help out.

So, happy growing to all. I will post photos of my babies when I get them uploaded on my comp cause I can't post on here via. Mobile.

nope u are thinking photos

20/4 the whole way until u do the UV and final 2 days dark before cut

if u wanted u could do a 24/0 time autos are the shit when it comes to light and timing they like both lightwaves

i been growing them 2 years now i moved up to controlled lightwaves and timing
my best /steady returns are in the 20/4 cycle ....and if u can mix spec during flowering the buds are tighter

and your timing on them is off
30to 35 days after u plant it and those first leaves come off it will auto flip into flower
then u are looking at 35 to 60 days more and u have a done drippy plant

autos are great for limited space grows ..........in 30 days the correct feed/soil i have gotten roots in a 7 gallon soil bag looking at 6 to 10 oz off something like that more then enough for personal and if u do the math it works better for biz too the turn around and allowing u to keep them all in same area u can have it set in step harvests every 2 weeks just have to keep planting when u cut so your strains alter

Hey man! Glad to see people reply this quickly to posts. Nice to meet you.

Well to start, I wish I could post pics from my phone on this site ( can I do this?) but my equipment supplier printed off a schedule specifically for my setup and autos. This is also for my personalized set up with my soil and nutrients. The schedule is made by Dutch Pro complete fertilizers. I bought the full nute box kit cause it was on sale at his shop so he made a customized schedule as apposed to the kits pheno schedule.

So yea, i suppose it all depends on your growing medium and nutrients as well as environment plus the million other scientific things people put into play.

Nonetheless it's been 9 days and the little guys are looking surprisingly great. Keep in touch and I will eventually get pics posted. I'm going to stick with this schedule because even tho the lights have been on 24/0 I can't wait to see how they react when they're introduced to the darkness haha.

I also have a pheno from my summer grow going too. I only give that 16/8. Hopefully it's a fem so once my autos go under the hps it'll still be vegging so I will cut clones and try to start up my first cycle

Pbudz420 said:

Hey man! Glad to see people reply this quickly to posts. Nice to meet you.

Well to start, I wish I could post pics from my phone on this site ( can I do this?) but my equipment supplier printed off a schedule specifically for my setup and autos. This is also for my personalized set up with my soil and nutrients. The schedule is made by Dutch Pro complete fertilizers. I bought the full nute box kit cause it was on sale at his shop so he made a customized schedule as apposed to the kits pheno schedule.

So yea, i suppose it all depends on your growing medium and nutrients as well as environment plus the million other scientific things people put into play.

Nonetheless it's been 9 days and the little guys are looking surprisingly great. Keep in touch and I will eventually get pics posted. I'm going to stick with this schedule because even tho the lights have been on 24/0 I can't wait to see how they react when they're introduced to the darkness haha.

I also have a pheno from my summer grow going too. I only give that 16/8. Hopefully it's a fem so once my autos go under the hps it'll still be vegging so I will cut clones and try to start up my first cycle

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sir no on the clones ...........this is the one drawl back on auto flowering

the shorten life span of the plant is horrible for cloning the cuttings them self are never as massive as the mother plant and the mother plant has no time to recover before flowering so that yield is off

all my grows i been reducing and experimenting with the variables u are talking about .............a auto plant is all about how much food and water u can offer so if u got the gear and the skills DWC is the method to go the plants might take longer then 90 days some where in 110

dutch is good stuff they have a good rep in the cups ..........but any plan they offer u is under their grow conditions

the light is not going to do all that u think the plants are from the artic area the parts that give it auto listing where the sun shines for 22 hours a day in the short growing season it is the genetics behide the plant they only have 3-4 months to grow flower and seed for the next gen to grow after the freeze

u will see more growth if u leave the light on effectively u only need 4 hours of dark...........i am currently messing with 23/1 and a % light system that i can increase in increments it only gets 18hours of 100% ....good reaction in growth and now flowering but the soil is still off i can not find the right blend think i will go back to feedings soils like foxfarms

and whatz up

justugh said:

and whatz up

Click to expand...

Not a whole lot. made vegetarian burritos w corn tortillas drank a n/a beer. smokd goat wreck haze. thinkin about repotting and laundry. prolly not what you were asking.

abe supercro said:

Not a whole lot. made vegetarian burritos w corn tortillas drank a n/a beer. smokd goat wreck haze. thinkin about repotting and laundry. prolly not what you were asking.

Click to expand...

honest answer so can not fault yah

Nono, I meant the plant I will be cloning isn't an auto. When my autos begin flowering I will toss em under the hps. The plant I will be cloning is s pheno. Found the seed in my summer/fall harvest of last year. That is on the pheno schedule

Pbudz420 said:

Nono, I meant the plant I will be cloning isn't an auto. When my autos begin flowering I will toss em under the hps. The plant I will be cloning is s pheno. Found the seed in my summer/fall harvest of last year. That is on the pheno schedule

Click to expand...

ok


u can put them all in one area but u will need to be on the 12/12 for the photo plants .............i never run the plants like that on a 12/12 for flowering

i do not know about that for u the math works out if u do a 20/4 time the plants get 50 days of flowering in 30 days (compared to a 12/12) ........so all my autos will have 20 full day of more light then the autos will with your photos

i never run that like that used a 12/12 to flip one once but then it went back to a 20/4

I've grown one auto.24hrs first 18days,then 12-12(was in my tent with photos)..did excellent.im sure there are better ways..I got 37.5 grams from a 2gal smart pot with mine tho.

Pbudz420 said:

Hey everyone, I'm fairly new to this site as this is my first post. I have had many successful outdoor grows the past 5 years here in Ontario, Canada. Honestly, my best grow was last summer where I did not use any nutes at all - completely organic.

Anyway, I've recently started an indoor grow with a 2ft 4 bulb t5 cfl set up for seedlings/vegging and a 600w hps for flowering. I bought a crop king seeds mixed 10 pack of auto seeds. I got a 10/10 germination success rate with one kind of deformed seedling where both first two leaves were stuck curled up after sprouting, one fell off but I can it's doing its best to recover. (If anyone has experienced this please share with me what it issue may be or what you did to help recover).

So, aside from the deformed little guy, the other 9 seedlings are about 3 inches tall and all are forming nice big fat healthy fan leaves.

Now, I just want to talk about light schedules.

Everyone always debates on wether they should go 24/0, 20/4, 18/6 etc. I understand that it may depend on the strain of auto that you are growing, but here is what I have been told by a professional from Dutch Pro, as well as another professional from a local hydro shop here in my area. ( I am unaware at the time of what strains I have, but crop king seeds have 5 strains, so I at least have a couple strains out of the 5, and all seedlings ( except the one) are performing relatively the same compared to one another).

I have been told that with autos, they always take longer from start - finish than what the package says.

It is best to start the first two weeks of growth under 24/0 of light, wether it be MH, CFL or LED. Now, this is ONLY the first two weeks.

Now, first of all, autos can pretty much grow in any amount of light, for how ever long it takes it to finish. Lighting schedules may vary and if it is recommended differently by your seed, nutrition, or hydro equip suppliers, then by all means that is probably best suited for you.

This is what I have been told, also have a weekly schedule made up and this is it.

Seedlings/cuttings
Week 1-2
24/0

Vegetative growth
Week 3-6
18/6

Flowering growth
Week 7-8
16/8 **** now I have been told that this optimizes flowering growth. This allows to maximize growth during flowering for the remaining weeks

Flowering growth
Week 9-11
18/6 **** as you can see the light goes back to 18 hrs. Apparently this is how it maximizes growth during the flowering cycle

Flowering growth
Week 11-12
16/8 *** back to 16 again.

Week 13-14
14/10. *** week 14, always flush with water. Some people even recommend flushing both week 13 and 14.

Anyway, I know I am no pro. But it seems like from the two weeks of research I have been doing on autos, everyone is guessing. If you find yourself guessing, this should help out.

So, happy growing to all. I will post photos of my babies when I get them uploaded on my comp cause I can't post on here via. Mobile.

Click to expand...

What's up pbudz? For no apparent reason I ran my autos on 21/3 from the start, then switched to 18/6 towards the end of flower n had decent results. I've read there are unstable strains that won't auto without having a longer dark period, but the handful of strains I ran all flowered just fine under the 21 hour photoperiod...

I did try topping one, and it didn't respond real well to it - maybe hit it a little late. I've seen journals where topping yielded good results, but I just stuck with LST on my other autos because of the shorter veg time and that seemed to work better for me.




Started them in solo cups n just appended those to fabric pots later on for a stressless 'transplant' - just cut the bottoms off the solo cups n buried them a couple inches into the fabric pots. Everything I read prior to running the autos said to avoid stress as much as possible, due to them not being able to recover from any stunting with a longer vegetative cycle.


Honestly I think you'll be fine with any photoperiod as long as it's a true auto. There's quite a variety of different auto strains, some getting larger / flowering longer than others, but from what I've seen the majority are smaller plants (deriving from the dwarf of the cannabis world) and finish relatively quickly - great for limited space, and to get a quick harvest (again depending on strain...). If you've had success outdoors running photos n organic soil, you'll do just fine. Good luck man

Hey man that's a beauty. What strain is that?

I've had mine going 24/0 first two weeks. They're looking great still. Im debating on even using this schedule I was given by the guy because everyone says different haha. Seems like with autos it really doesn't matter what schedule you got if you just take care of them.

What do you mean by true auto?

Pbudz420 said:

Hey man that's a beauty. What strain is that?

I've had mine going 24/0 first two weeks. They're looking great still. Im debating on even using this schedule I was given by the guy because everyone says different haha. Seems like with autos it really doesn't matter what schedule you got if you just take care of them.

What do you mean by true auto?

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that one was nirvanas northern lights auto .

by true auto i just mean one that really carries the gene to start flowering regardless of the photoperiod. ive read there were a lot of 'unstable' autos floating around for a while where it was hit or miss...breeders pushing out new strains before they were stable n what not. one actually was that northern lights strain from nirvana before they re worked the line ppl were having a hell of a time getting them to flower. the beans i had were after they fixed it tho.

as long as you stick with reputable breeders i dont think its a real common problem

Ahh I see what you mean. Yea I got from crop king seeds. They seem pretty reliable. They only put out a few of their best strains. A reputable Vancouver based company. Funny story actually.. I spent a couple days looking online for seeds. Ended up only waiting 5 days for a shipment across Canada.

I went to go buy my equipment at the local hydro shop and their neighbours sell smoking supplies and well.. The top brand seeds as well. (It's a joined shop but separate units)

I learned the hard way but at least I have easy access to expert seeds, serious seeds, dinafem, crop king seeds and a couple I forget. And their expertise. Bonus!

Hey guys, just posted an update.

So, coming up to one month, girls are ranging from 17-24 inches and started showing their sex about a week ago.

I'm sticking with the schedule that I first posted and all is well. Girls are bushy, nice green and healthy. They all have a bunch of heads and the little guy that had a rough start has done something pretty incredible.

The one with the first leaf that fell off as it was a seedling, has pretty much topped itself and split into two stalks. She is about 16 inches and surprisingly keeping up. I suppose it's because the stress occurred so early in its life.

Anyway, nonetheless, I have been listening to my local grow shop professionals and they seem to know what's up.

I actually started to really think about it, and well... I've realized that looking up forums for info on the Internet is pretty much just as ridiculous as looking up info on symptoms of rare diseases that you may have because you have a cough. Point being, go see your doctor, or in this case your grow shop professionals.

Cheers everyone and happy growing!