Bigskunklover said:

This is true, everyone has their own preference, as long as they are happy with their own is all that matters, when I was younger in the 80s in West Virginia I grew outdoors with what ever seeds I saved, one thing I did learn was you never really know what a plant is gonna do, been pleasantly surprised and disappointed, currently to damn old for gorilla farming,lol so auto flower works for me

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Hawk518 said:

Stopped reading the thread after page one when it devolved into people going after each other, so if this has already been said, my apologies...

I'm fairly new to all of this. I'm about to start my third grow season. I've been growing photo fems outside. They did really well (had a 9 footer last season). BUT I live in N. VA. And while waiting to harvest, all my plants were hit w. bud rot due to the VA weather. Lost most of the harvests. The only thing I can think of to fix this issue is to either find the fastest photos I can OR try autos. Can only grow 4 at a time, so planning on trying autos this season. Who knows, might be able to get two sets of grows this outdoor season.

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rDWCNoob said:

No advantages? I think someone is rather biased


The bolded part above is simply not true. Autos will never have the potentcy you can find in Photos, period. There are 0 autos that exists that can produce buds over 30% THC. Or at least I havent found one yet. This is because they have had to be crossed with a ruderalis at some point down the line to get the auto flowering characteristic. Ruderalis has little to no THC. So once they managed to get proper autos bred in the first place, they then have to cross and back cross multiple times to both retain the autoflowering, AND get the THC up higher. Todays autos are getting pretty good, with THC levels Ive seen in the mid 20's. However, photos can get up to the mid 30s.

There is one very solid advantage to autos. Seed to harvest in as little as 50 days. In photos, 50 days is a rather short "flowering period", after 3 or more weeks of veg. With an auto, thats your entire grow. You can have upwards of 5 or maybe 6 harvests per year, from seed, without any overlap. So a single room, a single light, and every 50 days youve got 1-2 pounds of dry bud from a single 4x4. Photos cant compete with that timeline without multiple rooms, multiple lights and overlapping veg and flower for each run.

That being said, I refuse to grow autos lol.

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Hawk518 said:

Stopped reading the thread after page one when it devolved into people going after each other, so if this has already been said, my apologies...

I'm fairly new to all of this. I'm about to start my third grow season. I've been growing photo fems outside. They did really well (had a 9 footer last season). BUT I live in N. VA. And while waiting to harvest, all my plants were hit w. bud rot due to the VA weather. Lost most of the harvests. The only thing I can think of to fix this issue is to either find the fastest photos I can OR try autos. Can only grow 4 at a time, so planning on trying autos this season. Who knows, might be able to get two sets of grows this outdoor season.

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LoveGrowingIt said:

I think I understand how autos acquired a poor reputation. The Ruderalis plant, which provides the auto-flower genetics, isn't known to provide much of the high we like so much. Preserving only that trait must have been challenging for breeders, but I believe much of that has been resolved.

I have grown autos twice: Green Gelato and Royal Creamatic. Both were from RQS. They both provide an excellent high. Yield was on the low side, though. I'm working to correct that as I learn more about growing autos. Getting them off to a faster start is my main goal, so I'm changing the initial nutrients. I'll increase the light intensity, too. I also recently started using a humidity dome from AC Infinity for starting seeds, and that has worked well for us. I have two Zkittles clones in it now.

We are planning to grow two autos outside this summer. I'm not sure which stains. I still have some Royal Creamatic seeds, so that's a possibility. I also have one CBD Kush seed, so I might try that, and grow one of the Creamatics under lights.

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WhatWouldBobDo said:

I grew in the '90's and early '00's. Originally, Ruderalis was more of a novelty smoke. And you're right, it wasn't the high we were used to, or expecting. Back then, alot of us kept the genetics around because we thought someone, somewhere, would be able to do something amazing with it by turning it into a 2 foot tall 2 months to harvest plant, that few would recognize as traditional pot. When they started crossing it with ducks foot, everyone's mouth started watering about possibly growing unrecognizable plants in your flower beds in prohibition states.

By the early to mid '00's, the first "reliable" autos hit the market. You got a lot of predictability in the grow. You know it would be 2 foot tall with a better smoke. Which was huge for stealth grows. And when you grew under CFLs you didn't have the advantage of risking a taller plant. Because other genetics could be 4 feet could be 6 feet after stretching. In one of those old computer grows, or small can grows, you either needed a compact auto or alot of experience in order to finish a plant in 18". The predictability was emphasized to beginners, as "kits" to grow. And I think it just stuck around as a "beginner friendly" plant, even though now there's no need in most cases to worry about a plant hitting 4 feet tall in your grow tent.

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