Autos Too Small?

[Catmicas]

hey so i have 2 autos and they r at around week 5 but no sign of preflower yet, they have like 5nodes, just started side branching too so u can see they r pretty small for their age, their size isnt bothering me tho, time is. I have 3questions:

1- are autos "programmed" to die at a certain age? like could it happen that my plants are so slowed down that they die mid flower cause the plant was too old?

2- should i try to force them to flower or wait and see?

3- does this just mean my plant gets more time then if they arent programmed to die? or will it eventually flower even being small?

 

[Dunge]

This is what I think, after spending the last 5 summers growing autos outside.
A well bread auto will grow well to a small shrub, go into flower, and mature.
The breeder selects all the timing criteria.
I select for a plant that I can start inside in April and will be ready to harvest in August.
Most commercial seeds I have grown seem to shoot for a shorter span, and offer a rather quick turn around.
To my knowledge and experience, light cycle has nothing to do with a predetermined life cycle.
I believe that long daylight in the sub-arctic will result in more primary productivity and thus bigger plants.
But timing is selected for.
Last summer a batch of f2s displayed wide variance, with many plants growing into six foot shrubs, that never flowered.
These were simply fails, just like the few that flowered too early, and had useless yields.