First autoflower grow

[JohnnyJ]

Hello fellow farmers. First auto flower grow, so hoping to pick up some tips and tricks from fellow farmers and interesting to see other grows. Looking forward to meeting fellow growers

 

[THCosmic]

Welcome to the farm!

I haven't grown any autoflower yet, but I still have some tips/info that should help.

1. Avoid high stress as much as possible. Autoflowers have a limited lifespan so any stunted growth will not be recoverable like with a photoperiod plant that can simply veg for longer.

2. The seed to harvest times provided by the seed banks are not exact. Honestly, by reading through the forums here, it seems like most autoflower grows take longer than what the seed bank lists for any particular autoflower strain.

3. Autoflower plants are crossed with ruderalis, which is known for low THC content. If you are seeking potency, I recommend growing the photoperiod version of the strain and just start flowering sooner, which will be comparable to autoflower without the loss of THC. Check out the 12-12 from seed community journal as all of these photoperiod plants will have similar grow times and yields compared to autoflower plants.

Best of luck to you on this journey! I recommend starting a new thread in the grow diaries section so you can share the experience with this awesome community.

 

[JohnnyJ]

Thanx Thcosmic appreciated Yes ive managed all this so far and it seems to be growing well and i started LST 4 days ago and she responded really well to this too Pistils are in abundance this week but not sure if shes trasitioning to flower or shes in flower, shes 31 days today from sprout and from yest ive a feeling the flowering stretch is on i suppose the next couple of days will tell. The node sites are still symetrical as ive heard about symetrical and non symetrical meaning its in veg or flower tho never found out if thats 100% true
Will post some pics when i figure it out
Cheers for the input and happy growing

 

[alamo556]

The challenge with autos is the short growing time, so you have to get to the point on every phase of the growing cycle. Here is what I mean.

We are using Nirvana seeds, General Hydroponics Flora series nutes,, Grodan Grow Cubes as media and California Lightworks SX 500 LEDS.

The said as soon as they are in their final cloth grow pot, I go right to the aggressive grow formula for Flora nutes. The reason for that is you only have 4 to 5 weeks of veg. so you have to get to the point and get as much growth volume as you can. And don't forget you'll need a good flush before you transition.

As soon as flowers start to appear (which for us has been 5 weeks after germination) we go to transition then with next feeding right to aggressive bloom with Flora series. With the last couple of feedings leaning into General Hydro's dry bloom product.

Just comment, off menu we added Flora's nectar product to our mix and noticed a marked increase in tricoms.

Good luck, but like I said. With autos you have to get to the point, because you don't have much time.

 

[JIMKSI64]

I have done 1 strain of autoflowers and it took me 4 plants to get the nutrition profile down. I run organics so using a plan is a must. I need to top dress 10 days before the nutrition runs out.
One thing I and a lot of new growers have done when switching to autoflowers is not adjusting your expected light energy as you will not have a 12 12 cycle for autoflowers. I run 18-6 and if I measure over 49k lux the plant says nay nay.
2 light measurements or things to look for. Exceeding the energy level of the plant called the saturation level will show in to ways. One shows up pretty quick if you step up too fast with your lights the edges curl up into a taco and the tip may discolor and curl down. If not remedied with a power change this can damage top leafs and flowers .
The second presentation is about the last 3 hours of your grow. The leaves may be dry and papery and everything is sagging that is on the canopy but weirdly the bottom looks ok.
This is the cumulative energy called DLI and there is a limit how much energy a plant can swallow and not puke.
A good start is a must. And unless you are going to use a bad start as a learning experience I cull plants that do not hit benchmarks. I am not running a plant for 3 months for a 20 gram harvest. And it happens

I Have a lot more data about my grow on my grow diaries thread.
I also post fuckups I do and learning channel posts as it is getting a lot of traffic.
Thread '2 TENTS AND ELEVEN PLANTS AUTOS' https://www.thcfarmer.com/threads/2-tents-and-eleven-plants-autos.172513/