New Grower - Confused by Results

ocsdfw · May 24, 2023

Hello All, First time growing and results so far don't seem normal from what I have researched. I started by buying 5 Tangerine Dreams auto flowering seeds and sowed them using the dark, warm indoor room method in little plant cups with soil. Soil I used and continued to use was Fox Farm Ocean Forest with a few amendments like perlite. 3 out of the 5 seeds germinated and I moved them into a room with a grow light to start the second phase. After weeks of growing in this condition and they got some height I pruned them after the 4th node and started to transition them the their outdoor home. I transferred the plants to their 5 gallon containers and gradually moved them into the full sun after a few days of acclimating them. My climate is coastal with heat and humidity. I started the Fox Farm 3 pack fertilizer (BB,GB,TB) schedule according to their recommendations. Plants still kept growing but not real fast. They seem to have stalled. I made the mistake of not noting time of spouting to today but if I had to guess they are in the 7-9 week stage. They get 10-12 hours of sun so far, more to come with summer around the corner. I am getting no more height and they are filling out and very compact. I read the specs on the seed and these should be a lot bigger. The height of these are from 12"-15" max so far. At this point I really don't know what is going on. Is this normal, at what point am I at in this growing stage, what do I do next, etc..... I have the live and learn attitude but it is always nice to get it right the first time. Especially if you want to do it outdoors with the limited grow time you have. Pictures are from today in its current state. Any help, observation, advice would be great. Thank You......

SchwiftyGrower · May 24, 2023

See this all the time with autos. Plant them and if you even look at them wrong and they’ll stunt like they did for you.

Autos will flower on their on schedule and certain strains do not deal well with topping. Most will only LST if anything. Odds are you topped right before as it was flipping to flower and it was healing while it was supposed to be stretching.

Also 12 hours for an auto isn’t a lot of sunlight, 14-20 hours is what most recommend.

Also transplanting causes stress which require it to heal. Every minute counts in an auto grow. Most successful auto grows, usually will not transplant and will sow their seeds in the final pots

ocsdfw · May 24, 2023

SchwiftyGrower said:
See this all the time with autos. Plant them and if you even look at them wrong and they’ll stunt like they did for you.

Autos will flower on their on schedule and certain strains do not deal well with topping. Most will only LST if anything. Odds are you topped right before as it was flipping to flower and it was healing while it was supposed to be stretching.

Also 12 hours for an auto isn’t a lot of sunlight, 14-20 hours is what most recommend.

Also transplanting causes stress which require it to heal. Every minute counts in an auto grow. Most successful auto grows, usually will not transplant and will sow their seeds in the final pots

So are these a wash at this point? I chose auto because it seemed to best way to go for first time success. So by topping I basically ruined the plant?

SchwiftyGrower · May 24, 2023

ocsdfw said:
So are these a wash at this point? I chose auto because it seemed to best way to go for first time success. So by topping I basically ruined the plant?

It’s not a wash, just don’t expect heavy yields.

Trust me, I’d say 95% of new growers start thinking this same thing. Autos do have their place and it’s usually outdoors in environments that can’t finish a full photoperiod without running into environmental issues.

They are very finicky and if you stress the plant, and don’t give it a good start, you’ll end up with small plants. Genetics are getting stronger for autos, but I see sooooo many new growers having issues with autos that I personally won’t attempt it.

ocsdfw · May 24, 2023

SchwiftyGrower said:
It’s not a wash, just don’t expect heavy yields.

Trust me, I’d say 95% of new growers start thinking this same thing. Autos do have their place and it’s usually outdoors in environments that can’t finish a full photoperiod without running into environmental issues.

They are very finicky and if you stress the plant, and don’t give it a good start, you’ll end up with small plants. Genetics are getting stronger for autos, but I see sooooo many new growers having issues with autos that I personally won’t attempt it.

Good to know. What do you recommend for their replacement? Also at what stage am I at now if you have to guess and how much longer to harvest? Not having a high yield at this point is ok. I don't partake or medicate, any fruits of my labor I was just going to give away to friends. I just like to garden and wanted to see if I could do well growing cannabis. Never know when the skill may come in handy. At this point am I wasting fertilizer using all three and should just water with the Tiger Bloom from now on.

SchwiftyGrower · May 24, 2023

ocsdfw said:
Good to know. What do you recommend for their replacement? Also at what stage am I at now if you have to guess and how much longer to harvest? Not have a high yield at this point is ok. I don't partake or medicate, any fruits of my labor I was just going to give away to friends. I just like to garden and wanted to see if I could do well growing cannabis. Never know when the skill may come in handy.

Are you solely outdoors, or do you have an indoor setup? If you’re wanting to give autos a try again, just learn from what happened here and I’m sure you’ll see much better results.

Autos don’t have shorter flowering periods, they have shorter Veg times and will auto transition to flower. Depending on your area you should have plenty of time for another auto attempt. If you were to go photo you’d still be able to pull it off as well, but if you’re only getting 12 hours of light right now, you’re also going to get a smaller photo period since you’re basically growing in a 12/12 environment directly from seed

I’m just ball park guessing, but I’d guess maybe 3 more weeks left??

ocsdfw · May 24, 2023

I would like to stay outdoors other than germinating and a few weeks under a grow light to get some initial growth before moving outside. I almost bought a full indoor setup but decided not to spend the money just in case I decided it was not for me or I don't enjoy it. Good thing for living in southern coastal environment we usually have longer growing seasons, at least for regular gardening. I guess I only have a few hundred in this already so what's another $50 for 5 more seeds if I can still have time to try another batch. Do you have any recommendation on type of seed, strain I should get knowing what my setup and environment is? I got these seeds from Growers Choice Seeds. Anywhere else better or cheaper for 5 seed pack? I really appreciate all your help by the way.

SchwiftyGrower · May 24, 2023

ocsdfw said:
I would like to stay outdoors other than germinating and a few weeks under a grow light to get some initial growth before moving outside. I almost bought a full indoor setup but decided not to spend the money just in case I decided it was not for me or I don't enjoy it. Good thing for living in southern coastal environment we usually have longer growing seasons, at least for regular gardening. I guess I only have a few hundred in this already so what's another $50 for 5 more seeds if I can still have time to try another batch. Do you have any recommendation on type of seed, strain I should get knowing what my setup and environment is? I got these seeds from Growers Choice Seeds. Anywhere else better or cheaper for 5 seed pack? I really appreciate all your help by the way.

I will let others chime in with their experience, but I’ve read that some recommending Anesia Autos

Automatics Archives

Find the best automatic cannabis strains at one of the most famouse breeder. Anesia always provides high quality cannabis seeds

anesiaseeds.com

Correct me if I’m wrong auto growers :)

Eledin · May 24, 2023

I agree 100% with SchwiftyGrower. Sadly if you wanna top autos you need a strain with longer seed to harvest time and it can still give mixed results. I toped a matanuska auto and I had a really good harvest but those seeds had a 3 month time from seed to harvest, which is longer than most autos, so I got away with it. It didnt get stunted but the growth didnt resume until all the plant was re-structured, making the secondary stems main stems, toped at 4 nodes like you but yours sadly is not very good for toping because it has a 2-2,5 months harvest time from seed to harvest. These 2 are the toped matanuska autos:

The last one is missing 1 cola and the tip of another cause my stash was empty but as you can see I pulled it off quite nicely, even tho Im not gonna do it again. The total harvest time was increased by almost 1 month (Kinda defeating the purpose of going for autos for shorter times) and they required way more feeding obviously. As for what seeds I wish I could help you but Im not from the US and you guys have a lot of seed banks in there, I just buy from the OG european seed banks like Royal Queen Seeds but Ive seen that their price in the US is way higher.

ocsdfw · May 24, 2023

SchwiftyGrower said:
I will let others chime in with their experience, but I’ve read that some recommending Anesia Autos

Automatics Archives

Find the best automatic cannabis strains at one of the most famouse breeder. Anesia always provides high quality cannabis seeds

anesiaseeds.com

Correct me if I’m wrong auto growers :)

They dont have to be auto growers if there is something better I should try that is easy to grow and forgiving to a newbie grower like my self.

Imzzaudae · May 24, 2023

Hey bud.
A lot of guys create water only soil mix for autos. Search Youtube.

Crack your seed how ever you like. But plant your seed right in your big pots. Don't transplant Autos.
Never top an auto. LST her over as in video point the top to the north when she has about 4 nodes so the sun hits the lower nodes all day and the plant grows bushy. This is video 8 of a series on growing autos worth watching.

Hope this helps you.
Ron

Captspaulding · May 24, 2023

Out of all of the auto strains I’ve grown, jack herer is a good one, it has 4-5 week veg period and produces large and isn’t temperamental. Great beginner strain imo. Although jack herer ain’t quite what it used to be, you can find it with 20-25%.

Captspaulding · May 24, 2023

Herer auto from crop kings, a friend gave me four of them. They weren’t bad……

Captspaulding · May 24, 2023

WillytheKushGrower said:
One thing about growing autos, most people start the seed in the final pot size. Transplant stress can take up to a week or more out of the growing time since an auto-flower is on a built in time clock.

I mix my own water only organic mix when growing auto-flowers. This year is the first time I ran autos. I have not had any trouble with them so far. I'm using self-watering bases and my water-only mix. I have a couple that are 4ft tall.

No doubt, if you give them all the room they need to stretch out, with no limitations in terms of space, they can produce, minimal topping and they will do you ok, I grew those banners in Home Depot buckets. They loved that shit.

Imzzaudae · May 24, 2023

You should share your soil recopy! Nice plants.

Captspaulding · May 24, 2023

Captspaulding said:
No doubt, if you give them all the room they need to stretch out, with no limitations in terms of space, they can produce, minimal topping and they will do you ok, I grew those banners in Home Depot buckets. They loved that shit.

Err herers Yeesh sorry.

Captspaulding · May 24, 2023

Imzzaudae said:
You should share your soil recopy! Nice plants.

If you were asking, I use forti-lom ultimate mix. That stuff is brown gold.

StonedAgain · May 25, 2023

I've only done a couple autos, I prefer photos, they are easier and the yields are obviously not even comparable... especially outside. You can transplant an auto without too much stress if you're good at transplanting... but topping an auto is usually not recommended... topping sets any plant back like a week to heal, and that's time they just don't have. As said before, they don't flower much faster, they just automatically start budding after 3 or so weeks... that's why most people do autos under 18 or even 20 hours, so they can get max growth before flower. Once any cannabis plant starts flowering, it's pretty much done adding vertical height and will only focus on bud growth. There's so many seed banks it's hard to give recommendations... Herbie's is a well-known one and they have many breeders, you can filter the search by what you're looking for. If you're a gardener and want to play with and manipulate the plant, I'd definitely go with photoperiod seeds, feminized if you don't want to cull males. Good luck, not a bad showing for a first attempt, especially autos, they're very temperamental. Start photos under 18 hours, 12 hours will trigger flowering.

Trash_2002 · May 25, 2023

ocsdfw said:
I would like to stay outdoors other than germinating and a few weeks under a grow light to get some initial growth before moving outside. I almost bought a full indoor setup but decided not to spend the money just in case I decided it was not for me or I don't enjoy it. Good thing for living in southern coastal environment we usually have longer growing seasons, at least for regular gardening. I guess I only have a few hundred in this already so what's another $50 for 5 more seeds if I can still have time to try another batch. Do you have any recommendation on type of seed, strain I should get knowing what my setup and environment is? I got these seeds from Growers Choice Seeds. Anywhere else better or cheaper for 5 seed pack? I really appreciate all your help by the way.

If you do a small indoor to veg your photoperiod plants and/or clones veg them for 4 to 8 weeks in 18-24 hours of light nper day when you put them outside they will start to flower in 7to 14 days, worked this way for a good while, you can flower outside the whole year (environment permitting). With a lot of control on size of plants.
When I worked like that I used to go for 24h of lights per day, no timers, easy peazy, so going from 24h to anything near 12/12 outside they will flower whenever you want, like clockwork.

When you put em outside transplant them in at least 30 liters pots.

ocsdfw · May 25, 2023

I was try to avoid long light periods inside. I have a basic small LED grow light that was cheap but I meant to only have to use it for seedling up to a few weeks just to get the plant a little growth before I moved it outside which is where I really want to grow them. I dont have a decent setup to grow indoors. Like I said I am just growing for fun, not personal use. Just wanted to see if I could and what ever comes out of it I was going to give away so I did not want to spend a lot on equipment. I thought I did enough research but obviously I missed a step or two and also thought this could mostly be done outside. Perhaps the results may not be as good as indoors with a decent setup but I was ok with that. Its really just being grown for the fun of it.

New Grower - Confused by Results

New Grower - Confused by Results

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