Best Way to Train Auto-Flowering Strains?

[Nsky]

Just....GWE Newsletters are so good. Comprehensive, easy flow, lots of good smart info. Only thing I read now in my email. A perfect companion to the gwe website and forum. Thank you. Best ever!

[Jeg]

I just now figured out how to sign up for it.....I'm not the brightest bulb

[Nsky]

I was auto-added maybe. Great reading.

[Marley]

I'm far from experienced, but I can tell you what I've noticed so far from my Auto grow compared to my Photo grow: 26 days in, not much... They've behaved similarly to the toppings and LST. No stunting to speak of, just a couple of days of slower growth, followed by explosive growth. I experienced the same thing with the photo's. Same with defoliation, the first time it seems to slow growth for a couple of days, but then it explodes with new growth and every defoliation session after doesn't seem to bother it in the least bit.

I do think having a healthy plant, lot's of light and a good environment is key to keeping the plants going strong when you're introducing these stresses.

I'm about to pull down a big harvest soon which will give me a lot of time to experiment, and possibly fail, without worry. and I have a bunch of freebie Auto seeds to play with. Expect a thread from me where I'll try anything and everything we "shouldn't do" with Auto's to see if the stories are true.

[Beach_Town_Brit]

I'm late to the party it seems. I'm for topping autos, generally after the second or third node. I like to strip the first node and keep nodes 2 & 3 as my mains.
For me, it's about space. My grow is small, under 10 square feet for everything including nute storage etc., but we smoke a lot of weed. When I grew photos, not only did they take too long but they also got too big and became unwieldy in my little 2'x4' tent.

[Marley]

To add to my previous post, this was taken 2 days ago, freshly defoliated.



And this was taken today.




No signs of stopping

[Marley]

And a day later after more defoliation. Notice the stretch since the first picture, with each stem needing an additional tie down. Still growing strong.

[Jeg]

Impressive!

[Nsky]

Six sided starrrrr!!!

[MommaBear]

Love the comparison Marley, great looking plant!! 👍🏼

[Marley]

Thank you!

[ribbitt]

I am on my third grow of autos .I have never topped them I do a lot of lst training some of my autos veg for a longer period than others those plants are bigger I trim as it grows to expose bud sites to more light I use gh trio nutes 18-6lighting ph at six use hydroguard for roots going to harvest my bubblegum auto today I have learned a lot from your site thank you for sharing your knowledge doing a awsome job with you're site .I'm trying to do a perpetual grow just started five new plants one photo five autos

[Archaic]

I think that in 10 years most of us will look back on the days before autoflowering plants as the old days. Autoflowering cannabis is the future of growing. I've pretty much fully gone over to autos - indoors or out, regs or fems - the predictability of autos is just so much easier to deal with and now autos are honestly every bit as potent, flavorful, and colorful as most photos. I train all of my autos, primarily LST, but I have also topped and fimmed them.

My main way of doing LST is to start laying the plant on its side as soon after it sprouts as I can. I just gently walk the plant from one end of a rectangular pot to the other, spreading the limbs apart as I do. Outdoors its even easier to do because I plant in the ground. In a way, I'm going for kind of a one armed manifold. I'll see if I can get a pic of my Sin Tra Bajo's tonight. All I did to them was lay them down and string them across the pot and I've taken probably 10-12 inches of vertical growth and turned it into horizontal growth and shined light on a lot more buds.