What are the optimum conditions for good yielding autos with SOG?

[vincenoir]

Hi! This will be my first auto experience. Im really focused to high yielding under the conditions.

I read an article which says something like this.

"Under a 400W HPS light, you can fit 4–16 plants per m² in 5–12l containers".

These numbers sounds in a very large scale for me. 4 or 16 and the containers? So I want to hear your experience which is more reasonable, more seeds or bigger containers?

I dont plant to make any training. And they will be under 400W HPS/MH.

[Tersky]

A 3x3 Or m/sq is not large scale. Large scale is like a house sized grow with at least 50 plants. You can easily fit 16 plants in a 3x3 tent if the pots are small enough and you veg for shorter. In the end it depends on you. Do you want to take care of 16 plants or 4. They will both yield the same if you know what you are doing and train accordingly. And yes, i believe plant training is necessary for indoor grows because the limited height and limited light penetration of grow lights. My personal preference is less plants, larger pots and longer veg as seeds are hard to get where i am and i want to make the most of the seeds i have. Alternatively if you have a mother plant you wont need to keep buying seeds and you can just take clones. You cant have a mother plant that is auto tho as the plant will automatically go into flower and taking clones does not reset the clock.

[bboyfromwayback]

Tending to 4-16 plants by yourself is a lot of work but not large scale. In my opinion growing 16 autos under one 400w HPS would be a waste of seeds. You’d get better results if you ran 4 grows 4 plants each.

[vincenoir]

Thanks for your opinions. First of all, once I trained my plants with manifold method and I didnt seen much benefit. I wait about 5 months and the results are completely dissapointment when It comes the yield. Seeds were good, I used nutritents as tabled, plants were healty but ahh! Especially after all that effort and electricy expenses.

I can try make some training of course but I wonder Is it really matter If you are not a legend of grower? I thought I may get the same result at total yield without training.

My final conditions are 2x400W HPS and 2-2.5 m2.

[Tersky]

It takes practice to get it down. Dont expect yields to improve on you first time. I am certainly not a legend of a grower by any stretch of the imagination. Autos are more difficult to grow in general as there is little time to correct mistakes due to the plants automatically going into flower so doing excessive HST like manifold can stunt plants and lower yields. I have seen people who do it with auto's but they are experienced in reading a plant and only do it when the plant is super healthy. Most auto growers will top and do lst for indoor grows so as to not stress the plant too much.

[vincenoir]

I read the articles again on the site. As I see I need to do Topping or Fimming and LST for proper results. I realized using this tecniques with auto can be a little bit complicated. But thats ok I can decide it when the plants are ready and looks healty. So how many pots would you locate to a tent which has 2.2 x 3m dimensions. Im not sure but In photos that I seen most people used 12 or 15 lt pots. What do you think?

[bboyfromwayback]

Manifold isn’t the technique to use to maximize your yield. It’s makes tending to a plant fairly carefree once formed and it’s a great technique to use on really bushy, tight plants because it gets them opened up to allow more light but not my goto if I want yield

[Tersky]

IMO manifolding is a technique to maximize yield as creating an even canopy and removing things that wont get enough light does maximize the use of light and space, therefore maximizing yield.

[bboyfromwayback]

True, that comment came off wrong I guess. A manifold will definitely increase yield, especially compared to no training. To maximize yield I’ll run a ScrOG though. That method has always produced greater yields for me compared to other training methods.

[Canuck147]

For good yielding autoflowers - genetics - is what will give you good yields. Buy quality seeds.

[vincenoir]

For good yielding autoflowers - genetics - is what will give you good yields. Buy quality seeds.

Yeah I take this seriously. I read some strains on web topics. Is there any strain you spesifically reccomend?

[FunkyButtLovin]

That depends on whether you want to SOG or train. If you want to SOG and use more plants to get good yields but bigger buds with less training and less trimming you should look for a strain that produces a large main cola and minimal side branching. On the other hand, if you want to train and get big yields with fewer plants, look for types that tend to produce bushier plants to begin with.