Autoflowers: Am I Missing Something?

[crucialbunny]

I'm in the midst of my first auto grow and feeling a bit bewildered by the whole process, or should I say, the lack thereof. It's dawning on me that I have virtually no control over when my plant begins flower. It's healthy, full, good color, and looks like it is just beginning to switch. Problem is that it's only 11 inches tall at this point. I'm very curious as to why so many of y'all are so enthusiastic about growing autos? It seems to me that growing photos under lights is pretty-much the same but provides you the opportunity to pull the trigger at any point when you feel the plant is ready to flip. Can any of you enlighten me to any of the advantages that autos provide over photos? Don't get me wrong here, I'm in no way knocking autoflowers but am genuinely curious as to why so many growers are going that route and taking themselves out of the flowering loop.

[Blowdout2269]

Watch out! I've had autos triple in size after showing sign of flower. But yeah, eleven inches does seem small [insert dirty joke here, lol]. Sorry, couldn't help it. Not appropriate.
Anyway, back on track. Could you have stunted them?
The Chunadelic that I recently harvested was kept suffering in a small one gallon pot under CFL's in my bedroom until about a foot tall. After that it was up-potted(yes I'm making my own words here) into a five gallon. I gave it about a week to acclimate and then bent her over at a 90° angle. I thought for sure that the abuse would lead to a horrible yield. But at day 92 she was harvested at over five ounces.
I think most people do autoflowers for a quick turnaround. Or maybe even a SOG. Me personally, I'm going to go back to autos soon for the ability to run my lights longer. I know, crazy right? But I grow in a spare room with an open space and a couple cabinet/closet spaces. It's in a cold basement in a dry climate. My lights help regulate the temperature this time of year. Plus I also run my lights at night. So a 12/12 schedules makes it real hard to do other work in my space(cleaning, training, defoliation, inspection, ect.). Considering I'm generally slaving away for the man at least that long during the day aswell. And I'm no night owl these days.
I feel like I got sidetracked on ya, my bad.
Is it attempting to flower, or just showing sex? I've had plants showing off sex at three weeks before. How old is the thing?

[crucialbunny]

I started it (only one plant) just about a month ago and yes, it's showing sex basically but in my experience with photos, flower isn't usually far behind. There's not been any type of shock or trauma whatsoever and if this were a photo I'd say it was doing great. I'm more than anything else, curious why folks like them so much when you're not able to have control over the flowering cycle. I'm normally an outdoor grower but last winter I did my first indoor grow with a OG Kush volunteer that popped up in my potato pot. I flipped it when it was about 18 inches and it produced quite a bit of some really quality bud.

[Rwise]

crucialbunny I'm with you, you have no control with auto's, and photos can be flipped to produce in the same time period. I suppose if I could not afford a 20 dollar timer, I might want to do autos, but one can do photos cheaper on the energy bill. I myself do not recommend autos for beginners as when (not if) you have issues there is no time to fix an auto it's harvest will suffer.

[90Gizmo]

I'm not sure that there's an energy savings. I run my autos using a suggested "daily light interval" of 400. That can be brighter light for less hours or dimmer light for longer hours... same amount of energy.

[golfnrl]

I have tried autos just to see what the hubbub is all about. Rwise makes a good point about the timing. Imma give it a few more grows before I decide to keep it up or just have two photo tents. I don't see myself not growing photos. This next auto grow I am focused on the timing of when the plants start to flower. The nutes I use say to change the feed schedule at the fifth week of flower. I haven't made that change and the plants haven't seemed to notice but this next grow we'll see if we can nail down that timing a little better.

[3Berries]

I'm on my second auto. First was a disaster as i was using ProMix BX for the first time and didn't realize there were little to no nutes in it. Was always stunted. My current one is doing fairly well. I used FoxFarm Ocean Forest that I added a bit of perlite and limestone too, pH runoff has always been high 6s.That ran out of nutes at about 8 weeks and started showing ca deficiency. It was just starting to flower and stretch. But it's doing pretty good though a bit overnuted. Got about three weeks left.

It's a good learning experience that would apply to photos too. Just not very forgiving.

[SoOrbudgal]

I've had runts from auto seeds and i've grown good size autos. I use the same soil and food as with my photos and i transplant them from sprout to solo cup to 3gal pots. I rarely top them unless i'm growing indoors in a tent. All i know and do is grow 6 to 9 at a time to make it worth my time. I give the autos long light periods indoors like 20hrs on till i see that they begin to stretch an go into flower then i may drop the light lower to canopy increase the intesity to 75% and use 18/6. Sometimes i get 2oz to as much as 4oz but that's about it as far as amount goes. I just grow alot of them at a time.

[crucialbunny]

I'm also running the autos in the same living soil I grow my photos. Didn't have the time to recharge the soil much after the last grow so I may have to do some top dressing on this one down the line. So far, so good for now.

[Franklin]

Autos can be good for outdoor grows to knock something out before wild pollen in the fall or cold+rain=bud rot. In the cold dark and rainy place I live it seems to be the only consistent way to get a mature flower outside without bud rot (unless we get a long summer) but maybe I don't know what I'm doing.

[OldManGrower]

I'm with everyone. Everything that has been said so far is true. It all depends upon your needs and how you are growing. I use autos if I have a short time frame such as an upcoming vacation longer than a week. While I have grown some tall autos, I am fine with relatively short plants as I only have 60" of overhead. I can, as SoOrbudgal stated, grow six plants when I might have grown only four. I don't believe that Autos are that much of a big deal as just something different with their own uses.

Big Plants over 120 days vs. More smaller plants over 85-95 days. There are a lot of ways to skin a cat.

[Going2fast]

Well my reasons for growing autos are.
perpetual grows. I can have autos growing at all stages of development. This way I'm harvesting every few weeks.
quick turn around. Autos average 70 to 90 days from seed pop to harvest. This allows me to grow multiple strains each winter rather than just a few. What can I say I'm a sucker for genetics.
potency and bag appeal are the same as photos. Used to not be the case but autos have come a long way in recent years.
There are a multitude of heavy yielding autos out. I average 3 to 6oz per plant. Pulled 6 off of scarlet grapes. Granted I grow in the least efficient way possible with soil. Hydro guys regularly pull a pound off of a 90 day old plant.
And don't worry most of mine show sex between 15 to 25 days from sprout but they are by no means done filling out.
Biggest downside would be not being able to keep a mother for clones. You are always rolling the dice on phenoes.

[crucialbunny]

Perpetual growing makes perfect sense and I gave up cloning awhile back so that's a non-issue. Since I'm primarily an outdoor photo grower, having this auto indoor gig just might be a win win over the winter months. Appreciate the input.

[Mr.furley]

It's a set it and forget it thing, super forgiving with little environmental factors that can cause problems, no need for special schedules, long veg times, transplanting followed by long flower times and in most cases three months to homegrown smoke, you just give them the basis, water/feed and repeat.

Has its advantages for some but for me yield is important, you cant repeatly and consistently grow 400 to 800 grams per plant indoors with Autos. I like to clone my plants and mother out genetics not just repeatly buy/make rando seeds, the ability to choose flowering it out times for instance Last February I dropped seeds for a second round and after harvest things happened that changed my ability to focus on a second grow. Those plant were just left to veg, for ten months! and now is my current Photo period grow for this winter, can't do that with Autos, would have kill them and been out the seeds.

I grow Autos for fun but I prefer flexible and control for the real deal.

[crucialbunny]

Good points Mr.furley. I just had 2 new autos pop last night so this might become my side chick for awhile. Speaking of seeds, my local dispensary just began selling seeds again after a year hiatus. They sell Humboldt exclusively and I have developed an abiding trust in their products. Now I just have to decide on which strains I'm gonna fly with.

[Blowdout2269]

Yeah, I think I'm going back to my side chick for a while too. Got a bunch of custom experimental autos I wanna try. I was impressed with Humboldt Seed Companys Chunkadelic autoflower. I was recently in CA and scored a bunch of their genetics for cheap af. Couldn't help myself and bought em all, lol.

[Blowdout2269]

Sad that they didn't have Chunadelik auto or their Blueberry Muffin though. I'm out of the Chunk and have heard great things about the Muffin.

[Mr.furley]

......Oops..... hate when that happens......again.

It must be a cali dispensary thing, was just in Santa Cruz and Humboldt was the only seeds for sale. Kinda wanted some Vader seeds but I'm the last person that needs to buy any new seeds.

[billyboy]

I grow in the Northeast, US. Going to try autos for the first time for the upcoming 2023 outdoors grow. We can't harvest until late October here when growing photos outside and by then the rains tend to cause a lot of budrot. So I figure autos are a way to get an early harvest and maximize the free photons.

Inside, I am not willing to waste the watts on an auto-grow.

[Mr.furley]

Just keep at it crucialbunny as mentioned there as a learning curve with it, mostly timing of nutrients and training coming from photos going autos. You got growing under your belt, autos are a stepping stone to self improvement and personal education so sit back and enjoy the wonders of the ruderalis.

[Thebeginning1989]

I'm extremely new (second auto run completing soon). My first auto run was a horrible experience. I did something to stunt them, two of them, and they grew about 6 inches tall, no branching, a single small bud. This current run is much better, multiple tops, but still pretty short. I accidently topped one too, lol. I went to bend it over, and snap, the main top gone.

As for the reason I grow them? To supplement the photo runs. I have a flower tent (12/12) and a veg area (18/6). I can actually grow 2-3 autos in rotation (one batch starts flowering, I pop more seeds) in the veg area, while the photos sit under 12/12. It's pretty much to have a type of perpetual grow, having a little something to harvest on and off. If they do good, awesome. If they don't, I can try again.

If I had to guess where I went wrong the first time, it was one of two things, watering or the medium. I either over or underwatered (which is likely because everything you read tells you the number one rookie mistake is overwatering), or the soil I mixed didn't have enough aeration. *Shrug, it's all a learning experience... but considering the price of seeds, not a cheap learning experience, lol.