So, I'm new to Auto's...

WillieP

In Bloom
Hey All,
I will be starting some Auto seeds (that I was so kindly gifted) (@BigPretzel) when I get home from vacation later in the month.
I have never grown an Auto plant. I do know the general concept, but I have a specific question and thought this would be the place to ask.

I have two grow tents (5x5's), one for veg, and one for flower.
My tents are never full, I have a plant count of 5 maximum.
The lighting in the veg tent is 5000 K LED set at 18/6.
The lighting in the flower tent is a mixed bag. Plurple's, 3000 K, 3500K and UV lamp.
My question is where should I flower at?
Space is not an issue, and I have additional lighting that I can add if desired, in both 5000 K and 3500 K.
(Currently I'm running 450 watts in the veg tent, and twice that in the flower tent.) (Those are actual watts at the wall)

So, never having done this, my un-educated thoughts on the topic are, I should start the seedling in the 18/6 veg tent.
Then when they have started to flower on their own, I would move them over to the flower tent to take advantage of the color spectrum and the increased wattage.
But I would be losing 6 hours of light, and that's where the I don't know what I'm doing part comes in.

Any and all input is welcome. What do y'all think I should do?

Thanks in advance.
Cheers,
WillieP
 

Frimpong

🔥Freak Genetics🔥
Hey All,
I will be starting some Auto seeds (that I was so kindly gifted) (@BigPretzel) when I get home from vacation later in the month.
I have never grown an Auto plant. I do know the general concept, but I have a specific question and thought this would be the place to ask.

I have two grow tents (5x5's), one for veg, and one for flower.
My tents are never full, I have a plant count of 5 maximum.
The lighting in the veg tent is 5000 K LED set at 18/6.
The lighting in the flower tent is a mixed bag. Plurple's, 3000 K, 3500K and UV lamp.
My question is where should I flower at?
Space is not an issue, and I have additional lighting that I can add if desired, in both 5000 K and 3500 K.
(Currently I'm running 450 watts in the veg tent, and twice that in the flower tent.) (Those are actual watts at the wall)

So, never having done this, my un-educated thoughts on the topic are, I should start the seedling in the 18/6 veg tent.
Then when they have started to flower on their own, I would move them over to the flower tent to take advantage of the color spectrum and the increased wattage.
But I would be losing 6 hours of light, and that's where the I don't know what I'm doing part comes in.

Any and all input is welcome. What do y'all think I should do?

Thanks in advance.
That's a really good question. I mean, ultimately we'll get bigger yeild under 18 and 6. If it starts to get out of control (size ) you can always move it over to 12 and 12. Hope that helps. But I would typically do the same as you Just send it in flower tent after a bit because it's more convenient
 

jpockets420

CHOOSE YOUR TITLE
I grow mine on 12/12. I start on 18/6 and once they are in bloom they get the 12/12 treatment. Im sure I'd get a bigger yield with more light but electricity is expensive right now and I get great results from 12/12. You'll do just fine. The way you water when they are young and don't have an established root system is where most folks new to autos go wrong. That's where i went wrong for sure when i first started growing them. It's very important to start in the final pot and when watering start from the middle and work out towards the edges in a spiral pattern. Let the roots spread outwards in search for water. Once roots are established water as usual. Some grow nice like this one, others will stunt and stay bonsai lol. It's hit or miss ime but once you grow a few you'll see how they work and do great. Good luck and if you need any help or tips feel free to ask. Im always on here.

This is in a 1.5g bag and under a 600w hps
20220116_223739.jpg
 

PlumberSoCal

? Guy Fire-y ?
I grow mine on 12/12. I start on 18/6 and once they are in bloom they get the 12/12 treatment. Im sure I'd get a bigger yield with more light but electricity is expensive right now and I get great results from 12/12. You'll do just fine. The way you water when they are young and don't have an established root system is where most folks new to autos go wrong. That's where i went wrong for sure when i first started growing them. It's very important to start in the final pot and when watering start from the middle and work out towards the edges in a spiral pattern. Let the roots spread outwards in search for water. Once roots are established water as usual. Some grow nice like this one, others will stunt and stay bonsai lol. It's hit or miss ime but once you grow a few you'll see how they work and do great. Good luck and if you need any help or tips feel free to ask. Im always on here.

This is in a 1.5g bag and under a 600w hps
View attachment 101155
Do you top your autos?
 

jpockets420

CHOOSE YOUR TITLE
Do you top your autos?
I've been experimenting with it and it's hit or miss so far. The Twenty20 autos will not grow much for me after topping. The mosca cantaloupe kush that I topped this time reached a height of 18 inches but has large chunky flowers. When we did lst last with it last run it reached a height of just under 3ft with medium and small flowers. The flowers on the topped plants are much larger and much more dense. The only different variable besides that is the light source. With the last plants that we lst'd we used 570 total watts of led. This time is 600w hps. The trizzlers x whitebread loves to be topped. It's a beast. Hit or miss depending on many variables. I have much more experimenting to do. Autoflowers are very interesting and challenging to me, even if they can be very finicky.

Edit: I said that I only had one variable different which was light source. What I meant by hit or miss depending on many variables is for everyone in general. Someone else can top the same mosca cantaloupe kush at the same point in its life and get a much larger plant, depending on their growing methods. I just wanted to make sure that was clear ☮☮
 
Last edited:

PlumberSoCal

? Guy Fire-y ?
I've been experimenting with it and it's hit or miss so far. The Twenty20 autos will not grow much for me after topping. The mosca cantaloupe kush that I topped this time reached a height of 18 inches but has large chunky flowers. When we did lst last with it last run it reached a height of just under 3ft with medium and small flowers. The flowers on the topped plants are much larger and much more dense. The only different variable besides that is the light source. With the last plants that we lst'd we used 570 total watts of led. This time is 600w hps. The trizzlers x whitebread loves to be topped. It's a beast. Hit or miss depending on many variables. I have much more experimenting to do. Autoflowers are very interesting and challenging to me, even if they can be very finicky.
I've had 2 grows so far of autos. First grow was soil and slow so just allowed them to grow. Second grow in coco I started topping. Got all topped once but one plant, that I ended up using to produce seeds, grew fast enough and was topped twice. Just worried about topping and messing up the flower period. I too will continue to experiment. Hoping to produce some fem seeds with my current grow.

Here's the thing for me with autos: 90 days to a good harvest compared to 120+ for regs flipped early and very small harvests. I just finished a grow of regs of 4 months and I'd be surprised if I get more then an oz on the largest plant. Not worth the effort compared to autos, imho.
 

jpockets420

CHOOSE YOUR TITLE
I've had 2 grows so far of autos. First grow was soil and slow so just allowed them to grow. Second grow in coco I started topping. Got all topped once but one plant, that I ended up using to produce seeds, grew fast enough and was topped twice. Just worried about topping and messing up the flower period. I too will continue to experiment. Hoping to produce some fem seeds with my current grow.

Here's the thing for me with autos: 90 days to a good harvest compared to 120+ for regs flipped early and very small harvests. I just finished a grow of regs of 4 months and I'd be surprised if I get more then an oz on the largest plant. Not worth the effort compared to autos, imho.
That bigger cantaloupe kush I was talking about yielded us 99 grams in 84 days. I wish we would have filled the tent with just that auto strain. Lol. It's definitely great to have a plant finish so fast and still be high quality. We run autos staggered from our photo runs. About a month or so before a photo run is done we start our autos in our bedroom closet and when the autos get big enough the photos are starting to finish and we can start adding autos downstairs to flower. We tried doing this with photos this time but the timing was off so we have autos and photos mixed together on 12/12. I need to open up our other 2 tents within a week. As far as soil we used promix all purpose but from now on we are using Rose gold kings mix. It's far superior. Our photos are growing so good in it. This is a really good run for us.
 

PlumberSoCal

? Guy Fire-y ?
That bigger cantaloupe kush I was talking about yielded us 99 grams in 84 days. I wish we would have filled the tent with just that auto strain. Lol. It's definitely great to have a plant finish so fast and still be high quality. We run autos staggered from our photo runs. About a month or so before a photo run is done we start our autos in our bedroom closet and when the autos get big enough the photos are starting to finish and we can start adding autos downstairs to flower. We tried doing this with photos this time but the timing was off so we have autos and photos mixed together on 12/12. I need to open up our other 2 tents within a week. As far as soil we used promix all purpose but from now on we are using Rose gold kings mix. It's far superior. Our photos are growing so good in it. This is a really good run for us.
About 4 oz for 90 days is what I'm talking about! Hell, I'd be real happy with 3 plants of 1/2 oz each once a month.
 

WillieP

In Bloom
@WillieP,

I'm looking forward to following your grow. I'm new to autos as well, haven't run any yet, but picked up some Mosca & Twenty20 Mendocino packs to pop in the near future. I was thinking about trying the same lighting schedule you're doing.

What strain(s) are you running?
Thanks for the show of interest!
I dropped just one Gelato, as they are Fem seeds.
Soaked it, started to open. Placed in wet paper towel, and just started to show a tail, and that's where it went wrong.
I tried placing the covered dish that contained the seed in a warm location and basically cooked the seed with too much heat.
It was totally my fault. Thankfully I have more of those seeds.
I was gifted four varieties of Auto seeds by @BigPretzel and will eventually run them all.
I have a legal med grow and have a plant count max of 5.
My plan, at the moment is to run 4 Photo plants and 1 Auto plant.
When I get one up and going, I'll start another seed tomorrow, it will be in my journal here:

Cheers,
WillieP
 

WillieP

In Bloom
This is more of a bookkeeping post than anything else...
I didn't drop another Gelato Auto seed on Feb 6th like I said I would.
I chose to wait till the full moon. That was yesterday the 16th.
I have never planted by the moon phases.
I know a lot of growers are believers in it, and I didn't figure it could hurt anything.
We shall see...
Cheers,
WillieP
 

thesunnyvalekid

Boutique Auto Service
Like Frim said, 18/6 gives the most light, which I prefer I veg all the plants in the same area, and flower the Auto’s with the Photo period plants in veg. In my experience it works the best to have the autos with the young photos. Young plants need nurturing and because the finicky nature of autoflowers for me it’s easier to maintain the plants this way. On the topping, I do not top autoflowers, I simply tuck leaves and remove any leaves covering bud sites, I strip all sucker branches and leaves below where the light penetrates the tops, I sorta treat it like a bonsai plant. I have tried to flower autoflowers under 12/12 with poor results, it seems the plants are stunted, like if you were to grow outside in the shade they never fully mature and yields are very low.
A quick note, that is my experience another grower could do better, I do not claim to know any more than anyone else, I like to grow plants period, all plants not just pot. I love to see things grow from my own hand.
 
Top Bottom