Auto Outdoor in NorCal Climate in Winter?

I've been enamored by the idea of Autoflower strains. I am going to start playing around with them and wanted to see if anyone had tried growing them outdoors in the winter. The average temperatures in my area are 45 overnight and 65 during the day.

1) Will I be wasting my time trying to plant autos outdoor in the winter?
2) Have you tried it? Issues? Happy with the result?

If I could pull 2 auto crops down in the winter, I would be stoked!

lol im not sure if this will work but i make cold frames in about september and februay to cover some plants. Do you have a greenhouse or conservetory? imo you should find a room in your house that receives the most sun and put it by the biggest window. lol i dont know if it would survive out but i heard that the "Ruderailis" (the autoflowering strain) was found growing in russia but this is only somthing i heard so its not concreate. if you can afford to buy them and maybe not yeild this could be an interesting project. lol sorry i could not help more, good luck.

sadj said:

lol im not sure if this will work but i make cold frames in about september and februay to cover some plants. Do you have a greenhouse or conservetory? imo you should find a room in your house that receives the most sun and put it by the biggest window. lol i dont know if it would survive out but i heard that the "Ruderailis" (the autoflowering strain) was found growing in russia but this is only somthing i heard so its not concreate. if you can afford to buy them and maybe not yeild this could be an interesting project. lol sorry i could not help more, good luck.

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Interesting about Ruderalis. I've been looking into tomato varieties for the winter climate in the San Jose area. We won't freeze at all. My average low in April was 48.5 degrees. The average low in Jan. is about 42. I just wonder if these 6 degrees are the inflection point where it goes from "doable" to "no fucking chance, bro". If the genetics slant towards a colder climate, it could work.

Anyone else ever had this pipedream? or do I need to just sack up and go indoors for the winter months? (btw, i hate indoors).

I believe if it was effective, there would be commercial guy's doing it all over Cali.......I tried a winter crop in my unheated carport greenhouse, and it was a Fail. Grew a bunch of frosty leaves, but buds never formed, I made it all into hash.......good luck........I love hash BTW......

doublejj said:

I believe if it was effective, there would be commercial guy's doing it all over Cali.......I tried a winter crop in my unheated carport greenhouse, and it was a Fail. Grew a bunch of frosty leaves, but buds never formed, I made it all into hash.......good luck........I love hash BTW......

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I see what you mean that if it was effective, commercial guys would be doing it. But, I thought through that (to get an answer I like lol). The commercial growers need weight. Outdoor Autos can't produce as much, as reliably, as indoor hydro.

Did you try an Auto in your carport? What are your night time winter temps like? BTW, I love hash too haha

My winter and summer night time lows are 6 degrees apart. It just makes me think there is a chance. I am spoiled living in the Bay Area, and we happen to have a pretty ideal climate year round. There is a significant amount of winter veggie gardening going on here...

KemosabeMcGee said:

I see what you mean that if it was effective, commercial guys would be doing it. But, I thought through that (to get an answer I like lol). The commercial growers need weight. Outdoor Autos can't produce as much, as reliably, as indoor hydro.

Did you try an Auto in your carport? What are your night time winter temps like? BTW, I love hash too haha

My winter and summer night time lows are 6 degrees apart. It just makes me think there is a chance. I am spoiled living in the Bay Area, and we happen to have a pretty ideal climate year round. There is a significant amount of winter veggie gardening going on here...

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I tried a variety of strains but no autos. The days are short enough to trigger flowering. None did well. I'm in Sac, they do a lot of farming around here.....

doublejj said:

I believe if it was effective, there would be commercial guy's doing it all over Cali.......I tried a winter crop in my unheated carport greenhouse, and it was a Fail. Grew a bunch of frosty leaves, but buds never formed, I made it all into hash.......good luck........I love hash BTW......

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That's messed up because I'm getting ready to try a greenhouse grow this winter. I've got the frame up and was going to cover it in a week or so.

TMG Genetics said:

That's messed up because I'm getting ready to try a greenhouse grow this winter. I've got the frame up and was going to cover it in a week or so.

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Add heat............

doublejj said:

Add heat............

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Not an option becuase I already got the room going with two 1kw's, timers, pumps, fans etc. If I fire a heater up smud's really going to love me! That tierd rate is bs.

I am going to give it a shot. I am looking for autos with the best cold-weather resistance. Any ideas?

KemosabeMcGee said:

I am going to give it a shot. Any ideas?

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Pray.......

Just add water baby.

I had the similar results as doublejj last winter an I'm in socal on the mexican border.

Good luck. You are going to need to add light as well. You will see that you will form buds but will not get any weight.

There is a big difference in the angle of the sun from fall to winter. October is mostly less than a month after Equinox, Winter Solstice is obviously late December, and the next equinox late March. Thus I would think the angle of the sun would only become sufficient in late Feburary (= equivalent to late October)

IT works I did it in so cal just wait till like feb first, cause December and jan might be too cold
i did one batch around now and then I did a batch start in feb and they did much much better
it was perfect for a may pre harvest before I put the reg photoperiod plants on.

I also suggest northern lights by royal queen they really take like 90 days ( you know how the breeder always says crazy short) 100 would be nice to let those calyxes really swell.
I did a 20 pack and they were all real nice and symmetrical filled up 3 gallon grow bags no problem. Probley could use 5 gallons this round.

I just started 5 seeds. 2 of them are autoflowering. this was my first summer growing anything so I'm not familiar with the difference in autoflowering strains. This will be new to me but I figured what the hell, why not? the worse that can happen is I kill them all and I get no smoke.

I'm in Central Cali, between those of you in NorCal and those of you in SoCal. we do get a few days of cold her in the valley. I went and looked up historical weather patterns and temps in my area and it said the coldest day ever was like a hundred years ago and it got down to 26 degrees. On average here in the valley it gets about 42 at night with some nights getting down in the 30's in december and depending on the year (stupid el nino and el nina and all that shit) we stay fairly sunny and not too cold during the day.

My husband and I are also building a greenhouse. we are hoping to have it finished around the first week of November or so. One of the things we are doing in our greenhouse to keep it warm is we are laying brick down as the floor. I'm gonna grow everything in pots. I'm married to an engineeer so I'm letting him handle the design of the greenhouse to make sure we have enough room for growing. The other thing we are doing for warmth is we are building a nest of rocks around the outside of the planters to soak up heat and help the soil inside the planters from getting too cold. we are going to use all black planters and we are painting a big trash can black and placing it in the back of the greenhouse and filling it with water. It helps that the back wall of our greenhouse will be the brick dividing wall in my yard. that brick wall gets hella hot so we are building 3 sides of the greenhouse against that wall.

good luck on your winter grow, I'm hoping I get some smoke out of mine.

Last winter we had good success with the Pineapple Express Auto and Think Different Auto strains in a tiny 300 dollar greenhouse we purchased from a local hardware store. We yielded between 1-2 ounces per plant of excellent bud from those strains in winter. We were disappointed in the yield of some other strains like Cream Mandarin Auto which were less than 1/2 ounce per plant.