Feminized Autoflowers Not Flowering-Please Help!

This is my dilemma. I have 10 feminized autoflowers growing indoors under LEDS in a hydro setup (Bubbleponics to be exact). They are Bubbleator Ice fem'd seeds from a seed bank in Amsterdan (if u need the seed bank I will provide). They are 45 days from germination - so approximately six weeks in.

The notes on this strain say ready for harvest after approximately 7 weeks. I figure this is conservative, but there is NO sign of flowering in these babies. They just keep growing. I have them under 24/0 lighting - and I know the debate on that - but they ARE genetically supposed to just flower on their own based on time, not light. So what gives?

I have no buds where I live and invested quite a bit of money in this and need these things to flower and mature. Any clues? Am I worrying too soon? I have seen other autoflower strains start to show tendrils etc earlier than this.

My pH and PPMS are in range - 5.6-5.8 and 580-690 - and nutes have been adjusted to the pre-flowering phase (GH flora series). Im wondering what would happen if I started gradually lowering the light period and introducing a dark period, say 23/1 next week, 22/2 the week after, 21/3 etc - but I thought there was no need for this?

Can anyone advise? Roots and plants look damned healthy. Dont have close ups available because of my camera, but as you can see below, there's an adequate amount of growth.

Any ideas or experience you can offer would be of great help - thanks in advance.

I ran into the same problem with my autos not flowering...i went from 24/0 to 20/4 and still nothing, so I went to 18/6...still nothing. Finally I switched to 12/12 and over the first few nights hairs took off. Now theyre all flowering beautifully...ive heard that flowering autos ln 12/12 reduces yield but it was either try it or keep waiting for who knows how long...i just think some auto genetics are whacky and basically unstable and have minds of their own. Im also using led lighting so I wonder if that's a factor at all with autos?

i've got many autos flowering at less then a month of age and only inchs tall. they have always been under 24hr light. i am useing HPS. i think they may not be auto's. Puffenuff, the fact that they flowered under 12/12 but continued to grow under 24 leads me to believe that they wernt auto's in the first place. i here of autoflowering strains not actually being autos. sometime they seem to just be normal plants. go to 12/12 and see what happens. good luck.

a lot of places will advise you to go to 12/12 on autos, not sure why you'd even bother throwing the weakened gene pool in if you have to 12/12 it but I'd say avoid the slow light drop and drop it 12/12 for 2 days, see if it doesn't jump start the flowering. You may have gotten a bad pheno or strain, I have heard a lot of problems with autos.

I went with the 12/12 advice - thanks guys - and I agree, if this is what I have to do to get autoflowers to bloom, not doing it again - unless I do prior research on strain and bank to find a reliable source.

Day 43 from Germination - Day 2 of Flowering on 12/12

Ill make this quick. Was worried about these fem'd autos not flowering - maybe I panicked a litle ahead of the game - but not taking chances.
I see adequate growth and I have one bag seed, 10 autos and 2 white widows - so the solution to getting them all to flower at the same time is going to be moving them to 12/12 lighting schedule - downgraded from 41 days of 24/0.

Resv 1:
pH: 5.7
PPM: 720

Resv 2:
pH: 5.5
PPM: 690

Took pictures for the first time without the LED lights and you can see them below.
When I went to update the space - I noticed some problems that caught me by surprise.

The water was below half in both the reservois. Not sure how the hell it could go down so fast - didnt check for about 5 days - but either evap caused it or I dunno. Never the less, refilled water levels ad the data above was after they had been refilled and nuted for bloom. Have not done a flush as thw water has been within range and looks god every time I check it, not cloudy or anything, and roots are MAD healthy.

However I think the low water levels banged up the plants in the sense that bottom leaves were drying up and shriveling and/or coming off - looked like autumn in there, and the tops were looking a bit light green instead of dark like they were before. Dehydration or bleaching or a combo of both.

Moved the lights up much higher - the space retains light well - and cleaning out as many of the dead/dying leaves as possible.

I have madness in here, and Im not prepared for a scrog, so theyll have to co-exist as they are. Could I maybe take away some of the larger leaves, which are covering some of the tops from direct light? Wondering how much pinching I can get away with wihtout hurting, stunting, etc the plant. Anyone have any advice on that?

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merdcme said:

i've got many autos flowering at less then a month of age and only inchs tall. they have always been under 24hr light. i am useing HPS. i think they may not be auto's. Puffenuff, the fact that they flowered under 12/12 but continued to grow under 24 leads me to believe that they wernt auto's in the first place. i here of autoflowering strains not actually being autos. sometime they seem to just be normal plants. go to 12/12 and see what happens. good luck.

Click to expand...

well they were definitely advertised as autos on attitude and they sent me what i ordered so the seeds were definitely autos, plus I have two of the same autos growing side by side and one is twice as big as the other; that's why I am saying I think autos (most if not all) have largely unpredictable genes and characteristics in addition to the fact not all auto seeds always flower under certain hours of light

Been pinching a few at a time, exposing as many tops as possible with minimal damage. Put on a 12/12 schedule. Brought water levels back up, have 5.6-5.8 pH's, 570-690 ppms, and good temps. Running it on a red spectrum during 12 hrs of light. Pure LEDs make this so convenient (357 Magnums - intense, no joke, no hype, all true if you get correct wavelength, strong wattage and good beam angles). And Im happy to report.

The tendrils are coming!!! The tendrils are coming!!!

Don't use Auto's, trust me, far too many problems, true I have had some okay experiences, but 90% of the time they turned out with whacky fuckin genetics. Example- I have 3 Barneys Farm- Pineapple express Autoflower Fem seeds going that started the same time as my whole crop (8 other plants). My Auto's are 6, 11, and 21 inches tall, all my other plants 3 1/2 feet and up. Sometimes their stable, but most of the time it's just too much bullshit to deal with, with no positives other than a promised harvest time. Negatives= Shitty genes, very small amount of bud, whacky fuckin crazy genetics that are very random and unstable, not good with any sort of defiency (terrible immune systems from the ruderalis side). Just don't use them, I've done 21 Auto's and after this batch I'm done with them at least for the next 5 years till they get more stable genes.

In my opinion auto's are not the way to go. Not all strands are true to what they claim. I've grown for years and I've never had the auto's flower like they were supposed to do. They are really stubborn plants so if you don't got all the stuff you need like PH testers and good nutrients and a lot of love, then don't bother. They should say most strain's don't finish like they were supposed to do. They should say that most autos won't finish in 60 days. In my opinion they are still unstable. I can put five strands in one closet, and they say they should all finish in 60 days....I Guarantee they don't. Some plants will start budding in four weeks, and the others in six. And it'll be the same if you planted five of the same strands. So that being said, I'm not hatting on autos or what they'd become one day.But if you are a first time grower or amateur I would not suggest autos. I like being in control of my garden. And if you think about it, if the plant didn't start budding for six weeks, it would another five to six weeks to finish budding. You can grow a photo period with twice the production. I can make my plant flower in 4,5, or 6 weeks from seed Top it, and do whatever need be Please don't take this as me bashing autos, but photo periods are far superior in every way.