Question Re; Auto’s

Please excuse me if this is a dumb question but I’m old and we didn’t have autos when I started.
People tell me they are great and you can run the lights at 18/6 and they eat it up.. well, I’m looking at the comparison between a photo and an auto run side by side for the same amount of time and not seeing difference in flower size/yield. so my question is do they (autos) have roughly the same DLI as a photoperiod plant and are the extra hours of lights on just wasted photons? As in.. might as well run them at 12/12 once in flower anyhow? I don’t get it.

With autos the longer light period means more growth, and since autos are not affected by photoperiod you can flower them at 18/6 and you'll get better growth and yield than if you run them 12/12.

I agree with @Phytoplankton.

Autoflowers are a hybrid cannabis plant. We know that crop yield increases in an almost linear manner as light increases. The biggest yields I've had were from autos. I do all my grows at >1k µmol. Photos are grown using a 12/12 photoperiod in flower in most cases. With autos, I've grown 20/4, 21/3, or 19/5 - whatever I felt I wanted to give them and the yields have been signficant.


Autoflower, Spring grow 2022


Autoflower, Fall 2022