Tryin sumthin with my autoflowers

jerry-joe said:

I decided to post this here because at its root this has to do with what I perceive to be a problem. I'd appreciate any posts that offer your view as a fellow grower. But essentially I'm going to make a big change to my grow room and as this is my first auto grow, I'm curious what you guys think.

So I've got a 5 x5 tent with 1000w hps and six plants in 5-gallon smart pots. I went with Mephisto for genetics based on the advice from members here on rollitup. Fast forward to what should be my last week or two of flower, based on the estimate provided by the breeder. My tent is looking nice, maybe not as high on the gram per watt ratio as id like but ok. But with ten years of old school sexing, cloning, HID growing I can tell these plants have way more than one or two weeks. I've read in other posts that autos can take a long time to complete the flower cycle, which contradicts everything that is supposed to be the "selling points" of autos.

So here's what I'm gonna do. I'm going to drop the light to 12/12 like I was growing photoperiod and see if these girls don't fill out more and really start pumping trichomes.

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I've grown thousands of autos. I breed my own and grow in a SOG, so thousands of them quite literally. I have noticed that they have a tendency, depending on the strain, to do the bulk of their flowering between weeks 6 to 10 and then just slow right down and spit out new pistils at a much slower rate and just keep doing that for another 3 weeks unless you starve the shit out of them. Whatever you do don't reduce lighting hours. I have strains that run 10 and 13 weeks at 18/6 which finish in 8 and 11 weeks respectively at 20/4, so from my experience autos finish faster the longer you light them.

jerry-joe said:

It's funny I only mess with chat rooms for weed and vaping, but I don't think it matters where you go, there's always gonna be that kinda stuff. I was in another thread on here a while back and the the thing was whether or not to defoliate. Holy shit, that was an epic argument.

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I'm fairly certain I know the thread your referring too! I couldn't even make 8t through OPs first statement never mind the replies lol. It makes my head hurt. I thinks it's still ongoing.

My hatred of autos is from 1 plants that refused to grow over 1' tall.. after 4 months.. TWICE thought it was me but it was the genetics.. other plant grew massive.. just insanely huge colas and would not finish. 5 months wasted.. i will never try autos again.. that's all

jerry-joe said:

I can't wait to go back to photo period where I know what the hell I'm doing.

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Don't let this put you off. I thought the same thing when I switched to autos, for the first two grows I was like "what the fuck have I done, these things are terrible!" But after growing them for a year I would never go back to photos. I've grown autoflowers of white widow, mendo mass, critical mass, amphetamine and candy dawg kush and crossed a bunch of them to come up with the strains I run now. They yield just as well as the photo strains I used to run and are just as good quality and potency. I'm also able to run 9 flood and drain tables in one room on one timer running 20/4 all the time and never worry about light leaks etc, while still having a perpetual harvest every 3 to 4 weeks. Also the space I used to use for mother's and clones just got absorbed into the grow space. I do one run a year in a separate tent and make about 5000 to 7000 seeds which keeps me going the whole year. Autos are also the cats pajamas for stealth grows, as you can get a run through in a prohibition area before anyone is out looking for crops (at least in my country, cops go weed hunting in March, my outdoor grow goes in November and comes out Jan or Feb at the latest). Autos have advantages, and once you learn the disadvantages and manage them they are a good option for many applications.

Gentlemencorpse said:

but calling them genetically inferior because they don't meet your own personal goal seems misguided.

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I can call them what I like. They are a disservice to the cannabis gene pool. Now ppl grow out a seed thinking it's gonna be good and it starts flowering on them because of rudy genes. crap. terrible for the gene pool. Just wait another 10 years or so and people have a hard time finding uncontaminated genetics.

I despise autos.

I too haven't had any luck with auto's , maybe someday..

If I sold seeds I would be all about pushing autos, you can't clone them so you will be back for more seeds.

Renfro said:

I can call them what I like. They are a disservice to the cannabis gene pool. Now ppl grow out a seed thinking it's gonna be good and it starts flowering on them because of rudy genes. crap. terrible for the gene pool. Just wait another 10 years or so and people have a hard time finding uncontaminated genetics.

I despise autos.

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It's alright man. This is a safe space. You can vent here lol. Didn't realize it was personal!

Gentlemencorpse said:

It's alright man. This is a safe space. You can vent here lol. Didn't realize it was personal!

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It's not personal, at all. I won't grow autos either, but I digress.

What I can say though, is have a look at the history of those you're responding to, before you deliver sympathy. Some don't need to be told that its ok to vent, because they have no reason to

Not taking sides. I hear everyone especially thegreatsouthern, buy WTF. Did everyone see the pic I posted in the beginning of this? It looks like i got one ore maybe two indicas and definitely four sativas. Those colas around the perimeter are sativa all day. But the two in the middle (middle front, middle back) are indicas all day. The one in the front is as big around as any other two plants in the closet.

My point being that all these plants came out of the same pack. I ordered 7 Samsquanch OG beans from Mephisto. OG is an indica. Germinated them all. Lost one right off, never popped. Three others had to go cause they just didn't make it. That leaves these six, all from the same stock from the same, highly reputable breeder. and they look like like at least two different strains, maybe three. I've fucked up some grows over the years but never have I been able to make an indica grow like a sativa. To me that's a testament to trying to do too much with the genetics.

jerry-joe said:

My point being that all these plants came out of the same pack. I ordered 7 Samsquanch OG beans from Mephisto. OG is an indica. Germinated them all. Lost one right off, never popped. Three others had to go cause they just didn't make it. That leaves these six, all from the same stock from the same, highly reputable breeder. and they look like like at least two different strains, maybe three. I've fucked up some grows over the years but never have I been able to make an indica grow like a sativa. To me that's a testament to trying to do too much with the genetics.

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Probably down to poor breeding, i.e not enough generations before they released the strain. I found that with auto mendo mass, there were three distinct phenotypes. Once I crossed it with white widow and then selected one pheno from that batch and bred that one exclusively for two generations I now get 99% consistency with it. Conversely I found auto OG kandy dawg kush to be 100% consistent out of the box. I've bred about 1000 seeds out of it and all the plants have been 100% consistent, indistinguishable from one another. To be fair I used to grow photoperiod critical kush and from the breeder there were two distinct phenotypes, so variations aren't exclusive to autos.

TheGreatSouthern said:

Probably down to poor breeding, i.e not enough generations before they released the strain. I found that with auto mendo mass, there were three distinct phenotypes. Once I crossed it with white widow and then selected one pheno from that batch and bred that one exclusively for two generations I now get 99% consistency with it. Conversely I found auto OG kandy dawg kush to be 100% consistent out of the box. I've bred about 1000 seeds out of it and all the plants have been 100% consistent, indistinguishable from one another. To be fair I used to grow photoperiod critical kush and from the breeder there were two distinct phenotypes, so variations aren't exclusive to autos.

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The way I'm looking at it is the plants I'm growing are part indica, part sativa. Then of course theres the rudarilis part too. All those entities are fighting for dominance, as is the natural order. Therefore my plants are schizophrenic. But I still love them because a split personality is nothing to be ashamed of.

spek9 said:

It's not personal, at all. I won't grow autos either, but I digress.

What I can say though, is have a look at the history of those you're responding to, before you deliver sympathy. Some don't need to be told that its ok to vent, because they have no reason to

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Definitely just joking man. I have a pretty dry sense of humor I guess. No issue at all with people not liking autos, and as I mentioned earlier, I know Renfro knows his shit. He just really hates them!

TheGreatSouthern said:

Probably down to poor breeding, i.e not enough generations before they released the strain. I found that with auto mendo mass, there were three distinct phenotypes. Once I crossed it with white widow and then selected one pheno from that batch and bred that one exclusively for two generations I now get 99% consistency with it. Conversely I found auto OG kandy dawg kush to be 100% consistent out of the box. I've bred about 1000 seeds out of it and all the plants have been 100% consistent, indistinguishable from one another. To be fair I used to grow photoperiod critical kush and from the breeder there were two distinct phenotypes, so variations aren't exclusive to autos.

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This is kind of my point. A lot of the hate autos get is based off issues that also affect photos. I've grown photos with shitty genetics too! And with extreme variations in the phenos, and that took forever to flower, or had bad germ rates (probably my own fault) etc etc. Some strains are good, some are not. And sometimes the difference between good and bad is just personal preference. And I feel that holds true for photos and autos.

Gentlemencorpse said:

This is kind of my point. A lot of the hate autos get is based off issues that also affect photos. I've grown photos with shitty genetics too! And with extreme variations in the phenos, and that took forever to flower, or had bad germ rates (probably my own fault) etc etc. Some strains are good, some are not. And sometimes the difference between good and bad is just personal preference. And I feel that holds true for photos and autos.

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Amen brother

Gentlemencorpse said:

This is kind of my point. A lot of the hate autos get is based off issues that also affect photos. I've grown photos with shitty genetics too! And with extreme variations in the phenos, and that took forever to flower, or had bad germ rates (probably my own fault) etc etc. Some strains are good, some are not. And sometimes the difference between good and bad is just personal preference. And I feel that holds true for photos and autos.

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I just read a ton of stuff on the history of og and kush and there was a bunch of information on desirable/undesirable traits. Seems that since the landrace is Afghani my girls are susceptible to mold and mildew. Also high sensitivity to light and nutes. I understand the nute part, but high sensitivity to light? I assume that has to do with light leaks in flowering. Basically it was saying that OG/KUSH is one of the hardest strains to grow indoors. I don't imagine adding rudaralis to the pot made the situation any better. Oh well, you live you learn. To be honest, I didn't pick the strain because I love OG. I went to mephistos website and they only had three strain to choose from and this was the only one listed as an indica.

jerry-joe said:

I just read a ton of stuff on the history of og and kush and there was a bunch of information on desirable/undesirable traits. Seems that since the landrace is Afghani my girls are susceptible to mold and mildew. Also high sensitivity to light and nutes. I understand the nute part, but high sensitivity to light? I assume that has to do with light leaks in flowering. Basically it was saying that OG/KUSH is one of the hardest strains to grow indoors. I don't imagine adding rudaralis to the pot made the situation any better. Oh well, you live you learn. To be honest, I didn't pick the strain because I love OG. I went to mephistos website and they only had three strain to choose from and this was the only one listed as an indica.

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Yeah, getting Mephisto gear can be a royal PIA. I was trying to get their 4 Assed Monkey beans for a while before I lucked out and saw a post on here that they had restocked.

I always thought the high sensitivity to light meant that they could get light burn easily but I'm definitely not certain on that. I've only grown OG strains twice (including a Florida OG I've got going right now) because it's never been my favorite. They've all been freebies.

Gentlemencorpse said:

Yeah, getting Mephisto gear can be a royal PIA. I was trying to get their 4 Assed Monkey beans for a while before I lucked out and saw a post on here that they had restocked.

I always thought the high sensitivity to light meant that they could get light burn easily but I'm definitely not certain on that. I've only grown OG strains twice (including a Florida OG I've got going right now) because it's never been my favorite. They've all been freebies.

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Yeah, I got a freebies from mephisto. I ordered 7 beans and they sent me 15, 10 of the samsquanch og, what im growing now, and five of bubbasquanch.

I'm going back to photos after these harvest, and I want to grow as close to pure (landrace) as possible so i ordered Northern Lights and Jack Herer, which are in my mind the poster children for indica and sativa. I also got bubblegum, blueberry, sour diesel and GG4 so I can grow one each. I can grow 6 in Maine with my card. someone said I could grow the three for recreational too, bringing my total to 9, but I couldn't fit another three plants in my tent if i wanted to,

hahah samsquanch... that's from trailerpark boys... awesome

icetech said:

hahah samsquanch... that's from trailerpark boys... awesome

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nice. i was wondering what the reference was