Hey guys I was just sitting here by my little weedlings thinking about how much I want them to hurry up and flower lol I’m only week 2 or so but I was wondering if anyone could give me a ball park figure of what I could expect to yeild off of about 6 autoflowers I have growing in some solo cups not expecting a big yeild but I’ve heard autos can be expected to be smaller plants anyway especially grown in a solo cup and any tips on special care for autos if needed much appreciated!
WHAT IS AN AUTO?
As we all know, cannabis is a photo-period plant: ie it’s flowering hormones are triggered by changes in the light/dark cycle. Thus you can stimulate a 2 week old cutting to begin flowering by giving it 12 hours of darkness, yet a 4 month old plant grown outside will remain in vegetative growth until mid-summer has passed.
Autoflowers are a different breed altogether (quite literally!) and will flower according to the age of the plant rather than the light/dark cycle. This development has been obtained by crossing a ruderelis strain with a standard photo period plant. Unfortunately ruderelis is fairly weak in the desired thc levels so the first autoflower strain developers had to stabilise two dominant traits: the high thc level provided by the photo-period parent and the all important auto gene from the ruderelis strain. As you can expect, early attempts were generally disappointing, and as little as four years ago autos were viewed as unreliable with poor yields and low thc levels. Most sensible growers put them down as gimmicks for newbies.
Today if you see an autoflower seed for sale you can be (reasonably) assured that its THC content will be as advertised, and its auto gene stabilised.
HOW LONG DO AUTOS TAKE?
Now this is the big question. Most breeders claim 7-9 weeks, with some even boasting seed to harvest in less. It would be fantastic if one could get 50g per plant after just 39 days, but lets face it, its totally unrealistic. A plant doesn’t grow any faster for having an auto gene, and the dwarf autos that will harvest in ultra quick times are just that: dwarfs and thus yield is limited by size.
Of the 15 or so different commercial strains I have tried, not one of any consequence finished in less than eleven weeks – and the best ones can take anything between 3 and 5 months. If you think about it, this is not surprising: most standard autos start showing their sex at around 21 -28 days (super autos not included) – if you add on a flowering time of 8 weeks (average flowering time for a indica) then you would be looking at 11 – 12 weeks.
IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD START
I think this section is the do or die between having a great auto crop or a disaster. Autoflowers have such a short vegetative growth period and the final plant is rarely very big. Get it wrong and you’ll end up with a lollipop stick of bud. That’s why I think that whilst autos fulfil a gap in the outdoor growers repertoire (after all its damnedably difficult to control the light/dark cycle of the sun), if you can its best to start them off indoors under lights. You just maximise the level of control that way.
CAN I TAKE CUTTINGS FROM AN AUTO?
“Once you pop ’em you can’t stop ’em”
Effectively this means that whilst the answer is “yes”, the autos have a genetically limited life: from the moment the cannabis seed germinates it will progress through its short vegetative stage and speed onto flowering. As the “mother” plant won’t be big enough to take a clone until she is around 5 weeks old, once you have added a week whilst the clone roots, the clone thinks of itself as 6 weeks old and upward vegetative growth will have finished. Despite being tiny, the cutting will finish flowering at the same time as the mother more or less – here’s one I tried for a laugh:
guide to autoflowers
FEEDING REGIMES FOR AUTOS
Start off with a little veg feed at around week 2 and slowly increase the amount of feed as the plant develops up to (depending on the auto) around week 6 or even 7. Wait to switch to flower food until after the cannabis plant has noticeably stopped its upward growth, even though she may have been flowering for a week or so beforehand.
LIGHTING REGIMES FOR AUTOS
You can grow autos on 24/0 but I think its good to let them have a little rest time and electric consumption is also a issue. I grow mine for the first two weeks under a 120 watt draw Fero LED for the first couple of weeks and I tend to keep that on for 21/3 with the LED grow light around 70 -80 cm away from the seedlings. When then they are potted on to the 13 cm sexing pots and put under my larger LEDs I then change the lighting schedule to 18/6 where it will remain until I crop.
CAN I MERISDIAN PRUNE (TOP OUT) AUTOS?
Yes you can but it needs to be in the very early stages as it holds the plant back in that critical time. I’ve experimented over several crops with this and my advice would be that you are better off not pruning autoflowering marijuana as in most cases the plant will end up giving less weight. That said, you can break the apical dominance and encourage vigorous side branching by “knuckling” if you are using a longer term variety such as the “Cream Caramel” (yes Sweet Seeds, I know you say this is an 8-weeker, but every one I’ve grown has gone to 12 weeks plus).
HOW MUCH WEIGHT CAN I GET FROM AN AUTO?
Lets assume your environmentals are all good, with light at around 400watts a m2, temps at around 23ºc, humidity 55% for flowering and you are replenishing your air every couple of minutes whilst maintaining a good nutrient regime and getting plenty of O2 to the roots etc etc (who ever said growing great smoke was easy?)
The simple answer is : it depends on how long the plants are going to take. The 3-monthly varieties such as MI5 (Shortstuff) average around 40g a plant (dried weight) under my fero led lights at 10 per m2 and the longer super varieties such as Chase (15 weeks) 150g -500g a plant outdoors . I got this from @Majiktoker
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A solo cup doesn’t seem like a good idea even for an auto, are you going to put them in a bigger container or leave in the solo cups the entire time?
Pictures of your set up would help as well
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3 gallon pots are ideal for starting autos in or 1 gallon my opinion 1 gallon is better to start them in then transplant to 5 gallon for rest of the time
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This is kind of the reason why I’m using solo cups from start to finish my grow box is rather small… thanks for the tips! I would be more than happy with a few grams to a quarter of flowers off each plant being my first grow so I was hoping growing ina solo cup could yeild me atleast that my light cycle is 20 on 6 off
Yes they are stretching or at least they were.
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what are the dimensions of your tent?
if it could fit, one plant in a three or five gallon pot would yield more than six grown in solo cups.
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I’m growing 3 autos in 5 gal pots. They’re in a 4’x2’x5’ grow tent. They are FULL at 7 weeks, taking up the width/length of the tent. Honestly, I would probably only put 2 in there next time. Like you I started off having them in a much smaller space but quickly realized that was never going to work:)
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Right on man yeah I think next time I’m definitely going to just put one or two plants in the box but with your experience what do you think I could expect with all 6 plants in solo cups growing in a small box? Maybe a few grams off each plant or more or less?
The two I have growing notwithstanding I’ve only grown two, but I got about three ounces from each plant ! I would say 2 - 3 oz reasonable:thumbsup:
- good luck!
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Nice! And you grew them in solo cups!?
Ohhhhh okay I thought you said you grew them in solo cups like I am doing right now I was woffering if anyone had a guess on what kind of yeild I could expect growing a few autos in solo cups under 60 watt LED pannel
I suspect the yield is going to be very low (and difficult) I would put one plant in one regular size pot and you will be much happier and you’ll get a much better yield with a lot less headaches
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I don’t believe I’d want to go smaller than a one gallon pot. You could go as small as a 6" pot, but I don’t think you’ll get more than a few grams. Not worth the time, money or effort. It would be cheaper with less headache to just buy it.
You’d be doing good to get an ounce or two in a one gallon pot, in my opinion.
Solo cup won’t do…
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@Boofnadu420 I’m with @FloridaSon @Hawkeye_diesel @Majiktoker you will just be wasting your time trying to grow them in the solo cup it will get root bound and die before you even see your flower you can yield over 4 ounces off of an auto easily if done with the right soil and nutrients in space a 1 gallon that’s fine as long as you’re going to transfer into a 3 gallon I think you’d be better off with 2-3 gallon smart pots but you will never finish in a solo cup if you do please prove me wrong I would love that but you will have root issues bad
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Well hello it kind of puts me in a tuff spot because my grow space is limited to pretty much a few solo cups lol plus I’ve already let them grow too a few weeks of age in the cups so now I’m faced with do I kill all the other plants and let one grow ina larger pot in my grow box or do I wing it and hope for atleast a couple grams off each plant. But if you’re saying it won’t even flower in a cup then I’m not sure if I should even mess with these plants anymore I don’t wanna waste time and money on keeping them under a light and feeding them if they won’t flower in the cups
I’ve never seen it done and I’m not saying it can’t be done but the amount of roots that they will need I’m not sure to be honest with you don’t kill them off by any means but I would definitely get one going in a at least one two or 3 gallon pot are used 3 gallon and after it’s done it’s a ball of roots
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