@420noob Timing refers to nutes mostly. When to change to flower. Gentle because auto will stunt easy and go into flower early with stress. Photo can fix and recover from issues. Auto not so much. Photo best for new growers in my opinion.
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I get all that buddy. Was just thinking by the OPs wording that he was thinking autos can take all the stress and abuse like photos. Now I have never and will probably never grow autos. Didnât even knew they was a thing till I joined here. With what I see from them you have to candyass them till harvest 
just trying to gain knowledge for me and the OP.
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Completely agree.
Autos have some perks. I can add one in the tent at any time and not have to change the lighting schedule. I can plant one outside and have it finish before the humid October weather when bud rot will ruin the whole thing. Usually a shorter plant so that helps in a small grow area which I have in my living room cabinet. (Only 3 ft tall).
Photos however always give me a good harvest. Just over a pound each grow in a 3x4 tent. I dont have great lights or skills so I cant complain. Autos are just unpredictable yield wise.
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What I have learned and experienced, If you have a gentle hand, transplanting autos is no problem. Just as long as you dont break the roots. Start breaking roots and she will stunt and flower early. They dont need pampered or anything. Some say to go lighter on the nutes. Most soil has about 1 month of nutrients before you need to feed. I am in organic living soil so I cant comment much on that. I always transplant gently, regardless of what im transplanting except for the occasional klutz move. If a auto becomes root bound in a solo, that can also make her flower early. Photos have as much veg time as you want to give them and can recover if something goes wrong in veg or transplant.
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So this is actually very true my freind.
As long as timing is right and no other issues going on.
With photos you control when they flower obviously and we of course donât flip untill we got a healthy plant the shape we want.
But with autoflowers, if you do high stress training at the wrong time like the first few weeks or say maybe the first weeks of flower âthe stretchâ, then you could stunt it early or not get much streach.
Maybe if a auto is already having issues then itâs probably best to not do any HST because it being an auto on a timer basically, you may run the risk of slowing it down.
For these reasons is why I agree that autoflowers are not for beginners simply because they lack the experience needed to read the plant to know whens ok and whens probably a bad idea.
But Iâve topped and cropped many autos with great results and i have had the occasional runt that if it had been a photo with judt a little more time, I could have had a bigger plant. But now into my 2nd year growing autos i dont get them so much anymore.
Here are some autos, the Twisted Cookies and the Bruce Banner and topped and the Cookies are bent in many places⌠but they wasnât slowed at all.
I had to put some yo-yos on this ones itâs getting heavy
All that being said, Iâm growing more photos again now mainly and Iâll still be doing autos mixed in along the way.
I do like how you can just stick them in any tent no matter the light schedule or even not in a tent.
But i do like my photos better i believe 
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Its a guess based off two plants, 3 autos, 2 str8 cocos, one potforpot.com superb soil. P4p dry 2.5 ozs, 1 coco dry 4 ozs, no larf weighed. The last is biggest, my rv shower 2x3 3 plants 90 days 10 zips.
Autos are just tools in the tool box, no room for mothers or clones, so, its one seed vs the other seed, autos vs photos. Both need light, both need watering and nutes, both can be screwed up. One is forgiving, yet needs more time, the other isnt so forgiving, yet needs less time.
All the sbove advice tells me to let autos do their own thing with out too much stress. We did, we think it produced well.
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The solo cup, @Hellraiser, used two together, one with partial slits for the future, peeling the banana, and both bottoms pre drainage cutout. A clear cup inside to pull out to see and monitor root growth. Great ideas found through trial and error.
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Autos are just tools in the toolbox, somejobs require different tools to accomplish the job. Legal? or NOT!!! Time and space two biggest factors.
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I ordered autos for my first try at indoor growing. I never heard of them, but it sounded like a great idea. Sour Diesel auto flowers from ilgm. I guess I got lucky with germination. A few didnât come up right away, so I planted the rest. They all came up and I had an overcrowded tent. Good smoking but what a mess that tent was.
I poured ice water on one a few times to see if it would make purple colors.
looks a little brown in this picture but it was dark red and purple. Cool.
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I pre-wet (drench) my cup.
Pre-position over recieving hole and give VULCAN LL&P finger split, then push or shake .
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Ive never had any issues with transplanting from solo cup to a five gallon fabric pot ,but i have found a few ways that work great one is using the square peat pots just fill with ur coco or soil and plant it straight in to ur big pot the roots of ur plant will break the the pot walls and the pot will break down or you can use toliet rolls aswell you put three cuts in the of the roll then you fold them in and fill with soil plant ur seed in it and when its ready for transplanting you open up the folds and place it in ur pot the toilet roll will break down aswell
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@Spiney_norman pretty cool ! I may try that one next seasonâŚAs far as what I do (and Ive tried everything from peat pellets to single solos) Last two grows I used clear solos with a zillion holes drilled into them and put them in a colored solo. It helps me keep an eye on the rootsâŚ( I do this with very minimal light so as not to-piss them off,the roots that isâŚ) and like stated aboveâŚI usually go about two weeks when the 3rd set of leaves startâŚevery strain is different but for the most part they all get transplanted into fabric pots. The last 3 seasons Ive grown only Autos (Im outdoors) but last year I grew i PhotoâŚA romulan.
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Thanks for all the tips. My first grow was photos and went well. I wasnât worried about transplanting photos but got some great ideas. The autos I wasnât sure about but you all answered above expectations.
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Agreed, additionally, I place bottle cap from gallon jug in the bottom of the red solo, seedling solo cup becomes âraisedâ allowing drainiage or air exchange inside receiving cup). Allows drainage better, over time, maybe. Forum reading mentioned pre-splitting seedling solo cup so that two halves easily will seperate upon transplanting. I have even used half of seedling container to collar, or stack, transplanted seedling.
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With the peat pots there a actual pot u just fill them up with soil or coco plant ur seedling and let it go once its been in there for a week then u plant the whole pot into the main pot
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