Please help with this question

i have autoflower seeds and i would like to know how long it takes before they will begin to produce buds. the plants have been growing for obout a month and they look strong and healthy. I was told that with autoflower seeds you do not have to induce flowering by cutting back on light. any help you folks can give me would be greatly appreciated ty in advance

What strain, did it gives you specs on the seed when you bought them? Most auto flowers will grow for the first couple of weeks or so then they will begin to flower all on their own.

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the strain is white widow and they have been up for about a month they look very healthy but i dont see any budding

Give it time, it will flower brother. Could you post some pictures, we always enjoy seeing these plants

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Where’s the information on autos you have been posting? good stuff there.

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I’ll find it an post it. I’m lookin for it

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@brians, this may help

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 23Âşc, 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

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i want to thank you for the information. it is very helpful as i was leaving the t5 lights on for 24 hours a day. they have been growing for about a month now. they have little clusters of leaves at the end of each branch and they are very full. i do not see any sign of budding however. Seeing as i am a first time grower i may not know what the heck im looking for. i am hoping that i’ll see some sign of budding soon. maybe im just being impatient. when do buds actually start to appear and be visable to the eye. what should i look for?

Something alone these lines. Of course just the female side

thank you again hawkeye. i got feminized seeds so im hoping they’re female, but all i see in the branch crevaces are little leaves coming in. i dont see the little hairs. i hope im not wasting time and money on male plants. i dont have a camera or id send pics. old and poor trying to stay a little high is difficult lol.

Feminized seeds will only produce female plants. I was just using that to show you what you will start to see when they begin to flower. I wasn’t saying you may have males.

I posted the picture, because you had asked what you would start to see when they begin to bud and flower.

i understand but i cant tell from the picture. all i see are verry small leaves in the corners on the branches and at the end of the branches are just leaves that keep opening and coming out with more leaves i see no hairs. alsoi am using t5 florescents do i need to get another light add a blue spectrum of light to my set up. i hope these questions dont seem to lame. i am in my 70’s and i enjoy pot. im trying to grow my own to defray the ridiculous costs. i very much appreciate the help you are giving me as i have never grown a plant in my life. i thought it would be as easy as putting a seed in the ground and letting it grow but it kinda becomes a labor of love. and a bit of an expense. I thand you in advance for any help. you have been great and its nice that youre helping me i really do appreciate everything

Ok, is the plant in question a feminized seed or an auto flower seed? What light schedules are they under now? 18/6, 20/4, or 24/0

  1. If they are feminized then they could show signs of sex before you change the light schedule. They won’t start budding or flowering until you put them under 12/12 light schedule.

  2. If they are autoflower then they will grow for a little while then they will start to flower without depending on a change in light schedules of 12/12.

What I think you are talking about is it is just growing and producing new growth, totally normal.

Any questions you have, shoot em brother.
@Majiktoker, could you help me explain it maybe more in depth or explain it in a different way brother?

Explain what buddy

I was wanting to make sure I was explaining it the right way to help him the best way possible, basically a second opinion brother

Being 4 weeks old (a month) she is going to start flowering soon really depends on what strain you are trying with, also id give them a 18/6 schedule plants need rest like we do it overall gives the plant better health and also makes the root system thrive and develop healthier than a plant with no sleep, and just like us they need sleep to recooperate the energy they gather and use.

If you can get pictures and upload them that would be able to help me or others help you better understand what shes doing, personally from the sounds of it your right at the very start of her flowering stage if you have any questions ask and ill help you answer them

Gotchya I thought so I had to go back up and read it

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Like the first or second picture?


Pre flower on a female


This is the same plant a couple weeks before the first picture.

The little leaves you are explaining sound just like new growth

hi hawkeye the seeds are feminized auto flower white widow. i am running the t5 lights 24 hrs a day. do i need another light to produce a blue spectrum or can i just go with the t5 lights for the duration. if the t5s will produce budding i would like to stay with them. i thought with a auto flower feminized seed i didnt have to cut back on lighting. i feel a little lost today so please bear with me. thank you again for your help. they have been growing for a month and i still see nothing resembling a bud. only little leaves