I’m gonna try growing a AK-47 Auto Flower outdoors in a pot. I’m germinating seed as we speak. My plan is to start it inside and then move it outdoors to spend her life but my question is does anyone know when would be a safe time to move it outside? Don’t even know if this is possible so anyone with any experience doing this I would greatly appreciate and welcome your advice. Thanks.
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.
Here is my post on autoflowers hope this well help
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The best I can derive from all that is start them indoors?
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Precisely, they have a better start when started indoors, or if they are outside you want them to have atleast 14 hours of light, if you can get more that’s better but your really don’t want to push for less.
Autoflowers will flower no matter the light and that’s due to a ruderalis trait in the strain, and that means there is a set time do it will fllower regardless of light
Here is where I get confused. If lighting has nothing to do with a Auto Flowering seed why is light an issue? Don’t mean to be annoying just confused and want to have a clear understanding. I guess they get stronger while young being raised indoors for some reason…
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Because with longer light hours they can do more growing and filling out, shorter light hours you won’t get the most out of their growth, and your fine your not annoying it’s just some thing you haven’t learned yet.
Indoor you can ensure they get the 18/6 cycle and ensure your plant a great environment and get the most out of it
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How long do you suggest indoor growing? After germination I plan on MG for seedlings in a starter cup and then transplant into 3-5 gallon pot with MG Moisture Control…
ak-47 indoors being an autoflower id wanna say any where from 70-85 days the plant will flower naturally on its own when it sences it’s ready to. And honestly id start with the red cup straight to 3 gallon you shouldn’t need more than that and you don’t wanna transplant autos very often due to their fact of having little to no time to recover from shock
I’m planning on taking this thing outdoors…How long should I let it start indoors? I get the red cup thing and that is what I mean by a starter cup and then will transplant to 3 gallon pot after about 3 set of leaves. Would that be when I take her outdoors?
Yes right when she’s put into her final home is when youd want to move her outdoors
Let her stay inside for the first 2-3 weeks, but you wanna make sure you have some what of an intense light, if she goes right to the sunlight from a light that’s not as intense it’s very possible she can under go a shock from light being to intense ie; switching from a cfl to natural sunlight
Put her under light as soon as seed is put in red cup or wait till she sprouts?
Yes put her in light as soon as possible
So I guess that means when I put her in red cup put light to her also?
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I’m a beginner, first grow, but I’m in the exact same situation with some White Widow autos. I have 3 in 5" Jiffy pots, and want to plant them outside when they’re big enough. The big question is “When?”
I’ve got them under CFL by a window, so they get indirect sun all day and direct sunlight a couple hours a day. I’m hoping that will be enough to minimize the shock Majiktoker mentioned. I’m hoping to go direct to the ground, so I want them as big as possible, but don’t want to shock/stunt them by a tiny peat pot with no more room for roots!
I’ve read 3 good, solid nodes of full leaves (meaning 5 “fingers” or more, not 3!) and at least 6-10" in height before the move. I HOPE that happens in 2 weeks, but as of today, I’m 1 week in and two of them haven’t even fully dropped their shells yet! So I’m thinking maybe 3 weeks old they’ll be big enough? We’ll see.
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Hopefully with doing this if they are in shade with a cfl, and indirect sunlight for a couple hours leave it a half hour longer, and start introducing to sunlight slowly but surely, give them direct sunlight for an hour and you should be alright to stick them in the ground, again you don’t want to delay at all cause they have literally minimal to no time to recover
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Same concept with direct sunlight just realized you said a couple hours of direct sunlight and indirect all day with cfl, leave the indirect sunlight alone and move the direct sunlight up by an hour (each week specifically)…I’m glad I caught my mistake
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Let me know how it goes for you. I’m not going to the ground I will be putting them in 3 gallon pots so I can move them around. Good Luck.
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And both of you keep me updated on how things go lol 
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Will do Majik…
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