Auto flowering schedules

donpaul.p

donpaul.p

Well-Known Member
Member of the Month
August 2013
Hi all, another grower started this section so we can compare autos and yields,

so what light schedule is best to use?
what strain was you growing?
what results did you get?
what nutrients?
how long did it take to start flowering and how long till it was ready for harvest if known?
 
so this is what ive found,
strain was kc45 auto regular grown under 400watt dual spectrum hps with 55,000lumins, grown using ---
light schedules used was 24-0, 20-4 and 12-12

under 24-0 and 20-4 i was getting very poor results, averaging around 1/4oz to 3 8ths. this was from several plants all hit very poor yields,
under 12-12 i averaged around 2oz per plant.

under 24-0 the plants didnt reach 1ft high, the buds where small,
under 12-12 the plants hit 2ft and over, buds where over 1ft in length and produced 2oz in total,

growing conditions where the same for each grow, temps, nutrients, distance from light etc etc,

so this is what i found and im producing more autos seeds to run more tests.

what im trying to work out is do autos flower due to age in days, do they reach harvest due to age in days,
or do they start flowering due to age in light hours and reach harvest due to age in light hours,

let me explain, so under 12-12 the kc45's i grew where under 12-12 from seed to harvest, the plants took between 2 and 3 weeks longer to start flowering and they took just over 3 weeks longer to be ready to harvest when compared with 20-4 and 24-0 schedules,

as i got these results off several plants then it could not of been a lucky seed producing 2oz, all the plants under 12-12 reached at least 1.5ft including males before showing sex, under 20-4 and 24-0 the plants didnt even reach 1ft in height at harvest.

as i grew several plants under both schedules i found that the plants under 12-12 all took longer to start flowering, all took longer to reach harvest and all made it double or sometimes tripped the size of the plants grown under 24-0 and 20-4,

so the kc45 leads me to believe that autos may grow according to light in hours and not age in days,
so for example, lets say an auto needs 240 hours of light to reach harvest,
under 24-0 this would be 10 days,
under 12-12 it would be double this,

my plants clearly took longer to start flowering and reach harvest under 12-12 and got much bigger under 12-12.

so if they flower according to age in days, then this suggests the plants would not flower at all under 24-0 as they would need the dark period to know its been 1 day, under constant light it dont know what a day is as such, we know ruderalis grows in areas that dont have seasons as such so it has long days or long nights so it dont flower due to photo periods so it uses something else to signal the start of flower.

so as my plants took over 3 weeks longer to reach harvest and this was with a few plants then this suggests that at least the kc45 strain dont flower and reach harvest due to age in days, if it did then it would start flowering at the same time under 12-12 and 24-0 and 20-4, but their was a difference of between 2 and 3 weeks with all the plants grown,

so that suggests the kc45 auto dont flower according to age in days, as it starts to flower earlier under 24-0 and is harvested weeks earlier under 24-0 and 20-4 then their must be something else going on,

hopefully some auto growers can add some of their own info to this thread so we can work out what strains work best with which schedule,

plus at the minute im collecting pollen from a kc45 auto male and ive been collecting it for a few days now and ive got another 2 kc45 autos growing under 12-12 and if one of these is fem then ill use it to just produce seeds so i have got plenty of seeds to work with so i can do more testing.
 
I have to get time to be with this you seem to have had similar troubles to what I have had from my last grow I only got maybe 10g max from my Dwarf auto
It really hurt me and it hurt in the ego the worst place for me to get hurt so DP I will stay tuned in if yu dont mind
 
I have two examples of autos running right now on CFL's.
NLxBB auto which is almost at harvest and I expect around 30g's from her.
Blue mammoth is 40ish days old and judging by what I see, she will be close to 10g range.
Both plant are on 17-7. The NLxBB I SCRoG'd and due to her longer veg cycle she is doing awesome. I attempted this with the BM but she did not respond well. My next grow of this strain will be two beans with light LST in the classic xmas tree style to compare yields. I also hope to start some transiberian soon as well.
 
thanks for the info, at the minute ive got a male producing me pollen, this is a kc45 that was grown under 12-12 and again it is over 2ft, so im collecting pollen to produce more kc45 autos with the kc45 auto fem i got growing and ive also got a auto bubble fem growing again under 12-12, so might put pollen on that if its a small auto so hopefully the big kc45 auto will rub off on the little auto bubble and should produce a good mix of pheno types i can work with, but i might be wrong and get a big auto bubble under 12-12, im sure its only a matter of time before i find out

the problem with autos and low yields is down to the breeding, autos are bred to be a very quick grow, the quicker the reach harvest the better as expected yields are based on a sea of green style grow, so buying just 1 auto and you get low yields, but buy 30 or 40 autos and even if you got 10g dry per auto every 60 days then thats 300 or 400g dry every 60 days, so autos have always been bred to reach harvest quick so its a fast turn around,

but this is not good if you only buy 1 or 2 autos, you get pretty gutted when you end up with an 8th or 1/4oz per plant, its just not good, luckily their are now breeders working on producing autos that yield well, how ever grow time will increase due to this,

you could grow regular plants under 12-12 from seed to harvest and produce more than 1/4oz, you could get anything upto about an oz under 12-12 from seed with none autos, but growth time will be 4 weeks for veg and 8 weeks for flower or slightly less, so thats why autos are quick to grow and reach harvest as its the fast turn around time that the breeders have always worked on due to growers growing in sog style grow,

the big bang auto yields around 40zdry, not a strain ive tried but a few growers on here grew a few of them and all yielded around the 4oz mark but grow time was increased, if an auto has a longer grow time then its pretty pointless it been an auto as it would mean either keeping it under a veg schedule for longer or keeping it under 12-12 for longer, but the problem their is we normally grow autos with our other plants so we cant keep the lights on veg for ages just so an auto produces well, so their needs to be some level ground where an auto will yield well under a normal veg cycle or under a normal flower cycle,

im hopfully trying to produce a decent auto strain which is tough as you cant take clones of the best female to use for back crossing with, so its tough to get an auto stable, auto fems are a bit easier as you can cross 2 females that are the same pheno type, so autos are not that easy to work with, so ive crossed a none auto male with an auto female, this will produce seeds that around 1/4 will turn out auto, so ill cross a male and female that turn out auto and that will produce auto seeds, so ive got a way to go before i can start working with the autos to produce something thats stable but ive started so will continue with my auto project and see what happens.

i just thnk if we could increase growth by a couple of weeks then the returns will really pay off, if an auto stayed in veg 2 weeks longer than the extra growth would give us a higher yield possible double what we are getting at the minute
 
DP that really was great info mate
I have grown mainly autos an 3 of them I totally messed up by trying super croping an lots of LST finally although even two I have now had a bad start
Im understanding there very basic needs
You got me real worried about the times though cause I got them on 16/8 the main reason being I got a sleestack #skunk from DNA an its a real good plant as long as its a she? Sorry for the rant but will the 16/8 cycle be bad for them????
 
@Jaga, no its good my friend, use what ever schedule you want to use, autos will grow and flower under any schedule,
my findings with all autos ive grown and now my own auto strains leads me to think the following is going on.

let say the breeder says its 56 days auto, so if you want to hit the 56 day timing then use 24-0 from seed to harvest, but from my own experience yields will be small, i was always told 24-0 is the best for autos as it gives them the most light, so i was fed up of getting between 3.5g and 14g max per auto from any strain i tried,

but the same autos grown under other schedules produced much bigger yields, so i grew the same strains under 18-6 and my yields shot up from 14g max to over 1oz and upwards under 18-6, the same happened for 17-6, 16-8 etc etc, then i tried the same autos under 12-12 from seed to harvest and again i was hitting easily 1oz per auto dry and 2oz was the average i was getting,

so my findings suggest autos dont flower according to age in days, if they did then they would never flower under 24-0 as they would not know what 1 day is, yet they still mature and flower as normal.
but when you give them a proper day with a dark period then this changes how the grow, for example lets say auto strain A grown under 24-0 from seed to harvets took 60 days and yield was 10gdry per auto,
the same strain under 18-6 took 75 days to reach harvest and yields was around 1oz,
the same strain under 12-12 took 90 days to reach harvest and yields was around 2oz per plant dry.

im not saying 12-12 is the best schedule to use but its much better than 24-0, no matter how many times i grow under 24-0 i always get poor results, but then when i grow them same strains including my own under 18-6, 17-6, 16-8 produced easily twice as much bud at harvest,

so if your doing a sog style grow and growing 100 autos then 24-0 would be the best to use as it is harvested at 56 days from sprouting but the yields are small, so 100autos x 10g dry =1000g of dry bud every 56 to 60 days, if you check the breeders info they do state yields based on sog style grow, so breeders produced these autos to finish very fast so you can then have more harvest per year, well thats ok if your growing 100autos per grow but most of us are not growing lots of autos so we end up with small yields.

but give autos a dark period each day and it will improve things,
another couple of examples, i had some auto strains show sex at week 2 from seed and start flowering at week 3 onwards under 24-0, now these same strains grown under 18-6 didnt show sex until week 4 and didnt start flowering till week 6, so it takes longer to grow but if it gives you double the yield or even tripple then its worth waitig the extra few weeks

so with the autos ive grown and my own auto strain ive found its better to give them a dark period each day, im not saying `12-12 is the best for autos but for the autos ive grown 12-12 seems to perform much better but you can nearly double the grow time as the auto is getting 12 hours less of light per day,

now we all know these plants continue to grow and stretch in the dark, so lets say autos flower and reach harvest due to how many lights hours they receiver, so lets say auto A needs 1000 light hours to reach harvest which works out as
1000 light hours devided by 24, this gives us a grow time of 41.6 days from seedling to harvest,
now as this plant is getting constant light then it dont benefit from the night tieme growing.

at night plants do many things but 3 important tasks are
1, repair damaged caused during the lights on period
2, it sends nutrients and energy down to the roots so this produces more roots, more roots means faster growth and more fruit
3, during the dark period the plant stretches, it does this as its trying to find the light, plants do the same thing if their in the shade so with none autos when you flip to 12-12 from flower the plant then stretches during lights out as its trying to find the light again, when the light comes back on stops stretching and continues to grow and start flowering,

so auto A grown under 24-0 from seed to harvest needs 1000 light hours to reach harvest, this takes nearly 42 days.
auto A grown under 18-6 from seed to harvest needs 1000 light hours to reach harvest but under 18-6 it takes 56days to reach harvest.

so under 18-6 it still needs 1000 hours of light to reach harvest but as its getting less ligher per day then its going to take longer to reach harvest, plus during the lights out period each day the plant continues go grow and stretch, it gives the roots an nice boost which has been proven, clones grown in identical condition but grown under different lighting schedules clearly showed that 24-0 had the lowest root mass, 20-4 had more root mass than 24-0
18-6 clearly showed it had nearly double the root mass of 24-0, so more roots means the plant can take in more and can grow much quicker.

so both plants still need 1000light hours to reach harvest but under 18-6 it takes a couple of weeks longer so this gives you this extra grow time which happens during the dark period,

now ive not grown all auto strains but all the ones i have grown do much much better when given a dark period, my results suggest that 18-6 and below produce much better results and bigger yields, so i wont grow autos under 24-0 anymore as i never got anywher near the harvest weight i get using other schedule.

so im pretty sure autos dont mature and reach harvest due to age in days, if they did then under 24-0 they would stay in veg and never flower, so we can rule the days theory, so that really only leaves us with the light hours being the key factor, im still doing more testing for i can safely say 24-0 is not the best light schedule for autos
 
also i forgot to discuss the training methods, from my own experience id say the only real method that you can do is minor low stress training, if certain part of the plant are not getting light then use string or pipe cleaners to open the plant up a bit, i wouldnt lst it right over on its side as you lose 2 weeks or more of growth as the plant recovers, you might be able to use some training methods if you use 12-12 from seed to harvest then this would give you the 2 weeks lost when the plant recovered from what ever training it was.

so personally the most id do with an auto is very minor lst, i would not defol or do anyhing like topping,fim,hst, scrog etc etc as you wont end up with good results, again i cant say this applies to all autos but ive grown between 20 and 30 auto strains and i would not of trained any, i have tried it and used lst to give me multiple tops but the yield was not worth the nutrients and time wasted on growing it,

so dont worry about the light schedule, id happily say it will do well under that schedule and much better than using 24-0. so id say you will be ok, the only thing you dont want to do is mess up the schedule for say 1 weeks, if you had random lights on and off timees then you would have hermie problems, but its ok to adjust the light schedule which ever way you want, you could keep it on what your on now or use some demenishing light schedule and see what results you get, so dont worry to much as it sounds like your using an ideal light schedule. keep us posted on the results so i can add it to the data, what i want to do is create a list of as many auto strains as i can and then add info like light schedule, yield, size and grow time
 
@jummejum, thanks for the data buddy, have some reps,

is this auto still growing at the minute then, let me know the yields and how long it took to grow,
 
Interesting thread. I think I'd like to try using donpaul's light analysis study under hydroponic growing conditions. See if the final harvest numbers might reach what the breeders indicate is possible for outdoor production.
Another thought would be a sub forum under "Grow Journals" for Auto's. Certainly would save some time searching the forum, as there is no set guideline for the headers of the journals.
Certainly props to donpaul for putting together some solid personal research and openly sharing the results.
 
donpaul.p said:
also i forgot to discuss the training methods, from my own experience id say the only real method that you can do is minor low stress training, if certain part of the plant are not getting light then use string or pipe cleaners to open the plant up a bit, i wouldnt lst it right over on its side as you lose 2 weeks or more of growth as the plant recovers, you might be able to use some training methods if you use 12-12 from seed to harvest then this would give you the 2 weeks lost when the plant recovered from what ever training it was.

so personally the most id do with an auto is very minor lst, i would not defol or do anyhing like topping,fim,hst, scrog etc etc as you wont end up with good results, again i cant say this applies to all autos but ive grown between 20 and 30 auto strains and i would not of trained any, i have tried it and used lst to give me multiple tops but the yield was not worth the nutrients and time wasted on growing it,

so dont worry about the light schedule, id happily say it will do well under that schedule and much better than using 24-0. so id say you will be ok, the only thing you dont want to do is mess up the schedule for say 1 weeks, if you had random lights on and off timees then you would have hermie problems, but its ok to adjust the light schedule which ever way you want, you could keep it on what your on now or use some demenishing light schedule and see what results you get, so dont worry to much as it sounds like your using an ideal light schedule. keep us posted on the results so i can add it to the data, what i want to do is create a list of as many auto strains as i can and then add info like light schedule, yield, size and grow time
Click to expand...

Thanks so much Dp
You I think answered all my questions in the two posts you put apart from ,,,,
Only joking full reps thanks for the info MUCH needed and appreciated :thumb:
 
Very interesting. I grew AF's for about 3-4 years and had completely different results than you. In fact, after toying around I set my sights on a 24/0 schedule and never looked back. From about the third or fourth grow on I never changed the lighting schedule.

On my first grow I used a 20/4 for 6 plants of 3 AF varieties (2x AFAk47, 2x AF BG Kush, 2x AF Sour Diesel) (The names are fucked, I know, how do you give a ruderalis plant the same name as an indica or sativa strain and then just put AF before it? lol)

All 6 were girls, all 6 got over 2.5' tall. Averaged about 1 oz each.

Second grow I tried a more moderate 16/8 schedule. Same strains, lucked out again with 6 girls. However, it was a disaster. Not a single plant got over 2' tall and the most one of them gave me was about 1/2 oz.

I tried again on my third grow to very similar results, but I stepped the lighting back to 14/10 per the advice of a dumb friend. Again, none over 2' tall and no more than 1/2 oz each.

After that I started 24/0 schedule and never stopped. My fourth grow was the best. Granted, by this time I was out of seeds and so I ordered a brand new round, however I tried to keep the strains exactly the same. I can't tell you if all 5 plants in round 4 were the same strains as the rest of the grows but I'm pretty sure they were fairly close. (6 instead of 5 got my first boy on grow 4! haha)

Anyways, grow #4 was spectacular. Trial and error from the first three grow plus 24/0 light schedule did well for me. As i check my logs, I'm sitting here still pretty amazed. #4 was 5 plants and not a single plant was under 3' tall. I had a girl in the middle that got to almost 4' tall and I had to bend her down because she was reaching the top of my cabinet/lights. 4 out 5 plants produced OVER 1.5 and the freak bitch gave me about 2.5.


All in all, my grow times never really differed. When I switched to 14/10 they did take about an extra week, but all 4 of the first grows took right around 11-13 weeks.
 
Also, I hate to question any of donpaul's advice but I've never ever ever ever ever ever gotten a hermie AF....
 
@bong, thanks for sharing your findings, i know each strain is always going to produce something different,

but autos are produced to be grown in sog, so yields are low due to the fast turn around time of 56 - 60 days with many auto strain, but i was always getting tiny yields, it was only when i changed the light schedule and give them a night period that my yields show up more than 4x what they was under 24-0, we know photo plants grown under 24-0 often end up more bushy than plants grown under 18-6, this is because under 24-0 the plant is not searching for the light as the light never goes off, so node spacing stays tighter and plants stay more bushy, but ive always had smaller yields when used 24-0 for photo plants compared to glr or even 18-6.

now their has been testing done with light schedules and root growth/mass, we all know that the more roots the plant has got the faster it will grow and the bigger it will get, so the tests shown that plants grown under 24-0 had a lot less root mass compared to the same clones grown under 18-6 all done in test conditions,

so for me the more roots the better, i have used all light schedules out their, i wont be using 24-0 for autos or regular plants, it just dont give me the results im used to getting, the plants dont get as big and they dont seem to grow or produce as well as plant grown under 18-6 or 20-4.

ive grown autos for about 4 years now give or take and i know theirs strains out their that produce 4oz per plant such as big bang auto but for me ive tried many autos strains and none impressed me, yields where way to small, but then when i grow the same autos under 18-6 or even 12-12 the results are totally different, the grow time is extended by 4ish weeks depending on strain and the autos seem to get much bigger,

i took 2 years working with 1 auto strain and i selected the best pheno type from 40 seeds and spent 2 years weeding out the smaller pheno types and crossing the best producing pheno that produced the fattest and most potent buds, so ive now got a very stable auto strain which i can easily hit 2oz from under 20-4 or 18-6, but now im getting different results under 12-12, my photo plants are in flower, i planted my autos about 3 weeks before flipping to 12-12 and these autos are only just showing sex and again are bigger than previous grows, so for me im finding that giving them a night period pays off,

again i can only say this is working with the autos ive grown, i always grew under 24-0 as i was always told its the best schedule to use for autos, but i was fed up for plants showing sex around week 2 to 3 of veg then flowering not long after, i was lucky if i got 10g dry per auto, so i was going to give up on them but it was only because i planted an auto late and my other plants where on 12-12 that i noticed the auto took longer to grow and produced 4x what it did under 24-0.

a lot more testing needs to be done and theirs way to many auto strains out their to try them all, but if some of us have grown autos under 24-0 and 18-6 and found 24-0 produces the best results then i cant argue with that, but we need to make sure we have grown the same strains under different lighting schedules,
for example lets say we grow an auto under 24-0 and get an oz dry, then you wont know if 18-6 would of done better without trying it,

so the only way to know for sure is to try the same strains under different lighting schedules and post the results, ill continue to grow autos and continue to work with different lighting schedules, maybe their is some middle ground that all autos could be grown under such as 20-4,
but i was just disapointed growing autos under 24-0 and was ready to give up on them as people kept saying they produce very little, which is ideal for sog type grow if your growing 100 autos then 10g per auto every 56 days is a good yield over 12 months, but when growing 1 or 2 autos 10g just dont cut it, for me their not worth growing unless i hit 2oz dry at harvest, less than that and its a waste of time/money/nutes, i can easily hit 1 to 2oz dry going 12-12 from seed with regular strains so autos need to at least hit these numbers else their just not worth growing,

ill keep you posted on how these autos ive grow growing turn out, their about 2ft high or sightly bigger and just showing sex, i know i got 1 male and the other 2 look like female so ill use the male for pollen to produce more seeds as the auto strain im growing is about the best ive come across,
 
donpaul.p said:
@bong, thanks for sharing your findings, i know each strain is always going to produce something different,

but autos are produced to be grown in sog, so yields are low due to the fast turn around time of 56 - 60 days with many auto strain, but i was always getting tiny yields, it was only when i changed the light schedule and give them a night period that my yields show up more than 4x what they was under 24-0, we know photo plants grown under 24-0 often end up more bushy than plants grown under 18-6, this is because under 24-0 the plant is not searching for the light as the light never goes off, so node spacing stays tighter and plants stay more bushy, but ive always had smaller yields when used 24-0 for photo plants compared to glr or even 18-6.

now their has been testing done with light schedules and root growth/mass, we all know that the more roots the plant has got the faster it will grow and the bigger it will get, so the tests shown that plants grown under 24-0 had a lot less root mass compared to the same clones grown under 18-6 all done in test conditions,

so for me the more roots the better, i have used all light schedules out their, i wont be using 24-0 for autos or regular plants, it just dont give me the results im used to getting, the plants dont get as big and they dont seem to grow or produce as well as plant grown under 18-6 or 20-4.

ive grown autos for about 4 years now give or take and i know theirs strains out their that produce 4oz per plant such as big bang auto but for me ive tried many autos strains and none impressed me, yields where way to small, but then when i grow the same autos under 18-6 or even 12-12 the results are totally different, the grow time is extended by 4ish weeks depending on strain and the autos seem to get much bigger,

i took 2 years working with 1 auto strain and i selected the best pheno type from 40 seeds and spent 2 years weeding out the smaller pheno types and crossing the best producing pheno that produced the fattest and most potent buds, so ive now got a very stable auto strain which i can easily hit 2oz from under 20-4 or 18-6, but now im getting different results under 12-12, my photo plants are in flower, i planted my autos about 3 weeks before flipping to 12-12 and these autos are only just showing sex and again are bigger than previous grows, so for me im finding that giving them a night period pays off,

again i can only say this is working with the autos ive grown, i always grew under 24-0 as i was always told its the best schedule to use for autos, but i was fed up for plants showing sex around week 2 to 3 of veg then flowering not long after, i was lucky if i got 10g dry per auto, so i was going to give up on them but it was only because i planted an auto late and my other plants where on 12-12 that i noticed the auto took longer to grow and produced 4x what it did under 24-0.

a lot more testing needs to be done and theirs way to many auto strains out their to try them all, but if some of us have grown autos under 24-0 and 18-6 and found 24-0 produces the best results then i cant argue with that, but we need to make sure we have grown the same strains under different lighting schedules,
for example lets say we grow an auto under 24-0 and get an oz dry, then you wont know if 18-6 would of done better without trying it,

so the only way to know for sure is to try the same strains under different lighting schedules and post the results, ill continue to grow autos and continue to work with different lighting schedules, maybe their is some middle ground that all autos could be grown under such as 20-4,
but i was just disapointed growing autos under 24-0 and was ready to give up on them as people kept saying they produce very little, which is ideal for sog type grow if your growing 100 autos then 10g per auto every 56 days is a good yield over 12 months, but when growing 1 or 2 autos 10g just dont cut it, for me their not worth growing unless i hit 2oz dry at harvest, less than that and its a waste of time/money/nutes, i can easily hit 1 to 2oz dry going 12-12 from seed with regular strains so autos need to at least hit these numbers else their just not worth growing,

ill keep you posted on how these autos ive grow growing turn out, their about 2ft high or sightly bigger and just showing sex, i know i got 1 male and the other 2 look like female so ill use the male for pollen to produce more seeds as the auto strain im growing is about the best ive come across,
Click to expand...


Great info here thanks.
Any advise on if/when to CHANGE the light cycle?
Im running a couple AF's, under 400 MH and some 25w UVB. In soil.
We are at week 3, under 18/6.
My thoughts were to change the cycle when i see (hopefully) some flowering.
I was going to put them under my 1k watt HPS for 12/12 with my photo plants. I don't care about the time to crop, I want the most bang for my buck.
Opinions?
 
just my two penneth; I started an auto Buddah on 12/12 from seed, and it showed its gender (female) in just 17 days

I don't have a journal, but I'll update you on the results in this thread in a few weeks
 

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