Autoflowers requirements

yes, when I was growing in soil I used 10 gallon airpots and my autos would actually only use about 7 gallons. My experiements show for me personally once you start getting below 3 gallons the autos get smaller due to the wonderful root pruning the air pots perform. But it all comes out almost exactly the same. For me, five one gallons is the same as one 5 gallon. It is difficult for autos roots to exceed 7 gallons because they just don't live that long, about 65 days and the ruderalis just stops growing and the buds slowly start to mature.

 

Nowadays everybody just strives for an even canopy. No more talk about big plants except for novelty bragging. So, it's how many buds of even canopy per square foot. It doesn't matter all that much what is going on under that canopy. It can be one plant scrogged or many plant sogged or something in between like a beautiful canopy of mainlined autos. Autos can be trained all their life, but the topping should stop at 28 days. Hard to pack seedlings too tight. Quite easy to underestimate final diameter of plant. I forget the formula, something like container plus 20%.

 

Growing media, light and pot size really makes a difference with autos. My very first grow was some WW autos in a greenhouse in rather cold climate with about 20 hours daylight in the summer. I had made a raised bed of about 120 x 50 cm, with ample amounts of horse manure mixed in + on the bottom.. Had three plants. They grew over 1,5 meters tall. Sadly they had to be chopped down - grew in a non-legalized country and my ex wanted to bust me - so no idea, what the yield would have been finally.

Now I grow all sorts of strains in 8 liter pots, mostly outside, but taken inside to a closed with some leds when needed. No horse manure available, using bat guano. The highest plant I've had, has been less than 50 cm tall. Yields are really low, from 10 to 30g per plant.

Too bad I now have such restricted space even outdoors.

PS great post to practise your metric system knowledge?

 

How about a canopy with an even amount of uneveness!

 

autos have a limited lifespan. even if you gave them the biggest container in the world they are only going to get so big before their end of life.

BTW, currently in the middle of a grow with Blue Dream auto from Fastbuds so same as you are about to start. I'm in my own soil mix, in a 15-gal smartpot. Probably WAY overkill for an auto but less work for me - less waterings, less teas, etc.
only real LST I did on her was topped her and staked out the bottom most branches to extend out past the canopy for more light exposure.
She just went into flowering about a week or so ago. She is currently on day 35 today.

Come on over to the auto thread - Autos make good Organic Sinse, and Organic sinse is the real auto expert around here. In fact he is currently growing a Mephisto SODK same as you. I think he is only around 2 weeks or so on it.

LOTS of good info on that thread for you. We had a container size conversation just last week that many interest you.

here is my Blue Dream auto at 35 days in a 15-gal. topped only basically. She is wet because I just did a foliar aloe vera spray. I do those once or twice a day as I peek in on the girls


Besides 2 autos, each in 15-gal containers, i also have another auto in a 5-gal pot. Will be interesting to see afterwards the difference in the footballs of the 2 different sized containers. I'm GUESSING the 5-gal pot will be mostly filled with the rootball. the 15-gal has LOTS of extra room. question is if there is still room at the end of a approx 70-80 day plant in the 5-gal for my rootball or if the 5-gal is getting :"root bound". I'll be surprised I'm guessing if the 5-gal becomes too root bound. I'm thinking a 5 gal should be all this needed but a 7.5 or 10 would be nice extra room just in case.

 

I'm going to be growing red dwarf auto, strain info says it will only grow 2 feet max, so all I bought was 2 gallon nursery pots..I thought that if I went with say 3 - 4 gallon pots then all I would be doing is wasting good roots organics soil

 

generally most plants will react the same way, auto or photo, shouldn't matter. A plant will reach for the light. it simply wants the light. It it has room to spread itself out wider than it will and open up more and grow outward as well as upward. It it's so squeezed in it can't grow out it has no choice to to only grow upwards. but by being so squeezed in together and only being able to grow upward you will only have the top upper colas available to develop. This is basically a SOG grow. If you reduce the number of plants, they can open up more and / or you can even do a scrod with a screen and this really opens up the plant for more bud sight development. Overall though your yield is going to depend on how much of a "canopy" you can make. whether it is 16 plants squeezed in a tent with no room between them or a few plants allowed too open up, or trained open such as a scrog if the canopy is the same your yield should be the same.

 

Yes, see, that is what I found out. You see these pictures of big plants in solo cups and things, but in the fabric bags, the autos stay slmost perfectly perportioned. So in a one gallon, it looks just like the 5 gallon plant only smaller, and you can kind of determine how big you want by size of grow bag up to a point. But in any size, the plants remain very healthy. Two gallons should be perfect. Keep your nutes the same kind of small.

 

Thank you for your input...very appreciated, THANK YOU.
Going to try sub_cools autoflower super soil, sub cool says that with this auto super soil, all you need to do is water, and the living organisms in his soil will negate the need for any nutes for the life of your cannabis plants..

 

Oh yeah, I grew in soil for a long time. Autos love it. I am still unclear on the minimum container size for add water only. I know for me it's bigger than the ten gallon air-pots I was worlking with. 20 gallons and it starts to kick in. But I could be all wrong on the whole thing. I know in soil my plants used 7 gallons max and in pure perlite they don't care. They will use all of whatever you give them. But my experence is size of container matches size of plant not visa versa. The pictures you see are usually the exception of a big plant in a tiny pot.

 

Well when I sent a email to sub cool, he said that a 2 gallon pot should get roughly 3/4 of the super soil, only reason I'm trying it this way is because I understand autos are sensitive to nutes, and I'm scared to death of killing my autos by trying some liquid nutes like grow big or big bloom

 

Cool. Yes, I am waiting on some kind of microbe study on pot roots in perlite for 90 days. It gets quite active in there.