How long should I let my auto flowers veg for to get the most possible from them?

bro auto flowers are automatic. hence u should put 'em under a strong HPS lamp from start (or 2nd week) to finish with 18-20 hours of light a day. good luck

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You're giving them veg nutes because they are in the growth/veg phase. They will automatically start flowering, and when they do that they need a different balance of nutes to thrive so you switch to bloom nutes, which has less nitrogen compared to P&K.

5 weeks old automatics is about right for them to start showing the first couple of pistils, depending on the genetics some of them hold out until the last minute, but overall it's about right. Stick to your feeding schedule I reckon.

 

.....There's a reason, for charts,...and for everything else other people are telling you. You don't just happen to decide to grow weed and automatically know what you're doing....people that have been growing for years are still here to learn.

Also, charts are a guide line......not an exact thing, all plants, strains,phenos even are different and make a difference.

Follow the chart and adjust if you need...and be open to what everyone says...were all here for the same reason...to learn how to grow the best weed.

 

The reason why you start to use bloom nutes before the plant starts flowering, is because the plant kind of senses the balance of nutrients available to it and plans accordingly for flower. Although you can add bloom nutes later, there is a point before flowering starts to happen when you can kind of trick the plant in to making more flowers overall, as well as supporting the growth of those flowers later on as they develop.

The reason for following a chart is because certain plants are very predictable. Automatic cannabis plants are one of these, they tend to develop and become sexually mature after about 4-6 weeks, and then proceed to flower for 8-10 weeks, and although different genetics may vary slightly it is very predictable. Apart from killing it, you can't change it.

That is different compared to a photoperiod, for example I have a mother plant that is 3 years old. You could never keep an automatic that long. As a consequence I have never fed that particular plant bloom nutes.

Of course there is no need to follow the schedule! You can feed it whatever you think whenever you like, but if you don't have a good reason why then I suggest it's worth just following the chart and have success.

 

Okay, fair enough. Here's my advice regarding the chart.
Week 4 is transition week 5 is early flower, (week 6 also). By this chart your plants are definitely at least week 4, moving into week 5.
Week 5-8 is basically the same except a gradual increase of bloom by only 25%.

So it doesn't really matter right now whether you're in week 4 or 5 or 6. If you don't think they qualify as "early bloom" yet then just keep feeding week 5 until you think it's there, probably 1 more week. They carry on gradually increasing the bloom as per schedule.

In another 4 weeks you'll be towards the end of the cycle and have to decide when to drop the nutes and flush. This is something you can worry about in 4 weeks time, and if it needs to repeat week 10 over and over until you're ready to flush then so be it. Most schedules that acknowledge a period longer than 12 weeks have a note to say repeat the last flowering week until you're ready.

Because of their age and that some of them have shown pistils, even if one hasn't, they have come to the end of their veg phase and started the bloom phase. You can't get away from that reality, so you don't need to worry about potentially reducing the amount of the Gro component. They look very healthy and they're not going to actually get any bigger such that they will need the extra nitrogen.

 

Howando gave you some excellent advice, including the delineating factor between photoperiods and auto's - the auto's bloom by age not shortened days. I would also question, are you sure those are auto's? The reason I ask is it looks like you are hydro DWC or RDWC? I've grown about ten different auto strains under hydro and they all show bloom around 14 days.
And another point to the general hydro charts - they are for photoperiod plants that normally veg for 3-4 weeks (longer is better) and bloom for at least 8 weeks or longer. But you can adapt the chart to auto's by adapting the formula to the plant's growth traits; i.e. when she starts showing pistils, switch to transition formula for a week (since your plants have not exhibited ant stretch), then to full bloom formula. Weaker than the chart but follow the ratio's. 50 to 75% of chart strength based upon what your ppm's are doing.
I don't replace the whole growth formula as the plant ages, I just "mix up" to the stronger formulas by adding the difference to the existing formula. For example, for early growth the chart calls for 7.5mL / gal. of Micro; in late growth it calls for 10mL per gallon. So I add 2.5mL of Micro to go from early to late growth. Repeat for the other base and additive ingredients as well. But changing from grow to bloom formulations, I dump all nutes and re-mix new.
But my real serious concern is did you get seeds that you KNOW are autoflowering? Because I've NEVER seen an auto that takes 5 weeks to show sex. Like the G-13 Pineapple Express feminized Autoflower that showed full male balls at under two weeks and REALLY pissed me off!!! Or anything else that's shown sex in 10-14 days.
If you see no pistils, I would drop light to 12 hours a day, and if you see pistils within 10 - 14 days you know someone got their beans mixed up. Hate it when that happens.

 

those are like tiny plants u got atleast 2 - 3 weeks before u see pistils chill bruh the chart isnt everything but keep your hydro nutes straight its way harder to control ph