The environment will always be the deciding factor no matter what. Pot size plays a part with autos big time. Even with photo periods you will not grow a monster in a solo cup no matter what you do.
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I will give you this advice, everything works. I even have a plant I haven’t had to water in 8 weeks and it’s doing fine. We are all guessing at some point. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes. I started grows in 3 gallon fabric then 5 and now 7 and I got weed in all grows. I will say I did receive better results in everything above 3 gallon. I got better results putting little screen under my fabric pot which increased the air flow. This is what I have now.
No joke the one in the green bag hasn’t been watered in 8 weeks. I was told that was impossible! But it is happening.
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Your plants are in 7 gallon pots? Here is one in 5 gallon fabric next to bucket for reference.
Here is one in 3 gallon pot
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Nice pics, I’m not in an area where I can grow outdoors! Wish I was.
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Those are gorgeous! Plants I grow outdoors tend to get big. Can’t beat the sun. Particularly in a northern summer clime. But outdoors always causes me a conundrum because it brings its own host of challenges. From pests to weather there’s always something gunning for my plants. At the same time, it keeps me outdoors and busy, which is as much the point as consuming it. If I could grow closer to the house and tuck under the eves when necessary, it would be ideal.
In MN, growing outdoors is a big challenge because cold or late season storms can ruin all your efforts. This year I stuck almost exclusively to autos because the stress late in the grow was just too big. Two years ago we had a funnel cloud skip right over the property in mid September. I had 20 mature photos in 30 gal pots that ended up in a heap. This summer with autos, I probably lost a half dozen plants due to pests and a hard freeze. At least with autos, you mitigate a bunch of the long grow risk of photos.
As I moved back indoors recently, I swore I’m done fighting Mother Nature. But I’m sure I’ll change my mind between now and those late winter evenings when I fantasize about puttering about in my garden with the dog.
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I LST all my plants, so I stop them from getting too tall, and start topping in the first 2 to 3 weeks. I bought these little clips from Amazon and tgey help with the LST.
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Happy B day @Meloco1980 I am going to agree that just choosing a bigger pt will not always make a big difference. I think that a lot depends on the growers experience also. This is my take for my grows.
I can average about 5 oz for each gallon in the pot side. The up side to a bigger pot is it will not dry out as fast. I am in coco so a 3 gallon in flower will need fed twice a day. I personally use 5 gallons for my autos.
I can’t see maybe getting a touch more? for the final yield making it worth the extra 2 gallons of coco.
A 5 gallon pot will handle a lb easy. And getting much over that with an auto is not so easy 
I think the best way to learn. may be to do one in a 5 and one in a 7. But over all. I think most will come from you having a good handle on what you grow with. Nutes, lights and soil.
Just my O2
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What kind of yeild are you expecting per plant? I normally get 5 to 7 indoor on autos. Also we are discussing autos are the ones in your pictures autos?
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Ive always used 3 gallon pots for autos, but this post makes me want to try one in a 5 gallon. I like growing both auto and photo. But i have so little experience in either.
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Nope, but irrelevant when plants aren’t vegged longer than 4 weeks. Yield per plant varies by how many plants are in there. It’s a 36"x18" tent and typically produces 6-8 ounces. Its in basement so winter grows aren’t usually as good as summer grows, and some strains produce a little better than others.
This is what i’m trying to share though. I’ve grown in 1, 2, and 3 gallon pots in same space and it always produces about the same amount. This not limited to my information though. That’s why the industry standard for indoor yield is weight per m² or ft² of canopy and not per plant.
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When growing autos, my results are all over the board. After complete trim and a trip through the Cannatrol, the biggest auto came in a bit over 6.2oz. That was a beast. There have been a couple 5oz, good number of 4s. Most are about 3 finished. Plenty of plants, however, have come in under 2oz. Invariably, these were plants which got stressed early. So either they never really built a big structure to hold more flower or they flowered prematurely and ended up being essentially a center cola.
There are about a dozen of us who grow together. In general, if we hit 3+ oz, we smile. Under 2, we frown. The short answer is my target is 4oz. But I probably only get that 25% of the time.
Related, I also rarely top, prune or LST my autos. I’ve just read so much about trying to avoid stress because they’re so fast that I’m a little paranoid. That said, some of the best results have come from plants where I was aggressive in shaping them the way I wanted them.
The thing is, you see that meagre harvest coming a mile away. I wish I had a dollar for every time I’ve looked at a spindly 4 week plant and decided it would be worth my time and effort to nurse it along for an oz or two. Curious who on this string aggressively culls new plants and who nurses the weak ones along to get whatever you can. Always seems a good idea at the time and dumb after all is said and done.
I may have a dozen plants going at once and I bounce between puttering too much with them and letting them just go native. Probably the best way to ensure I never get predictable results.
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I here ya, the point I was making for pot size is that sometimes depending on the median an autoflower will trigger early. So that’s the point I was making. If you want your autonto stay in VEG longer then the roots need some space. I didn’t disagree with what you were saying as far as growing. But to my experience if you want the most out of your auto and don’t want it to trigger to flower too soon give the roots some space. Photo you can do what you like, autos not so much. Since I like to lst I need that extra time.
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I grow a lot of autos often. I have only had one that came under 2 oz and thats because I brought it out to the greenhouse and forgot about it. The one on the right. Looked good grew stright up and yeilded 1.5 oz. But it was a grape something and as I saw other folks grow the same plant theirs didn’t look any better. But I got 1.5 oz so I was happy. If I tossed it I would have gotten anything and I grow organic so there wasn’t any loss of bought nutes.
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I would say you should just grow a photo plant if you want to veg longer. Because at least that is controlled. There are plenty of examples of autos going into flower early while in large pots and vegging for a very long time in small pots. And some of sutos in large pots not getting more than a few inches tall. So I disagree with your assessment that having a large pot will make autos veg longer. A long light cycle CAN make autos veg longer too. But doesn’t always mean it will.
Speaking in terms of practicality, there really isn’t much of a place for autos in indoor grows. Need short veg time, just flip sooner or start on 12/12.
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You mentioned Grape something and struggles. I had very poor results with first shot at Grapefruit. Had two outdoors (began indoors) that exhibited photo traits. Began end of March. Gave up on one in Sept and tossed it. Popcorn and pests. The other was over 6’ and I took that one last week, night of first hard freeze. It wanted another week or 10 days. Weather said no. Too big for tent. Did about 4oz on that one but considering it went nearly 28 weeks, I might as well have done a photo. I think I actually started 5 Grapefruit and will not work that strain again.
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Autos not light driven, but thanks for the reply!
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I think part of my resistance to indoor photos has been I’ll need to master another skill set in effectively pruning and shaping. It’s worth a try on my end, I guess. Another part of my issue is that I provide young plants to a pile of friends who are learning to grow. It’s one thing for somebody like me to go photos and hands on. Might be a bit discouraging for some of my newer or lazier brethren.
As for autos not reacting to light cycles, that is not entirely correct. I’ve had a handful over the past three years that exhibited way more photo genetics than ruderalis. Mentioned a couple examples in above string. Best example was my first year; had a Gold Leaf outdoors. It just continued to sit in a veg state and never flowered by the time cold came. I contacted ILGM and a moderator explained why and how this happens. So I brought it inside, put it in a mylar lined box with a light that I cycled to 12/12. It began to flower within about a week and about two months later I harvest a couple ounces. Total time was nearly 8 months. Some autos just won’t flower until the light cycle changes.
Which makes me wonder if in the world of genetics this kind of expression is more likely in a newer cross where the genetics aren’t as dialed in. Kind of like a rock in a stream. Directly downstream it’s turbulent but the further you get downstream, the smoother and more predictable things become. Or maybe the different reactions are more attributable to sourcing seeds from multiple sources. At least I told myself that after running into all kinds of variables when I tried growing Grapefruit.
Thank you to those pitching in on this string. Getting some good info and learning valuable info.
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They’re not supposed to be, but ruderalis traits are often recessive. Even when they behave exactly as advertised you can still do exactly the same thing with photo plant. Which renders them pretty useless outside of what I mentioned above.
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It’s going to be a couple months before I can move to photos since tents are full. So question for those already doing it: What’s a good number of photos for a 4x4 tent? I don’t think I could effectively do SOG because the MH tent does not have side or back doors like my earlier one did. So it would just be pruning to try to get them to spread and develop a strong enough structure to hold a lot of flower.
If I do that it would be helpful if I knew how long experienced growers veg, a reasonable number of plants in that footprint and what yield range might be either per plant or per volume? And I want to make sure we’re all talking about finished bud weight, not pre dry.
And while the old guard is at it, this is a basement in MN. The room itself tends to be cool and dry over the winter. I can manipulate both temp and humidity but that’s just extra energy and things to keep track of. Not that I’m really adverse but if you know strain(s) best suited would love some opinions.
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This would be the exact reason here to use a photo. You have all the time you need to work with the plant. if you make a mistake. Give it a few weeks to grow out of it and start again. It is pretty hard to mess up on these plants. I also started with just autos for a few grows. Then got some photo seeds from @Myfriendis410 and tried them. I found I like doing both. And both have their advantages. And I try and start my autos first. Then the photos when mixing. or both at the same time. Mainly to give the autos enough veg time. I have done them on a 12/12 from start. And they will grow fine. just not as big as on a 16/8 starting out. For my self at least. I always flower on a 11/13 now. I noticed doing so many mixed with photos. that I am not seeing any real difference in flowering them on a 11/13 vs 16/8. So why raise the electric bill for nothing here Just my o2. And if you just want to learn for a plant. You can grow one in a 1 gallon pot and bottom feed to learn to work with it as you want. or go big. It is all fun
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