Going from 12/12 to 18/6?

Macncheesehaze

Active Member
Don't get me wrong, if it gets a non-grower growing I'm all for it. There are those that want home weed but don't dig gardening as a hobby.
I actually love gardening and growing in general. I just figured why couldn’t you? Wouldn’t that be the next step in the evolution of auto flowers? Toughening them up? But as far as this tent goes like I said, I just set it back up where I’m at so these first runs are gonna be strictly for flower. I got a somango xxl auto that I’m gonna grow out while I veg 2 other photo periods. When I harvest the auto I’ll flip it to 12/12 and flower the photos
 
Id get some time in your tent before you try things out, the easiest is 18/6 or mine 20/4, that way you know what to expect
keep in mind the clock on autos is always running and at best you have 3 weeks veg most just 2 weeks, at which I bomb mine with light or perhaps cross with photos to get very fast growing photos indeed....consider? \\cheers
Autos don't ever veg for more than 3 weeks? Lol.
 
So why wouldn’t you want to maximize that time? The only thing stopping people is that “they’ll herm” any plant will herm if you stress it enough. Never stopped any one before until right now
I was laughing at the fact that he said autos will veg for 3 weeks max. They are all different. I had one veg for a month.

My advice from post #2 still stands.
 

H.A.F.

a.k.a. Rusty Nails
So why wouldn’t you want to maximize that time? The only thing stopping people is that “they’ll herm” any plant will herm if you stress it enough. Never stopped any one before until right now
Actually, it's not herming people are worried about with auto's. If you stunt their growth you stunt their growth - period. You lose yield and the plant is playing catch-up from the day you snip something.
 

Macncheesehaze

Active Member
Actually, it's not herming people are worried about with auto's. If you stunt their growth you stunt their growth - period. You lose yield and the plant is playing catch-up from the day you snip something.
I agree but when people first started cultivating, well anything, wasn’t this their worry? They still came up with crazy things that worked over time. All I’m saying is I don’t see how over time autos couldn’t be toughened up like anything else in the world. The places they grow naturally are some of the toughest places for anything to live. An auto in Siberia (where ruderalis originated) sees 24 hours of light in some places in the summer, the rest of the year about 6-8 hours working it’s way up to 24 so why would starting at 12 and then going up to 24 make such a difference? We might have worked out some of the potency issues but did we make them weaker too?
 

H.A.F.

a.k.a. Rusty Nails
I agree but when people first started cultivating, well anything, wasn’t this their worry? They still came up with crazy things that worked over time. All I’m saying is I don’t see how over time autos couldn’t be toughened up like anything else in the world. The places they grow naturally are some of the toughest places for anything to live. An auto in Siberia (where ruderalis originated) sees 24 hours of light in some places in the summer, the rest of the year about 6-8 hours working it’s way up to 24 so why would starting at 12 and then going up to 24 make such a difference? We might have worked out some of the potency issues but did we make them weaker too?
OK, if you want to tackle this through breeding and selection, drive on! have fun and let us see the progress.

If you want to top an auto you have now it ain't gonna change a thing.
 

H.A.F.

a.k.a. Rusty Nails
As far as the light cycle the main debate is whether a dark period is beneficial or not. Shortening the light cycle is just like topping.
 
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Macncheesehaze

Active Member
As far as the light cycle the main debate is where a dark period is beneficial or not. Shortening the light cycle is just like topping.
Shortening the light cycle is very different than topping to break apical dominance. If your saying they both stress them out then yeah I agree. But I also never said anything about topping an auto, just giving it a different light cycle to produce a bigger root zone. Like said before I’m sure we all agree on bigger roots bigger fruits and if maximizing fruit is the goal, why wouldn’t anyone try it out? If you look at some of those Siberian landrace strains some of them were obviously important enough to get brought everywhere else in the world.
 

H.A.F.

a.k.a. Rusty Nails
Shortening the light cycle is very different than topping to break apical dominance.
Not on auto's. They are a different animal.

Just run two plants. One on 18/6 or 20/4 and one on 12/12. I did that. Not scientific at all since there are no auto clones, but the 12/12 plant produced about half the weight of the other one and it was larfy.

Topping an auto is just removing flowers you'll never get back. You can't train them until you are ready to flip. Top it and you'll reduce the yield. Same as messing with the light cycle.
 

Lanestrainley

Really Active Member
Th

That’s kinda what I was thinking, people do pheno hunts with photos and do things to them to stress them out to see which one is more hardy, I don’t see why you couldn’t do that with autos, just toughen them up maybe? Of course this is my first round back in the tent that first plant is gonna be for smoke lol
Autos only have so many days, each one counts. That’s why you should up-can only from plug to final pot. Once the tap root hits the bottom the first round starts. Notice how they go in spurts? Veg/bud/veg/bud/veg/bud/bud/bud. If you’re going to top it, do so in the first 10 days and possibly once more depending on the strain. I’ve topped plenty autos due to height restrictions late, the next time I had that strain around I made sure I had it topped the way I want it to finish in the first veg cycle, the results were much better. The autos available now days are much more tolerant to topping and training and stress than the early gens, much tastier too, in first decade or so of autos I could tell just by the taste, they always had the hempy taste and smell of ragweed ever so slightly in the background, now it’s much much harder to tell, if at all. Don’t stress the auto, that’s super important, don’t over water the auto either, for the most part they have very fine root systems, for this reason it’s prudent to provide a support system to your auto, if done correctly you’ll have a nice healthy plant. To do this the right way means you need to have to stake in the pot beside the plant before it needs it. If you push the stake into the plant when it’s ready for it you’ll damage the root system, the auto doesn’t have time to repair the damage or make new arrangements by building new air/water/feed tendrils. Be delicate with them and they’ll reward you, no need to stress them.
 
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