I'm not saying you're going to get "rockstar" results with MG products and CFLs, but I just pulled 1.5 from my PE auto using nothing but CFL lighting and MG bloom nutes. As far as the time span, I'm still on my first grow,(planted 2 and have harvested one already) and I'm still letting my NL auto go, she's at day 95 right now and still fattening up. I've pulled about 3/4 oz from her so far and I'm here to tell you, I sure wish I'd let my PE go longer and hadn't pulled so much from my NL because the buds are getting a lot more dense. I'm not saying they'll never die, but I can tell you from first hand experience, they don't automatically die at day 92, not all strains anyways. I'd have to agree with Tek, get some more light on em and get em as close as you can and let her go a while.
I think we're actually in agreement here, and I'm learning something too. I couldn't get my TD to live past day 92, but I was hitting it with 18 hours of intense LED lighting every day, and I did keep up the nutes. It had impressive growth and flower development, but not as much as her two beautiful sisters, who I harvested day 74 and 76, and I wanted to see if I could make her live longer. I wanted to know the full lifecycle of autos (or this one specific auto). It would not live any longer. At least, not when it had been provided ample light and nutrients from day one. On day 92, all the leaves had browned to worthlessness and could no longer synthesize any light. The buds themselves were experiencing some serious breakdown. The dried weight on the 92-day TD was almost seven ounces... of middie garbage... because I was experimenting with it and seeing how long it could live. Made some hash, which was "okay" but not good. I want to mention now that the other two TD that I harvested when ripe were amazing in taste and effect and I got almost six dried from each, which shattered the most I'd ever gotten from an auto which had been just over four ounces from an autopounder.
If the argument is that a plant that has been retarded of nutes and given some gentle cfl bulbs to stay alive on... then maybe they can live longer. I guess that's the argument I'm hearing and I tend to believe it. The lights are softer so maybe the biochemical process has been slowed down extensively which prolongs the lifecycle of an auto?
But this begs the question, what's the point of growing autos if you're going to run into the three month range with them under cfls? Extrapolating the math out, you'd almost have to run a super auto for almost as long as decent sativa. I'm relatively new to autos (been kicking around a small flock of different strains since earlier this year), but the advantage appears to be that most of them are ready to harvest 2-3 ounces in 55-63 days, of decent to very good cannabis. Sometimes they stay shorter, but not always.
Has anyone journaled an auto grow that was well-lighted and cared for that went over 90 days to reach peak maturity? I'd like to see that. Mine was degrading sharply from day 80 or so onward. By the end, it was just sad to look at.
There are probably several good reasons for growing with cfls (like discretion). Here are six reasons to grow with leds. The ones in the front are now 44
days from seed, the tall cola way in the back right is on a 54 day old TD.
