Autoflower outdoor fail

Hello all,

Well, time to report a disappointing season in the midwest. Some preamble: This was my first grow with ordered (and feminized) seeds and my first experience growing autoflower. I am outdoor and in a climate that gets a frost as early as mid october. Let me also qualify that I could not pay as much attention to the grow as I would have liked. Still, the autoflowers were stunted, budded at awkward stages, could not take a transplant and were disease-prone. In short, bad first impression.

When to harvest? The Autoflower varieties flowered early as expected. One strain forecast 0 to 8 weeks. But it was a challenge to get them to grow big enough to have a substantial yield. Was I supposed to prune or wait for veg growth? When do autos put on limbs to carry the potential 200 gram yields?

Disease-prone? It seems the transplant hurt the plants enough to lower their disease resistance and botrytis cinerea set in. Luckily, the photoperiods were too young for their buds to catch the spores. I yanked two autoflowers before the rot spread into every bud and the buds it did yield were not too impressive, botrytis notwithstanding. Did refraining from harvesting the small yields and unimpressive buds contribute to the bud rot?

My problem is that I am trained on photoperiods and didn't know what to do with tiny buds and plant that would not grow a frame large enough to get real buds. So I left them, fearful of even trimming and hoping that the stem would fatten up and provide a better spine for budding. I wonder if I should have pruned or if I just let the life cycle go on too long hoping for some height and width.

Now I'm sure I did not do these plants justice. Surely some of you more experienced with Auto varieties can fill me in on the virtues, but they were quite high maintenance children for me and my regional (outdoor) needs. I will stick to photoperiod until I can give the plants the attention they deserve.

Still, all is not lost, dear readers. Three Jack Herer strains are still in, plugging along, though one is stunted and the other just took some animal damage. The deer broke the upper main stem and the cola that was just growing hairs. I'm hoping this amounts to a late season topping and the plant can divert energy to repair and the two budding limbs below the break.

Like a bull in a china shop,

Kinch

Attempted crop:

Black Skull Seeds Jack Herer
Barneys Farm Auto Sweet Tooth
UFO #1 Sweet Seeds Auto Green Poison
UFO #2 Sweet Seeds Sweet Tai

you gotta be careful with autos. I see you transplanted them. have you ever transplanted before? you have to be extra careful with autos when doing that, or simply no transplant at all. they are on a timer, if you do anything that would slow that timer down in a photoperiod strain, it doesn't work that way with autos. When I planted mine, I put in a 3 gallon container, and then walked away. no transplant needed at all. the timer is still ticking. so your late season topping, is more than likely gonna be much more detrimental than that. I am growing in the midwest as well, So IL if that helps you. I had a auto critical cheese, which is supposed to yield 40-100ish grams. let me tell you it will not. firstly, autos need around 20/4 light schedule. outdoors it probably had less than 18 hours light, and was shaded early (tree shadows) so the amt of light going to it was probably even less than 18/6, I would think around 16/8 maybe. this means that it is not going to grow to its full height. It was a basic set it and forget it kind of plant though, flowered early, kept it going, but after about 1.5 months, my photoperiod plants were double the size, if not triple or more.

I think you are right as rain, MikeK. Thanks for the insight. Hope it is not too dry down where you are.

Seems like auto strains are indoor creatures given the light cycle they need. I'll stick with photoperiods for my outdoor situation.

Kinch