Getting ready to plant sprouted autoflower seeds in ground

I impulsively soaked some Mexican Airlines beans from FastBuds and got five out of five to pop for me. They are in peat pellets now. I'm not posting photos because they look exactly like any other just-sprouted seedlings in peat pellets.

My question is, since last I heard repotting is not recommended for autoflowers, should I just stick the peat pellets in the ground now? Or should I put them in small pots so they can get bigger roots before I put them in the garden plot? I am growing in Southern California and the days are pretty short. We've already had the first heavy rain and you can count on more rain over the next couple of months.

FWIW I have repotted autoflowers that I grew indoors two or three times and I never got the impression that they were suffering, so I'm not sure whether the "Don't repot autoflowers" rule is a legitimate "best practice." Maybe I should be posing this question in the autoflowers forum but I'm specifically wondering about autoflowers outdoors starting in December in SoCal, so if any of my fellow outsiders can share an opinion, I would be interested. Thanks.

If anyone cares, I am growing about a dozen other plants outside, none of them are auto. I've got night lights set up to keep them vegging, but some of the older GDP clones have started flowering anyway.

With the short days, I think it would be worthwhile to keep inside under lights for a couple three weeks, so into pots. If that is not the plan, then right into the ground.

Are you running the lights two hours at midnight, or lengthening the day at dusk and dawn?

I would put the autoflowers in finishing pots and veg them indoors for a few weeks to get a good start. In my limited experience with autos is that when the taproot hits the bottom of the pot they start flowering a lot of the time.

Unfortunately, your Autos are likely to suffer with short days...They're great for the north with our short seasons..as we still have days with long light hours..
If you're going to give them a go with shorter days outside I would recommend you keep them indoors until they begin to flower..20+ hour of light..at least that way your plants will have a decent frame to grow the buds on..otherwise you're likely to be disappointed.

too larry said:

With the short days, I think it would be worthwhile to keep inside under lights for a couple three weeks, so into pots. If that is not the plan, then right into the ground.

Are you running the lights two hours at midnight, or lengthening the day at dusk and dawn?

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Last few days I have left the lights on 24 hours. They are LED landscape "spotlights" that I got on sale at Home Depot and barely use any electricity but it rains so much this time of year that I prefer to leave them on rather than plug them in and unplug them twice a day. I forgot to mention that I am too cheap and/or lazy to buy and set up a timer. So I don't want to take the risk of possibly electrocuting myself while messing with electrical gear and standing in a puddle of rain water. And I just re-watched the first season of "Ozark" so images of dumb grown men getting zapped to death are fresh in my mind and making me perhaps a little more apprehensive than necessary. (Sorry for the potential spoiler if anyone has not seen Season 1.) I am borderline phobic about electrical accidents.

So, anyway, for the time being, as far as my plants know, the sun never sets around here. It's 24 hours of fake daylight... and even so some of my older GDP clones have decided to flower regardless, but they seem to be flowering a bit slower than I would expect if it wasn't early December.

I think you have an uphill battle my friend..
Landscape vs grow lights? Quite different..
My advice..wait till next years growing season begins and grow the remaining beans outside...
If you don't mind tinkering around with what you've got going... cool. But save the beans for next year as your not
Likely to get much for cannabinoids or terps with your present indoor setup..

Toad

MrToad69 said:

Unfortunately, your Autos are likely to suffer with short days...They're great for the north with our short seasons..as we still have days with long light hours..
If you're going to give them a go with shorter days outside I would recommend you keep them indoors until they begin to flower..20+ hour of light..at least that way your plants will have a decent frame to grow the buds on..otherwise you're likely to be disappointed.

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I'll have to live and learn, then. I have had such poor results from germinating seeds lately that I was fairly surprised to get 100 percent of them to sprout. Right now it seems like the hardest chore is figuring out the best timing for soaking and planting seeds. I have a bunch of beans that I bought and even more that I bred with pollen from Godfather Purps and Chem 4 Glue, but my garden patch only has room for maybe 20 plants tops.

MrToad69 said:

I think you have an uphill battle my friend..
Landscape vs grow lights? Quite different..
My advice..wait till next years growing season begins and grow the remaining beans outside...
If you don't mind tinkering around with what you've got going... cool. But save the beans for next year as your not
Likely to get much for cannabinoids or terps with your present indoor setup..

Toad

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Oh, I'm just using the landscape lights to delay flowering. They get full sun as long as it's daylight outside. I did more or less the same last year and was able to harvest some flowers around this time. Main problems were mold and bud worms. But I think the flowers I grew in warmer months were more potent than what I chopped over winter.

Also I have enough flowers in my stash to last my wife and myself for half a year or so, but I am also trying to breed medical strains for migraines and pain, and I feel like I need to be doing that year-round if I am going to make sufficient progress. I'm trying to grow seeds as well as flowers.

FresnoFarmer said:

I would put the autoflowers in finishing pots and veg them indoors for a few weeks to get a good start. In my limited experience with autos is that when the taproot hits the bottom of the pot they start flowering a lot of the time.

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I think I will do that, then. I was mainly worried about snails or slugs demolishing the seedlings before they could get big enough to survive being browsed. Well, that and the "don't repot autoflowers" mandate. Thanks for the advice!

ltecato said:

Oh, I'm just using the landscape lights to delay flowering. They get full sun as long as it's daylight outside. I did more or less the same last year and was able to harvest some flowers around this time. Main problems were mold and bud worms. But I think the flowers I grew in warmer months were more potent than what I chopped over winter.

Also I have enough flowers in my stash to last my wife and myself for half a year or so, but I am also trying to breed medical strains for migraines and pain, and I feel like I need to be doing that year-round if I am going to make sufficient progress. I'm trying to grow seeds as well as flowers.

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Your landscape lights will not delay flowering of autos...
Once they sprout..they are on a timer essentially depending on the strain..The light cycle will make no difference as to when they start flowering

ltecato said:

I impulsively soaked some Mexican Airlines beans from FastBuds and got five out of five to pop for me. They are in peat pellets now. I'm not posting photos because they look exactly like any other just-sprouted seedlings in peat pellets.

My question is, since last I heard repotting is not recommended for autoflowers, should I just stick the peat pellets in the ground now? Or should I put them in small pots so they can get bigger roots before I put them in the garden plot? I am growing in Southern California and the days are pretty short. We've already had the first heavy rain and you can count on more rain over the next couple of months.

FWIW I have repotted autoflowers that I grew indoors two or three times and I never got the impression that they were suffering, so I'm not sure whether the "Don't repot autoflowers" rule is a legitimate "best practice." Maybe I should be posing this question in the autoflowers forum but I'm specifically wondering about autoflowers outdoors starting in December in SoCal, so if any of my fellow outsiders can share an opinion, I would be interested. Thanks.

If anyone cares, I am growing about a dozen other plants outside, none of them are auto. I've got night lights set up to keep them vegging, but some of the older GDP clones have started flowering anyway.

Click to expand...

Here's a little more info on Mexican Airlines, haha.

ltecato said:

Right now it seems like the hardest chore is figuring out the best timing for soaking and planting seeds.

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but that actually is a no-brainer... you always want your plants to have the maximum of light possible.
And autoflowers can flower right at the start of summer when photos would still veg...
so if you're only growing one batch a year you veg them indoors for 2-3 weeks under max light possible 24/7 and the rest outside

MrToad69 said:

Your landscape lights will not delay flowering of autos...
Once they sprout..they are on a timer essentially depending on the strain..The light cycle will make no difference as to when they start flowering

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Right. I'm just using the lights to delay the photoperiod plants. Sorry, my "system" is not exactly meticulously constructed.

Running photos with autos is a hassle unfortunately..two entirely different cycles..

MrToad69 said:

Running photos with autos is a hassle unfortunately..two entirely different cycles..

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Not so much this time of year. All photos act like autos in winter grows.

too larry said:

Not so much this time of year. All photos act like autos in winter grows.

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I disagree..
When it comes to flowering...your autos should still be on 20+ hours of light cranking out cannabinoids and bulking up..If you cut them back to the hours photos need to flower, your harvest will suffer.

Mr Toad

MrToad69 said:

I disagree..
When it comes to flowering...your autos should still be on 20+ hours of light cranking out cannabinoids and bulking up..If you cut them back to the hours photos need to flower, your harvest will suffer.

Mr Toad

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That is true. Autos always do better with long light hours. I was talking about outdoor photos flowering as soon as they are sexually mature this time of year. I've got some experience with the winter photos. Not the autos.