Humanrob
Well-Known Member
Forced flowering -- I'm assuming you're talking about light deprivation -- is a big commitment. I considered it several times, actually bought the black/white plastic at one point, but never did it. It's a pretty demanding routine if you are doing it manually, you have to be home (or at your grow site) twice a day at the same time for around 8 weeks. I've never been able to commit to not traveling (even going away for a weekend) for that amount of time during the summer. Moving to autos was a much better option for me.
Autos can't touch photos in terms of ultimate size potential, so it depends what "enough" is for you. Putting them in the ground is significantly better, I would average around 5-6 ounces per plant in the ground. In pots, I ended out getting similar yields to my indoor auto grows, around 2-3oz per plant. Autos are great, but they are unforgiving, and you need to know how to grow them. They can stunt easily. For instance, if they aren't warm enough when they're young, that will impact their full life potential. I start mine indoors for the first 2-3 weeks and don't put them out until warm weather has stabilized.
The advantage of pots for me is that if we have an early cold/wet fall, I can finish them under lights in the garage. In the ground I am 100% at the mercy of the possibility of cold/damp/humid fall weather coming early that year. To avoid that, with autos I time the start so that I'm (mostly) done by the end of August while the weather here is primarily warm and dry, and the sun is still pretty high in the sky so the days are decently long. Because our falls are completely unpredictable and determine the fate of the harvest, I ended out going to pots. I'd rather have a smaller yield that I can control the finish of, than a bigger one I lose to mold.
I live in a very relaxed legal state, so I often ignore plant counts and just grew what I need. Six autos in pots outside will net me close to a pound, that would hold us until the next winter indoor was done. So yield just needs to match your needs, autos can either do that for you, or not. And while I may have stated things as though they were facts, these are all just my opinions based on my experience, others have different outcomes.