Outdoors

Planning on an outdoor auto grow in MN. On non auto's I try to transplant outdoors as early as possible due to the shortend season in MN. Should I try to plan my auto flowers later in the season to take advantage of longer daylight hours or doesn't it matter?

Starting on may 15th and picking on July 15th is pretty optimum.

Bushtrout said:

Planning on an outdoor auto grow in MN. On non auto's I try to transplant outdoors as early as possible due to the shortend season in MN. Should I try to plan my auto flowers later in the season to take advantage of longer daylight hours or doesn't it matter?

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Planting in a place where the sun isn't blocked to the south (if you are in the Northern Hemisphere) is much more important for sunlight than trying to time it. The southern side of a large hill or cliff's edge would be perfect.

I've grown autos outdoors for a few years now. I like to start them inside mid to late April and put them outside 2nd week of May at around 3 weeks old. They usually finish around the 4th of July. That puts me in flowering through the entire month of June, more or less. I guess I could start the seeds a week or two later and hit the day length "bell curve" more towards the middle, but I don't feel like it would make a huge difference. For me, the point of doing a few outdoor autos is for the fresh bud early in the season, so I want them finishing as soon as possible.

Don't get me wrong, I think outdoors is the best application for autoflowers, but the yield isn't like what you see with some of the indoor grows. I average only about 1.5oz per plant. But, like I said, those 5-6oz early on is worth it to me considering the minimum effort.

I've done a later season batch that turned out OK. I think I started the seeds late in June and they finished up early September. The longer days early in the season definitely help.