Open Outdoor Auto Thread

[ISK]

A soil grow this round that's something new.

yeah, not my typical grow....I'll say soil is much slower progression in growth than hempy but is a lot less work

I'm planning on leaving town for a week, so I figure it will be less effort for someone to tend to her while I'm gone

I think you will like the auto's for your outdoor grow, it's nice to finish them by August instead of October

 

[Nutty sKunK]

So my 2 year old son was making a delicious garden meal using all sorts of flowers/leaves mud in a cooking pot.

I look over to see an empty white pot and thought oh dear - he has used my Super lemon haze for his cooking - good man.

I took it back - there was only 1 root left attached to the plant, the main tap root.

Repotted her but looks really unhappy but most importantly not dead!!!

These plants are stupidly hard lol

 

[Humanrob]

I'm going all in pots this year, turns out, none in the ground. Long story, but it seems I made some miscalculations with my grow structure, basic things like the trajectory of the sun and structural shadows. I would laugh, but it's too soon, not over the being angry with myself part. So it's good they are all in pots, at least I can pack them into the sunny side.



With this weather forecast, not much will happen until the girls get to the other side of it. In the big picture, this will stunt them a bit, it's basically 10 days of limited growth. In the end that will vary between strains and amount to some percentage of the overall harvest. The ups and downs of growing autos outdoors. At least in my region, once we get into mid-June it's usually primarily sun until late August, sometimes longer.

 

[Nutty sKunK]

I'm going all in pots this year, turns out, none in the ground. Long story, but it seems I made some miscalculations with my grow structure, basic things like the trajectory of the sun and structural shadows. I would laugh, but it's too soon, not over the being angry with myself part. So it's good they are all in pots, at least I can pack them into the sunny side.

View attachment 4916422

With this weather forecast, not much will happen until the girls get to the other side of it. In the big picture, this will stunt them a bit, it's basically 10 days of limited growth. In the end that will vary between strains and amount to some percentage of the overall harvest. The ups and downs of growing autos outdoors. At least in my region, once we get into mid-June it's usually primarily sun until late August, sometimes longer.

View attachment 4916815

Im constantly running around my garden chasing the sun haha

That’s why I do it in 2’s outdoors so I can carry 1 in each hand and don’t waste a trip carrying 1 pot lol

This way I can get sun from 5am to 10pm

As long as it’s warm!! They can do without a bit of sunshine but coldness is what really stunts them!

Your weather is crazy similar to mine right now. I just
Hope we get a sunny august as it can usually be a bit wet

 

[ISK]

With this weather forecast, not much will happen until the girls get to the other side of it. In the big picture, this will stunt them a bit, it's basically 10 days of limited growth. In the end that will vary between strains and amount to some percentage of the overall harvest. The ups and downs of growing autos outdoors. At least in my region, once we get into mid-June it's usually primarily sun until late August, sometimes longer.

View attachment 4916815

I was complaining about our upcoming weather, but now I'm not feeling as sorry for myself

yup.....the weather can make a big difference but eventually they get to where we want them, just sometimes it takes longer than we like

 

[Humanrob]

I find it tempting with multiple breeders represented to want to do comparisons. Since I only popped one of each strain from a handful of breeders and pheno variations are inevitable, that alone makes comparisons somewhere between anecdotal and deceptive. They were started at different times and then thrown into a less than optimal situation at various young ages. Now they've been up-potted into different sized pots with a mix of soil combinations. Kind of makes comparisons pointless. This one is just for fun and variety in jars this fall.

It worked out that they were ready to up-pot just after the little heat wave, and now they are in their final pots and facing a week of much cooler temps and have noticeably slowed down, as would be expected.

The FB Gorilla Cookies is the first to show sex, 23 days since she popped.


I think the best looking ones are the DP Cindy Jack and the Meph HubbaBubbaHaze, in terms of tight inter-nodal spacing. The Cindy Jack got topped this morning (they get topped after the 5th node).


The biggest so far are DP's, Glueberry OG and then Daiquiri Lime. They were started between 3 and 5 days before the rest and stretched a lot. I'm not sure how much their age combined with environmental conditions has impacted their size, vs. how much is genetics. Both strains are known to have the potential to run long and grow big.


Here's the Mendocino Twenty20 Triks, which struggled with the heat, but I'm giving it support and I'm sure it'll be fine when the good growing weather settles in.


And finally the "little miracle" of the bunch, the FB Strawberry Banana. This is the only time I've ever had a seed that put out a root and started it's stem but could not bust out of its shell -- that I successfully helped it. She was not going to make it, and I did some luck-infused surgery with a utility knife with a fresh blade, and carefully cut the shell off. She's so stunted that I would not be surprised if she lived her whole life in this one gallon pot, but I'm glad she made it.


There are so many variables. I think that when they are very young changes can impact them hard. They were all popped within a 5 day period, but the oldest were 16 days old and the youngest 11 days old when they went out into a heat wave. I think those days really matter, some impacts were obvious right away, some might show over time. Some might be impossible to accurately identify, given the countless variables.

 

[GlassJoe]

I think the best looking ones are the DP Cindy Jack and the Meph HubbaBubbaHaze, in terms of tight inter-nodal spacing. The Cindy Jack got topped this morning (they get topped after the 5th node).
View attachment 4917635View attachment 4917634

That's interesting, the Hubbabubbahaze I gave to a friend's parent had a very traditional sativa growth pattern with long branches and wide internodal spacing.

I just chopped my four mephisto plants so I'm done with autos for the season, but I was very satisfied with the results. Everything reached a nice density except the Ripley's OG, which was still sticky with nice looking resin and a piney, kushy smell, and enough weight to seriously bend the branches.
In order: super orange haze, mango sky F1, samsquanch og x forum stomper F1, Ripley's OG.

 

[Humanrob]

Well, "FastBuds" is living up to its name. The Gorilla Cookies was the first to show sex, and now it's the first to start flowering. I think it's 29 days since it cracked its shell. I've heard all kinds of bold statements about the impacts of topping, up-potting, hot/cold weather... nothing held this one back from maturing. It's a shame, if it's flowering this early it's likely to be a pretty small plant.

 

[twentyeight.threefive]

Well, "FastBuds" is living up to its name. The Gorilla Cookies was the first to show sex, and now it's the first to start flowering. I think it's 29 days since it cracked its shell. I've heard all kinds of bold statements about the impacts of topping, up-potting, hot/cold weather... nothing held this one back from maturing. It's a shame, if it's flowering this early it's likely to be a pretty small plant.

View attachment 4921962

The comments regarding topping and up potting autos are about them causing them to flower earlier not delay flowering.

 

[Humanrob]

The comments regarding topping and up potting autos are about them causing them to flower earlier not delay flowering.

Actually, the comments I was referring to were about autos having a pretty rigid preset time-frame for their lives. For example for a given strain; show first sex on day 30, pre-flower day 40, finish day 80 -- and those numbers won't change, but topping or up-potting can shock the plant and cause it to stop growing for a period of that preset time, effectively stunting it (to some degree). So my reference was extrapolating, that even with supposed "lost time" of growth the plant matured when its inner clock told it to.

I don't recall ever reading before your post that events like topping or up-potting can make it flower early. The more I grow autos, the more I find that with the wide genetic pool, some strains will react one way, and some another, and it's very difficult to make blanket statements about how autos will react to any specific thing. But sure, this Gorilla Cookie pheno might have responded to stress by flowering early. I'm not an expert, I have no basis to argue that point.

 

[twentyeight.threefive]

Actually, the comments I was referring to were about autos having a pretty rigid preset time-frame for their lives. For example for a given strain; show first sex on day 30, pre-flower day 40, finish day 80 -- and those numbers won't change, but topping or up-potting can shock the plant and cause it to stop growing for a period of that preset time, effectively stunting it (to some degree). So my reference was extrapolating, that even with supposed "lost time" of growth the plant matured when its inner clock told it to.

I don't recall ever reading before your post that events like topping or up-potting can make it flower early. The more I grow autos, the more I find that with the wide genetic pool, some strains will react one way, and some another, and it's very difficult to make blanket statements about how autos will react to any specific thing. But sure, this Gorilla Cookie pheno might have responded to stress by flowering early. I'm not an expert, I have no basis to argue that point.

Yes autos are genetically coded to flower at a certain age. It's not that the timing of flower can't change and I wasn't insinuating that topping or up-potting would cause it to flower.

I think the general comments about autos flowering early is due to massive stresses. If you have a healthy plant it's going to handle topping and up-potting with ease. On the other hand you can see tons of examples of autos on here flowering super early day 14-20 for example. It's obvious just from looking at the size of those plants that they are stressed. Whether environmental, lack of feeding, over/underwatered, etc., I think that has a huge impact on them flowering early.

None of what I've said is fact or scientifically proven as far as I know. I'm just pointing out what I've experienced and seen through many examples on here.

I keep my plants healthy and have yet to have an autoflower start flowering before day 30.

 

[Humanrob]

Yes autos are genetically coded to flower at a certain age. It's not that the timing of flower can't change and I wasn't insinuating that topping or up-potting would cause it to flower.

I think the general comments about autos flowering early is due to massive stresses. If you have a healthy plant it's going to handle topping and up-potting with ease. On the other hand you can see tons of examples of autos on here flowering super early day 14-20 for example. It's obvious just from looking at the size of those plants that they are stressed. Whether environmental, lack of feeding, over/underwatered, etc., I think that has a huge impact on them flowering early.

None of what I've said is fact or scientifically proven as far as I know. I'm just pointing out what I've experienced and seen through many examples on here.

I keep my plants healthy and have yet to have an autoflower start flowering before day 30.

Reading, gaining experience, keeping an open mind, seems like that's about the best we can do here. It does "make sense" that a plant under stress could trigger its biological imperative to procreate as quickly as possible, so that's something I'll file away under 'could be true' for now.

This has been a volatile year weather-wise (although that could be the new normal). In the course of my learning about a new grow space, my plants were subjected to 105º (+/-) temps for a few hours on each of two consecutive days. Then about 5 days of cool overcast/rainy days. They all reacted differently, although another plant to start pre-flowering (Glueberry OG) just happens to have GG in its recent lineage. Maybe there is something to that, maybe not. Seeing how differently 10 different strains from 6 different breeders react to similar conditions has been interesting. I'll know a little more 60 or so days from now.

 

[Nutty sKunK]

Wee update. Ladies are doing well - hitting a terrible cold spell Now. Max day temps of high 50’s and nights low 40’s

It’s fucking June man! Bloody Scotland.

Anyways here they are. Lemon haze didn’t make it unfortunately. Purple punch has just shown sex on day 30!

All the best guys!

 

[sirtalis]

Update on mine, hopefully they're entering the phase of flowering where they fatten up.

Gorilla Zkittlez


Purple Hulk (smells like grape candy)


Blue Dream

 

[Humanrob]

I'm coming up on 5 weeks since these popped, and from the smallest stunted one to the tallest stretchiest one, there's quite a range. The weather is finally clearing up tomorrow, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how they do with some sun.

 

[rembrandt100]

2 pic's of my Dwarf Low Flyer. She went into a 5 gal. grow bag April 29 and then into the greenhouse so they are 6 weeks old.

 

[rembrandt100]

I'm coming up on 5 weeks since these popped, and from the smallest stunted one to the tallest stretchiest one, there's quite a range. The weather is finally clearing up tomorrow, so I'm really looking forward to seeing how they do with some sun.

View attachment 4924229View attachment 4924231

Are they in a greenhouse or are they just covered?

 

[Humanrob]

Are they in a greenhouse or are they just covered?

They are just covered. It's not a sealed greenhouse, sort of a tall tunnel that is largely bug netting and plastic on top. But it does tend to get 10º warmer in there then the ambient weather, which is nice, until it's not.

 

[Humanrob]

Been contemplating how to deal with the heat, and specifically trying to protect the roots. First action was to paint the pots white, which I'm sure helped, but they are still drying out faster than I had hoped. Next thought was to dig down and drop the pots halfway into the ground, and then use the dug up soil to surround the part still above ground. Pros; it would keep the roots much cooler which would also mean less watering. Cons; I would lose flexibility and mobility in the space, the plants would be somewhat anchored.

So, I decided to try some 'space station' tech (I know, not really) and use reflective insulation to shelter the pots from direct sun altogether, but maintain the ability to move them around as needed. The extra light reflected around can't hurt, I'm thinking.




Best time to work in there is in the morning, that's why there is so much shade and long shadows. Right around noontime the sun is overhead and full blazing strength, and hangs in there until around 6pm when trees start cutting it off again.

 

[sirtalis]

They seem to be handling the heat, are you seeing signs of stress like tacoing?