Anyone with experience with auto's

Just a few questions about auto's in general I suppose
I'm growing Feminized Northern Light Auto's for the first time and I've never seen a plants stem get so thick before and stay so short.
These guys are now 18 days old not too worried about the tall one in the back (which has an amazingly thick stem also), can you lst these without hurting the stem since it's so dug in? Will the short mother fucker take off like the other one or do you think it's destined to stay small the rest of its days? right now each of them has 4 100w cfl's on them (6400 lumens per plant) and was planning on keeping it just like that all the way through flowering, enough or no? what kind of yield can you expect from this strain under these conditions? 2 gal buckets filled with miracle grow garden soil and perlite (75/25) with the top layer just garden soil and just started using very small doses of MG tomato plant food (on a budget here =D), any input would be greatly appreciated =)

I have had the same problem before. Mine eventually caught up and was fine. Are you giving it any root nutes?

alot of autos will tend to be dwarf phenotypes, not all of them of course but many will. If you keep your lights really close to the plant they will tend to be short and stock like this. I'd suggest pulling the lights a little further away to try and promote some stretching. Once its begins to flower it will grow a few inches taller as well. Thick stem is good too, means the plant is strong and sturdy and will be able to transfer those nutrients very well to the rest of the plant.

Look at pix 2-4. Notice that your largest fan leaves are just now reaching the side of the pot. That means the root system has also just reached the inside walls of the pot. The roots will now slow down and you will see a lot more growth above ground. Remember - when you put a seedling into dirt it will spend nearly all it's energy growing roots out. So you don't see much growth until the roots are grown. Next time transplant the seedlings into a small 4 or 6-inch pot for about 2 weeks first. The plant will send out roots and fill the pot much sooner. Then when she is twice as tall as the pot is wide, you TP into the final pot. BigSteve.

from what I know/read/experienced about auto's

1) start plant in final pot (avoid transplanting)
2) do not top or FIM
3) do not LST or SOG
4) keep the same on/off cycle from start to finish (20/4 or 18/6)

I just recently had 4 auto's under a 600w HPS....they grew like crazy, excellent yield but the final product was disappointing.

unlikely I'll ever grow auto's again.