FIMing an autoflower.

I have never grown a ruderalis or "autoflower" strain and I was wondering if there are any special rules to FIMing them. Any time restraints? Should I avoid stressing them? What could go wrong? I've got some THC bomb seeds coming and I don't wanna break em.

I haven't used any autos either, but have read many post saying if, (if being a key word here) you do it, do it early, as most autos are time based. Want it to be able to grow out the "fim" without having it affect yield. Do it to late and yield suffers. Again, just what I've heard.

I have heard it is best to not top or FIM due to the short grow time and lack of time to recover. But have just read and heard that.

LSTing is more for autos, not topping or fimming.

What he said. See above.

from what ive read, the FIM is usually used for the photo strains, and the results are very strain dependant, like topping. People who have good results usually FIM after like the 8th node, which i dont think an auto will even get to in its whole life never mind in just the vegetative growth phase lol so ive been doin a bit of research this morning and decided to change my SCROG grow into a pure LST. I think LST has the most positive feedback from growers with autos

I prefer growing auto's and both FIM and top them. More for research than anything else. The FIM's mostly come out in big ol' knots... kind of like a fist. Two buds will grow then there will be buds grow out from underneath and from the sides. It's fun to watch. The ones I top usually require staking down the lower branches because they get too heavy. I am stating to convince myself that it depends on the light used more than anything else. Of course timing has a lot to do with it also.

Weak light makes both techniques less successful. If you have 600's or more than I think you could see some cool results from both. If you have less than 400's or using Flo's then I would just let them act naturally.

Thanks. I'm using a 600w HPS with 2 DWC buckets. I think I'll experiment with it later when I have more seeds to play with. For now, I think I'll just let em grow and get more familiar with the strain first.

Fimming or topping would be unadvisable, any shock to the plant is more than likely gona cost you yeild. Best thing to do with autos is keep then as happy as you possibly can with a stable enviroment and just let em go for it on their own.

Remember that autos have a time limit on them so to speak, you dont have any time to play around with them in veg. They can grow over an inch a day at points easily, so if you do anything to stall that you loose alot of growth that will never be caught up on. I hear a few days LST can be good with some autos, just to let the sidebranches catch up a bit to the main cola. I'v read a few reports of people scrogging them, which I think might work because its just a form of LST.

really depends on the autoflower, some like it, but my advice is stick to straight up training/tying down in order to make your canopy more even. I've fim'd Many auto's and its a give and take kinda thing, you get more bud sites, but the density is lacking usually.