Translating talk, is it safe to do so or just BS

This is more of a rant, but I would highly interested to here different people's experiences when it comes to transplanting autoflower strains. It's well noted amongst the cannabis and particularly the autoflower community. Im a relatively new grower and my first time growing I started out in my final pot.. Final results were very average..i then went against what people said and started them out in paper cups or solo cups for the first week or 2 after seeing a video successfully talking about it and how it's much easier to manage the young seedling etc.. Since then I've had perfect germination results, healthy seedlings and was much easier to manage water etc.. Never seen any of my plants stunted or stressed after transplanting.. Just be careful and make sure your medium is wet before lightly pushing the bottom of your cup so as though the root ball will easily slide out.. I've always found the complete opposite when transplanting.. The plants always seem to say thank you when put in thier final home. I just think there's a lot of BS information surrounding transplanting autos. Like anything just be careful and not a heavy handed idiot

Thread by McStrats called "So you can't transplant autos?" is a very good mythbuster to the no transplant autos thought. He's not the 1st I'm sure, but he proved it nicely in a thread here.

MATTYMATT726 said:

Thread by McStrats called "So you can't transplant autos?" is a very good mythbuster to the no transplant autos thought. He's not the 1st I'm sure, but he proved it nicely in a thread here.

Click to expand...

Must check it out, thanks

Use rockwool cubes, large hydro net pots, airpots or fabric pots with small autos(or really any plant), not solo cups. Also since you cant just veg autos longer if you fuck up something, like you can do with photos. If you dont know what you are doing with transplanting autos, how to do it etc. it is most likely a stupid thing to try as the first thing you do as beginner grower.

I once tested growing an auto seedling in very small fabric pot until it showed its first preflower, then i topped it under the preflower, so that it had 6 branches, but i cut the lowest ones away and transplanted it to a 6litre pot. The plant ended up making 45grams of bud in very compact form, no leafy buds at all. I got more yield from the ones i planted to same 6L pots directly and did not top, but those non topped plants covered 3 times the ground are and were double the height, also had some buds better quality than others, while the topped one was all equally good quality. With these sort of ultra compact topped plants i could had made more yield over same area, because the non topped ones did not give 3 times the yield, or even double the yield per plant. So there is like 1/3rd more yield per square meter with these topped and transplanted plants and the amount of quality buds with them would be closer to double to non topped. But this is just based on one strain with one topped/transplanted plant and was it 5 or 4 other plants of same strain(wedding cake auto sensible seeds) non topped.

I dont recommend someone growing their first autos to try this sort of thing tho. Unless ofc they have enough room in grow tent for experimenting a bit.

There are no rules, but just general guidelines for beginners. Those guidelines are meant to guide a new grower to grow a plant as smoothly as possible, because if you stunt an auto, you will sacrifice yield. This is why stuff like transplanting or topping autos are not usually recommended for new growers. Its just some stupid people who think that these are some strict rules set in stone and you should not take any advice from people who think those guidelines cant or should not be broken with enough skills and know how.

Appreciate the comment, no doubt you know what you're talking about.

Well, here you go. A friend not knowing what he’s doing, started 12 in an egg carton in yard dirt. Gave me 4. I immediately transplanted in solo cups because I didn’t have any 3 gal pots at the time, and then dropped them the next day, so replanted again as best I could. After about 4 days I transplanted again after I got some pots. Here’s 15 days.

turbobuzz said:

Well, here you go. A friend not knowing what he’s doing, started 12 in an egg carton in yard dirt. Gave me 4. I immediately transplanted in solo cups because I didn’t have any 3 gal pots at the time, and then dropped them the next day, so replanted again as best I could. After about 4 days I transplanted again after I got some pots. Here’s 15 days.

Click to expand...

Yep this sort of thing is definitely ok. The problem is if you keep it for too long in too small container, especially if that too small container does not even air prune the roots. I would recommend adding some mycos when you transplant and if you dont keep it in too small container for too long, it doesent matter if you transplant it or not. Besides there being the possibility that a new grower keeps the plant in too small container for too long, if you are not careful with transplanting you might damage the plant or just stress it bit too much.

However the thing with autos is that you wont be able to properly air prune the roots, like you can with photos. This sort of air pruning and growing a big root ball is the main benefit in transplanting(besides convenience), but with autos if you try to do it too much, you end up making the plant not be very big by the time it starts to flower and then you lose yield, instead of getting more, like you would if you did the same thing with photos.

However i do think that there is a certain amount of air pruning that can be done to autos in a way that is beneficial, but that would take some serious skills, which i do not claim to have, because i have not tested it enough to be sure where the optimal time frame for transplants would be, how many times and with what sized pots etc. But my bet would be on first a small rockwool cube, then a big 4x4 inch rock wool and then to coco etc hydro.

I recommend everyone to test out different things if they have some room to maybe sacrifice some yield for learning purposes. But for a first time grower who might not have the most common sense or understanding of plants in general and who wish to get as much yield as possible from their first grow. I would definitely going with the safe route and not transplanting or doing any advanced training methods like topping. LST is much safer and is not any worse.

My first autos flowered because I didn't get them out of the 4" pots quick enough. Only lesson from that is there is a time line... but I've still uppotted every auto I've grown since then without issue, about a dozen so far... so yeah, uppoting autos is fine

Gentlemencorpse said:

My first autos flowered because I didn't get them out of the 4" pots quick enough. Only lesson from that is there is a time line... but I've still uppotted every auto I've grown since then without issue, about a dozen so far... so yeah, uppoting autos is fine

Click to expand...

It’s that fast seeking tap root that rings the alarm bells and starts premature flowering once it runs out of space.

That’s why I like my starter pots to been deeper than their width for this reason.

Nutty sKunK said:

It’s that fast seeking tap root that rings the alarm bells and starts premature flowering once it runs out of space.

Click to expand...

Im not really convinced about some alarm bell. I have tested tons of growing autos in too small pots and never noticed any difference in when they start to flower. Sure they are smaller when they start to flower, but thats because they mature as small to to the point where they can start to flower, because you dont give it enough space to grow roots and bigger the roots, bigger the plant above the ground is.

I think its the other way around, the plant will keep growing roots until its hormonal systems have developed to the point where it starts to flower and that hormonal change from veg mode to flowering mode, moves the focus from roots to buds. This is why the roots dont grow much after the plant has started flowering.

I have had autos that start to flower from like 10 days to 30 days and it was never about the pot size, but genetics.

However it might be true that if an autoflower has optimal conditions to grow as big roots as it can, it might maybe do some extra vegging time(but then again it could grow faster and might not have to spend longer time in veg, but could just grow bigger faster and still flower at same time). But too small pot i dont think changes anything about flowering time at least in any meaningful way.

CannaOnerStar said:

Im not really convinced about some alarm bell. I have tested tons of growing autos in too small pots and never noticed any difference in when they start to flower. Sure they are smaller when they start to flower, but thats because they mature as small to to the point where they can start to flower, because you dont give it enough space to grow roots and bigger the roots, bigger the plant above the ground is.

I think its the other way around, the plant will keep growing roots until its hormonal systems have developed to the point where it starts to flower and that hormonal change from veg mode to flowering mode, moves the focus from roots to buds. This is why the roots dont grow much after the plant has started flowering.

I have had autos that start to flower from like 10 days to 30 days and it was never about the pot size, but genetics.

However it might be true that if an autoflower has optimal conditions to grow as big roots as it can, it might maybe do some extra vegging time(but then again it could grow faster and might not have to spend longer time in veg, but could just grow bigger faster and still flower at same time). But too small pot i dont think changes anything about flowering time at least in any meaningful way.

Click to expand...

I've definitely run the same strain in multiple pot sizes and had the small pot trigger an early flower.. that first run that I screwed up my AK47 auto in the 4" pot flowered at 10 days while the ones that got uppotted on my next run didn't flower for 20 something... that would suggest to me that there is some truth to the theory that small pots can force autos to flower early... I've also seen autos forced into early flower just from stress...

That being said at a certain point I don't think pot size matters anymore... I've run a bunch of autos in 1 gallons now and they've all seemed to flower on time... even well cared for in a 16oz container seems to work, so it may be a combination of factors that trigger them to flower early

CannaOnerStar said:

Im not really convinced about some alarm bell. I have tested tons of growing autos in too small pots and never noticed any difference in when they start to flower. Sure they are smaller when they start to flower, but thats because they mature as small to to the point where they can start to flower, because you dont give it enough space to grow roots and bigger the roots, bigger the plant above the ground is.

I think its the other way around, the plant will keep growing roots until its hormonal systems have developed to the point where it starts to flower and that hormonal change from veg mode to flowering mode, moves the focus from roots to buds. This is why the roots dont grow much after the plant has started flowering.

I have had autos that start to flower from like 10 days to 30 days and it was never about the pot size, but genetics.

However it might be true that if an autoflower has optimal conditions to grow as big roots as it can, it might maybe do some extra vegging time(but then again it could grow faster and might not have to spend longer time in veg, but could just grow bigger faster and still flower at same time). But too small pot i dont think changes anything about flowering time at least in any meaningful way.

Click to expand...

It was just something I noticed - would seem to flower due to the stress of limited space. But I haven’t done many autos so it was probably genetic/phenotype. Although it did stunt them being in smaller pots for too long.

I had an autoflower I put outside in December as a 1 week old seedling. Didn’t flower until April!

Cold seemed to slow down maturation,

Nutty sKunK said:

It was just something I noticed - would seem to flower due to the stress of limited space. But I haven’t done many autos so it was probably genetic/phenotype. Although it did stunt them being in smaller pots for too long.

I had an autoflower I put outside in December as a 1 week old seedling. Didn’t flower until April!

Cold seemed to slow down maturation,

Click to expand...

I had 3 Mephisto Gold Glues in winter of 18' in my house and they veged for 3 months and a week or 2 before flowering. My house was in the low 60s cause i don't like the heat. 6 months total for 3 18 to 22 inch autos. Killer smoke but the cold definitely slowed her way down.