When to switch to Flowering Nutrients?

I decided to give some autoflowering strains a try for the first time, and I need a little advice if anyone can help. I am a little confused on when to start giving my girls their flowering nutes. Here is a brief rundown of my setup --- I am in a small closet. 250 watt HPS light in an air cooled hood. Inline duct fan pulling cold air in from the room, pushing hot air away from light and out the other side of the closet. Started in Fox Farm Happy Frog soil mixed generously with Perlite. When I mixed up the soil I added Mycoryzin (beneficial bacteria) and some Humboldt Roots. I've been on an 18/6 light schedule since day one. I started by putting the seeds directly in soil, and started them in the 3 gallon pots since I've read everywhere that autos don't like to be transplanted. I have been feeding with Fox Farm Grow Big, Fox Farm Big Bloom, Humboldt Roots, and some Cal/Mag. I feed with nutes once, then plain Ph Balanced water the next time. They seem to have really enjoyed this schedule so far. NOW... back to my question.... When do I switch over to Flowering Nutrients? I looked at one of my babies today, and she's starting to show some pre-flower. I see some pistils coming out, and a few different bud sites JUST now starting. They weren't this way last night. About the strain: It's Short Rider from Nirvana. It isn't supposed to get very tall AT ALL, and they claim 60 days from seed to harvest. I was skeptical about the 60 day thing until I saw some pre-flower action this morning on a plant that's only 15 days old. I have also read in different places that since these plants have such a short life cycle, it's not a good idea to stress them in any way; ie, supercrop, top, etc.... so I've just been letting them do their thing without interference. Anyways - give me a few minutes, I'll have some pictures up.

Pictures will come in the next post hopefully. Have to pull them out from under the HPS so we can actually see with a camera.

Thanks for the help people...

Hey fellow grower sounds real nice set up ! anyway I give my auto's a shot of flower nutes 20 days after sprout then once flower starts every 4-5 days hope this helps peace

Oh if flowering is showing start feeding it will show in long run

I actually made a mistake in my first post... this plant is actually 20 days old. Boy how time flys when you're having FUN!!

This plant is 23 days old. I am starting to see where she's going to flower, but no pistils yet. This one is also about 5 1/2" taller than the other. I'm just concerned that neither one of these girls is going to yeild very much. I'll be happy to pull an OZ from the two of them combined. I know that I shouldn't expect much more from plants that will only get probably 18" tall, but I guess we'll see. I just wanted to see what this autoflower hype was all about. While it's pretty cool to see plants starting to flower under 18 hours of light, and grow really fast, I think I'll switch back to regular photo period plants for my next grow. It's all for personal smoke anyways, but I'd rather have one ginormous plant under the light that yields 2OZ or better, then 4 SMALL plants that might yield 2OZ combined.

There will easily pull oz between both what day you planning on harvest ?

4 weeks is a pretty common time to start preflower and getting first pistols,but it seams like 3 weeks usualy for me then i start with min.dose of open seasame then add tiger blossem min.dose the next week. With the lowrider verieties i have had bad luck with them ,they never seam to grow to there potential.But i am doing some blue mamoth and afghan kush rider and there doing great.I think with the earlyer tries with auto iwas transplanting at 2 weeks and then starting them off with nutes on the same day...I ended up with bonzi easyrider.!!!!lol..i try to repost pics .posted the grow a few years ago...good luck!

I haven't planned on a day for harvest yet... I am going to chop em when they tell me they're ready!

@ Allen Bud - 4 weeks to show pre-flower? The one that's starting to show pistils is only 20 days old...

Thanks for the input guys - it really is nice to hear other peoples experience. I hope you're right about the yield - I would love to have a couple of ounces. I am just a lil skeptical since they're such small plants. Good luck to both of you on your grows!

Lookin good.

Nice looking plant, here's my 16 day old baby short rider under 225 watts of cfl on my first grow, feeding her box tree nutes, shes bushy as hell with new growth and leaves every day. I'll be keeping an eye on your grow as your a few days ahead of me and I'd like to compare our grows to see what I can learn.

@ mdeva I wish I could upload pics but im using a phone it doesnt allow me which.is annoying I have some nice auto's going afghan kush ryder cyclops and easy bud there 20 days old doing great ive done many indoor grows with loads of auto's and got mostly 3/4 - 1oz each good luck keep posted

@ samtheman --- I would love to see some of them that are 20 days old since they would be about the same age as mine... Do they look similar to mine so far? Another question since you say you've grown loads of autos... have you ever topped them, or FIM'ed them? I thought it would be best not to fuck with them since they have such a short life span and wouldn't respond well to stress BUT now that one of my short riders is about 6" taller than the other, I want to top the taller one. You think it would hurt anything? Is it too late in the game to start messing with 'em if I'm 20+ days in?

If you have a way to email those pictures to me, send me a private message or something and I'll give you my address. I know not everyone is comfortable doing that, so if not - I completely understand.

later buddy.

yup 4 at the max,20 days is almost 4 weeks.And if you want to get a yeild of a few zip's yer going to need an iranian auto ,they produce big time but hard to get seeds

@ mdeva Topping ive never done on autos just left them and they have done fine and yours are a bit bushier than mine which aint bad as im growing outdoors in uk .. Are you from there ?

@samtheman08 -- Thanks for the input - I've been away for a bit and didn't have access to respond till now. Outdoors in the UK huh? Nice. I would like to see yours come harvest time. I'm indoors in Midwest USA. If you get a second check out my journal - I posted an update from yesterday on there with some pictures. The Bubblelicious is finally coming along, but I just hope she has long enough to actually bulk up before flowering time comes. Could be any day now with these autos... I guess you never know. A few things I know I'll do differently next time - LST to keep 'em opened up and stop the stretch, and I think I'll keep it down to 2 autos or 1 photo plant at a time. I've got the 250 watt HPS, and a good rule of thumb is 100 watts per plant - so maybe I was a little greedy trying to squeeze 3 in the closet. BUT I just figured since they were bred to be short, I could pull it off.

Hey @mdeva checking ya journal out now looking good if I get to a computer I guess I could upload pics but for now im using phone lol also my force flowerd big bang is 5 weeks and a day in flower her leaves have turned purple over night looks pretty but never had this before what could it be ?

Start giving it flowering nutes when you see alot of pistils accumilating in "bud spots". If you see 1 or 2 pistils in a few spots, its pob still in veg.

The best time is when you notice a slow-down in vertical growth. Because if your plant is still growing .5-1.5 inches a day, its definitely not time to start giving it flowering nutes yet.

@mdeva my auto's are 5 weeks old today started flower with some pistils last week cant wait so starting from today so next eeek one week in flower right ? And yeah uk weather isnt too good at the moment but it has been so hope its just a blip here and there and get some nice sun from mid july through too oct ill be happy =)

I think I probably started the flowering nutes just a bit early. But I have a strain called Short Ryder - it's supposed to stay at 18" tall or so. That's why I thought I was further along than I was. This is the downside to autoflowers - you can only make an educated guess - no two plants will be the same. Anyways - the reason I say I started Flower Nutes too soon is because I've been raising my lights about 3" every 4 days. I'll leave for work and there will be about 1/2"-1&3/4" space between top of tallest plant, and the light. When I get home, the plant has grown into the light and smashed itself, causing the top node to start growing sideways. I'll immdiately raise the light, straighten her back up (after freaking out and checking for damage that is) and repeat the process again in a few days. I thought the explosive growth spurts would be long over by now. AND I thought since she's been getting flowering nutes - it would slow down vertical growth - BOY WAS I FUCKING WRONG. I don't know how big these girls are going to get, but I'll post some pictures tonight when I get off work, or tomorrow during the day. Everything still looks healthy, it's just much bigger than I would have hoped. Didn't really plan for plants of this size... may have to bust out the CFL's and move the Bubblelicious to another spot until these girls finish because the Bubblelicious is stretching like crazy to compete for light. I really thought I'd have 3 eally small plants that would net maybe an OZ - Now I'm looking at 2 decent sized plants (about 3' tall) which I hope to pull 1.75-2.5 oz's off, and a 3rd plant that I don't even want to guess about yet since she's still vegging out. Gotta go to work - running late... damn this forum!

allen bud said:

yup 4 at the max,20 days is almost 4 weeks.And if you want to get a yeild of a few zip's yer going to need an iranian auto ,they produce big time but hard to get seeds

Click to expand...

Not to be a dick, but 20 days is not even 3 weeks..