Live Stoners Convince me, why I should grow Photo's instead of Auto's?

[Jpkindbud]

I grow both, indoors and outdoors! The limiting factor of indoor photos is size of growspace. 1-4 in a 4x4x80 is all I can do from seed. I could do clones and sea of green but I like to veg for 8 wks then flower. Autos I can do about 8 with LST and not be too crowded, and have many varieties. Photos only 4 different strains at a time. If you have a small space indoors I would go with autos… just my opinion.

3 different outdoor autos in 5 gal SIP buckets and 4x4 tent with 8 different auto strains. Doing a photo grow this winter in the tent. Not legal to grow your own in NYS yet but I am an outlaw after all… lol

 

[LabRat]

I was going to mention the climate thing. As in, by the time 12 hour daylight happens here (central BC), temperatures and daylength are declining so quickly, not to mention crappier wetter weather becoming more frequent, that photos have bloody little chance of finishing flowering before temperatures shut them down if the mold doesn't do it first. I may try photos indoors, but any outdoor plants will be autos for me. If you don't have the climate to finish a photoperiod's flower time after they switch, outdoor photos will not work well if at all.

We live up around Peace River and photos don't begin to flower up here until mid-Aug when it's still around 15 hours of light/day. We used to get frost before the end of Aug but our fall seems to go longer now thanks to global warming. Last year the 'auto' I kept turned out to be photo and I kept it growing out in the garden until near the end of Oct with a DIY greenhouse built around it and a small heater in there. Even a heavy blanket over it on nights when it dropped to -15C and snowed 3X before the wife plugged her chicken's water heaters in on the same line and blew the breaker and near froze her to death. Could have used a couple more weeks to finish up but even on a sunny day it was barely hitting 10C so not conducive to good bud development. At least it's really dry so the huge colas on her didn't get mouldy at all.

If I had deep pockets I'd build or buy a decent blackout greenhouse then I could start photos inside in March and put them out in May to veg thru June and flip by July to get 12 hours of intense light every day while flowering for big harvests. My wife an I both have our medicals just renewed in June but our doc has left for BC so may not be able to get renewed next year. Mine's for 12g/day and hers for 6 so if we registered with Hellth Canaduh we could be legal for 92 plants indoors including the 4 rec plants. Stupid rules that you only get 2 plants per gram for outdoor as they assume you can grow much larger plants outside so don't need as many but that's only true for people down near the US border where I've seen huge pot trees when I used to live in the Fraser Valley. We moved up here in '01 with 6 hash plant clones and not a day has gone by when I don't have pot growing in the house but I've never sold it for profit.

I don't know why it took me so long to start growing autos outside but I'll be doing that now as long as we're living here. I'd like to go back to BC but the wife doesn't want to. May head off on my own in a couple years if I survive that long. Almost 67 now and sure don't want to die here. Campbell River is sounding better all the time where I can fish my golden years away.

 

[Olderfart]

We live up around Peace River and photos don't begin to flower up here until mid-Aug when it's still around 15 hours of light/day. We used to get frost before the end of Aug but our fall seems to go longer now thanks to global warming. Last year the 'auto' I kept turned out to be photo and I kept it growing out in the garden until near the end of Oct with a DIY greenhouse built around it and a small heater in there. Even a heavy blanket over it on nights when it dropped to -15C and snowed 3X before the wife plugged her chicken's water heaters in on the same line and blew the breaker and near froze her to death. Could have used a couple more weeks to finish up but even on a sunny day it was barely hitting 10C so not conducive to good bud development. At least it's really dry so the huge colas on her didn't get mouldy at all.

If I had deep pockets I'd build or buy a decent blackout greenhouse then I could start photos inside in March and put them out in May to veg thru June and flip by July to get 12 hours of intense light every day while flowering for big harvests. My wife an I both have our medicals just renewed in June but our doc has left for BC so may not be able to get renewed next year. Mine's for 12g/day and hers for 6 so if we registered with Hellth Canaduh we could be legal for 92 plants indoors including the 4 rec plants. Stupid rules that you only get 2 plants per gram for outdoor as they assume you can grow much larger plants outside so don't need as many but that's only true for people down near the US border where I've seen huge pot trees when I used to live in the Fraser Valley. We moved up here in '01 with 6 hash plant clones and not a day has gone by when I don't have pot growing in the house but I've never sold it for profit.

I don't know why it took me so long to start growing autos outside but I'll be doing that now as long as we're living here. I'd like to go back to BC but the wife doesn't want to. May head off on my own in a couple years if I survive that long. Almost 67 now and sure don't want to die here. Campbell River is sounding better all the time where I can fish my golden years away.

It sounds as though you got into the exact hassle during the finish that I have zero interest in. Did you end up getting some nice bud after all that effort?

I have retrieved a least a bit of bud from my outdoor autos in spite of the mold, but I will not be growing outdoors at all any more unless my current rotblock test is positive. Having to dump much or most of a grow due to bud rot is not my cuppa. I can grow what I need indoors in the winter.

 

[LabRat]

It sounds as though you got into the exact hassle during the finish that I have zero interest in. Did you end up getting some nice bud after all that effort?

I have retrieved a least a bit of bud from my outdoor autos in spite of the mold, but I will not be growing outdoors at all any more unless my current rotblock test is positive. Having to dump much or most of a grow due to bud rot is not my cuppa. I can grow what I need indoors in the winter.

I did get an estimated pound of bud off that girl so at least the hassle paid off. It's still all sealed up in cans in the freezer while I finished off a batch of previously grown CBD bud. I just did a quick trim, busted up the colas into bite-sized chunks and froze it all fresh as I use it like that to make my cocobudder. I'm currently flowering a plant grown from a cutting off her inside in the grow room and once she finishes I'll be sending a sample for lab testing to see just how much CBD she does produce so I know how potent that medicine is. No buzz at all smoking it.

That sux that even autos couldn't finish in time to beat the wet season for you. I've lost a couple of indoor crops. Once to mites and once to a male pollinating my 15 plant batch of Kali Mist both while I was out of town working on rigs leaving my wife in charge. I'm planning to leave early Oct for a month to visit family in BC and hope to have everything harvested and put away other than a few plants so there won't be much to go wrong in my absence.

 

[Olderfart]

I did get an estimated pound of bud off that girl so at least the hassle paid off. It's still all sealed up in cans in the freezer while I finished off a batch of previously grown CBD bud. I just did a quick trim, busted up the colas into bite-sized chunks and froze it all fresh as I use it like that to make my cocobudder. I'm currently flowering a plant grown from a cutting off her inside in the grow room and once she finishes I'll be sending a sample for lab testing to see just how much CBD she does produce so I know how potent that medicine is. No buzz at all smoking it.

That sux that even autos couldn't finish in time to beat the wet season for you. I've lost a couple of indoor crops. Once to mites and once to a male pollinating my 15 plant batch of Kali Mist both while I was out of town working on rigs leaving my wife in charge. I'm planning to leave early Oct for a month to visit family in BC and hope to have everything harvested and put away other than a few plants so there won't be much to go wrong in my absence.

A pound of bud would compensate nicely.

I am intrigued about freezing buds fresh. I use most of mine for my rosin press, and use the rosin for making concentrates as MCT tincture, or MCT/beeswax salve. My dearest hates the high, so I mix straight CBD rosin with THC rosin when putting the product together. I like not having to screw with solvent, but being able to make the cannabinoid concentration as high as I like. Do you dry your frozen stuff at all before doing your butter extract? Do you decarb before using the budder to cook with? I have a batch of CBD bud getting close (the Rotblock grow), and not having to hang around home immediately after the chop would be nice. I was thinking of drying for just a couple days before freezing, and then continuing the dry to pressing dryness later when I have the time at home.

As to the climate here, I am sure that I could get away with an outdoor grow in some years if I started plants indoors soon enough, but it would always be a crap shoot. Here we are nearly three weeks into July, and I'll bet that my grow shelter is 95% RH or higher overnight with the cool temps and rain right now. Sadly, my current RotBlock test will not be that great because so far the colas are pretty airy, so they might have escaped anyway. However, if these girls make it to maturity clean, I will likely throw another rotblock grow together next summer.

Anyway, congrats on recovery of a pound of bud, I'm glad to hear that the hassle paid off handsomely.

 

[LabRat]

A pound of bud would compensate nicely.

I am intrigued about freezing buds fresh. I use most of mine for my rosin press, and use the rosin for making concentrates as MCT tincture, or MCT/beeswax salve. My dearest hates the high, so I mix straight CBD rosin with THC rosin when putting the product together. I like not having to screw with solvent, but being able to make the cannabinoid concentration as high as I like. Do you dry your frozen stuff at all before doing your butter extract? Do you decarb before using the budder to cook with? I have a batch of CBD bud getting close (the Rotblock grow), and not having to hang around home immediately after the chop would be nice. I was thinking of drying for just a couple days before freezing, and then continuing the dry to pressing dryness later when I have the time at home.

As to the climate here, I am sure that I could get away with an outdoor grow in some years if I started plants indoors soon enough, but it would always be a crap shoot. Here we are nearly three weeks into July, and I'll bet that my grow shelter is 95% RH or higher overnight with the cool temps and rain right now. Sadly, my current RotBlock test will not be that great because so far the colas are pretty airy, so they might have escaped anyway. However, if these girls make it to maturity clean, I will likely throw another rotblock grow together next summer.

Anyway, congrats on recovery of a pound of bud, I'm glad to hear that the hassle paid off handsomely.

I freeze the buds after a light trim to just take off anything that doesn't have a sugar coating then freeze it and use it frozen to make my cocobudder. I'm going to make a batch ASAP using 200g wet wt. to 1L of MCT oil. I'll send you a link via PM to a tutorial I made elsewhere. A hot plate/stovetop is all you need along with a hand blender. A good thermometer that can read up to 300F or an infrared thermometer is needed to watch the temp as you heat to decarb after the moisture boils off. Up to 250F and stop when the tiny decarb bubbles are nearly finished.

Terpenes are lost when drying and I want mine!

 

[7.62]

The buds are growing..

 

[7.62]

I wish I knew what strain this was, but it really doesn't matter as long as the bud is good!

 

[7.62]

There getting frosty and smelling like some good shit!

 

[7.62]

Hey, I'm not a photo grower, how long will these things flower like this. I've been nursing these two for like 4 months now. It took me a while to get them to flower I finally took advice from folks in here and set my lights to 12/12 and we've been rolling along well since then. One is farther along than the other.