Indoor GreenBean's Grows

[420autoflower]

1.92 lbs as in like 30 oz? Or 1lb 9.2oz? Regardless impressive either way. I always used to love pushing the autos to be more like photos. These days anything under a lb is a disappointment to me. I can consistently get 12-13 oz per plant regardless of strain at this stage of my journey in the hobby. For the most part.

I am always on a monster hunt. But sometimes, it is fun to get a Monster in unexpected places. Like that 13oz Strawberry Nuggets was a blast to grow.

Have you reached a stage yet where you are starting to think that you have taken an Auto as far as you can? And wondered if it is worth it over Photos at a certain point?

Reason I ask is because I started growing autos to yield more like a Photo. People always saying that you can't get more than a couple oz from and auto, and it would be shit anyway. So I made it a mission. We obviously know that that isn't true. But the more consistently that I get larger auto yields, I start to wonder if I am just wasting resources = electricity, when I could get save a considerable amount of cost on electricity with a photo.

Dunno if that makes sense? I feel like the first few autos I grew...they had a lot more "auto" in them. They were a big challenge to grow to yield larger. Now, whether it is the "style" I have developed, or the newer genetics, seems like the challenge isn't the same? I do still have some older lowryder strains that I could grow again to see.

That was 30.78 ounces from the one plant and with zero larf. She was a beast… beautiful plant with over 50 main top colas on her that were extremely dense. All three Bananalopes did well and ended up weighing 1718 grams (3.83 pounds) in total. Did my best to pull the maximum potential out of them since I didn’t have much going on at the time and I wasn’t growing SOG so I was able give them exactly what they needed and more space to grow

I personally favor autos over photos.
Grew photos for years but ever since I started with autos I never turned back. Can’t beat the speed of autos from seed to harvest and in my opinion the yields are comparable or even better in a lot less time. Much more enjoyable and rewarding to me watching autos develop and finish so quick. The 862 gram Bananalope only took 89 days which a photo would have easily taken double that amount of time to produce the same amount.

 

[GreenBean]

Day 80 of what I have officially dubbed: "The Slob Grow". Fade is starting to progress.

We're right on pace - funny that my grows always seem to go about 90-100 days regardless. Dunno if that is something anyone else notices, but I think once you develop a "method", even with autos, it is semi repeatable.

As of today, no more N. Just blasting away with the Full Tilt ripener at 4g per gallon for one more week-issssh. Then we go to water for a week(ish). Then we chop. And at this point, I no longer PH anything. Just water in the nutes until I see a little runoff, then I'm done.

My takeaways from the Slob Grow - in case you didn't know, Slob Grow is my experiment on being way more hands off:

Yield: I think my average yield per plant will likely be the same. That goes back to the thought that a plant will give all that it can give regardless. It just "distributes" it differently, depending on training.

But what I notice hands off, is that my buds do not fill in and stack anywhere near what I am used to when I am really hands on. Stripping/lollipopping the lowers on my plants seems to introduce WAY less Larf (HATE LARF), and way bigger fruits. Fruit thinning IS a thing, look it up.

Both plants did not fill and stack like I am used to. It would be easy to blame it on "genetics" or whatever if it was both. But two plants, totally different strains = same gappy bud structures.

Topping: I hate to say it because I LOVE to top. But I no longer think topping is necessary. Neither is hardcore pinning down on limbs.

So, for me, I believe that I have found the line between hands on/ hands off. It's down to the topping of the plant, and no more hardcore LST. YMMV!

PS - I think Black Strap is going into the 2lb contenders ring. More hands on, of course.

Anyway::

 

[GreenBean]

I personally favor autos over photos.
Grew photos for years but ever since I started with autos I never turned back. Can’t beat the speed of autos from seed to harvest and in my opinion the yields are comparable or even better in a lot less time. Much more enjoyable and rewarding to me watching autos develop and finish so quick. The 862 gram Bananalope only took 89 days which a photo would have easily taken double that amount of time to produce the same amount.

I hate LARF!

What was your average seed to harvest timeline on your photos? When did you flip to flower?

My longest veg time on a photo was 60 days indoors. Then I put it outside. Was an absolute beast. I named her Bertha. Almost grotesque.

 

[420autoflower]

I hate LARF!

What was your average seed to harvest timeline on your photos? When did you flip to flower?

My longest veg time on a photo was 60 days indoors. Then I put it outside. Was an absolute beast. I named her Bertha. Almost grotesque.

View attachment 1560054View attachment 1560055

Beautiful plant brother!
She got really big for only a 60 day veg. When I was growing photos I grew cuttings and would only veg for a couple weeks for SOG. Had quick harvests growing that way but the top cola size on the clones were no comparison to what these autos can produce.
Haven’t grown outdoors for awhile but might put a few outside this season. The caterpillars are wicked up here in NorCal and I’m not a fan of spraying BT Thuricide throughout the flowering period just to be able to bring then to harvest.

 

[GreenBean]

Beautiful plant brother!
She got really big for only a 60 day veg. When I was growing photos I grew cuttings and would only veg for a couple weeks for SOG. Had quick harvests growing that way but the top cola size on the clones were no comparison to what these autos can produce.
Haven’t grown outdoors for awhile but might put a few outside this season. The caterpillars are wicked up here in NorCal and I’m not a fan of spraying BT Thuricide throughout the flowering period just to be able to bring then to harvest.

Yeah I’m in Southern California and caterpillars are no joke here either. Only thing that helps is bug netting to keep the loopers from dropping eggs. Even then it’s constant maintenance.

I think I’m going to put an auto in my tomatoes this year. Maybe I mentioned that.

 

[GreenBean]

Day 86. Both are finishing up at the same time. Few more days until chop. Mango Smile got a nice fade going.

 

[GreenBean]

damn. Mango Smile looks gooood. Couple days and donezo.

 

[GreenBean]

Oh, got my replacement 320W Mean Well driver from Atreum. So there is that. Took them a bit, but they handled it. For whatever reason, their normal supplier couldn't get one, so they shipped me one from Mouser. So...just a heads up there, if you have a bad driver, you can likely source another. Swapping them out is like a 5 minute thing.

Anyway. This "Slob Grow" has been interesting for sure. You can get a big yield just by bending your plants over at the right time, and doing little else. Assuming you have stuff dialed in. It worked out for me as an experiment because I was really busy. And I wanted to try it anyway.

But, bud formation suffers IMHO. More buds, but more spread out across the plant. And they don't fill in as nicely as they do when you have more time to train the canopy a little more and do some lollipopping, and pruning/fruit thinning to focus that energy.

I think, if you want to, you can consistently get a 1lb auto. At least 3/4 lb, like almost every time. Just depends on how you like your plant structure.

 

[GreenBean]

One thing I’ve been doing these last couple runs, is for the last 7-10 days before chop, I’ve cut the lights back from 18/6 to 16/8. And dialed the light intensity down a tich too.

I really just tried it to see what I could get away with when it comes to cutting back on electricity usage. No reason other than that. Didn’t expect anything miraculous.

Anyway, I’m not noticing anything different in the end results. Sort of like I don’t notice feeding them nutes to the very last day. So for the last week, I feed them water, and cut the lights back. YMMV.

 

[GreenBean]

Thanks for the reps @Zaaboot . Appreciate it.