Indoor Growing autos and "regular" plants at the same time. Is it possible?

[Cally]

Here's the background. I have a auto that was planted about 4 weeks ago and is in full bloom and doing nicely. A couple days after I planted the auto plant I started 2 more regular plants from bag seed.

I had them all in the room and initially ran my dual 400MH/400MHS lights 20/4 until the auto was already creating a bunch of buds. I needed to get the regular plants to flower so I changed the light cycle about a week ago adding 4 more hours to the dark cycle for a total of 8.

I know the usual cycle to force flowering is 12/12, but I thought I would try to cut that time a bit to see if I could flower the regular plants while still giving sufficient light to the auto to keep it growing and flowering nice.

I had 3 regular plants. One I determined was male early on and took it out. The other two looked like they would be females. After approximately 8 days I noticed some white hairs on one of the two. That tells me that the plant is beginning to flower. Consequently, it also means I should be able to keep the current 6 hours of darkness until harvest and both the regular and auto should be fine.

To push the envelope a bit more I planted 3 more germinated auto seeds today. Because I did not change the first auto cycle from the recommended 20/4 to 18/6 until after it began flowering I was wondering what everyone's opinion is on my getting the 3 new autos to grow and auto flower under my 18/6 schedule. My guess is the answer is most likely they will. However, it may take a week or so longer for them to flower than the first one. Any comments??

 

[DutchPassionTony]

the auto's will grow under whatever light cycle required by your photoperiod (normally 12/12). Obviously they will yield less than auto's grown under a 20/4 light cycle but they will grow.

 

[madmable]

it is possible, if you plant all at same time, grow autos and photos on 18/6 untill you need 12/12, then switch, autos will flower on any light so can do with photos,but will take a little longer and maybe less yield,

 

[bobjob4u]

This is how i have done it.I start my auto and photoperiod plants at the same time.With about a week to go on the autoflowers i then decrease the light to 12/12.For some reason the auto's seem to really fatten up the last week at 12/12.Now i always seem to run my auto's a week longer then most people do.My photoperiod plant are always in the 7-9 weeks to flower range.I also always use feminized seeds.Therefore my photoperiod plant flower out at the same time an auto would from seed.Then with 2-3 weeks left to go on the photoperiod i germinate my next round of auto's and photo peroid plant .Now i only do this in the winter with the photoperiod plants, otherwise they would go outside.I also grow enough auto's to last the flowering period of the photoperiod plant.Then i enjoy the photoperiod plant while auto's are maturing.Therefore i always have bud! I try to grow enough so i dont have to rush anything.The amount of growing space and consumption also play a factor.Hope this helps.

 

[Cally]

Thanks for the replies... It sounds like I'm on the right track and everything should be fine.