New Grower Help Anyone, New Balcony grow Troubles

[Peter Pan]

Hello AFN
I have a big delay in my autos in day 7 growing under the sun 12 hours in 18L pots. I wonder if the 12 hours light and actually 7 hours direct sun light can be the cause of that? what should I expect from an outgrow with autos bigger or smaller yield I d like to save some money from electricity bill. Please anyone any suggestion tips anything
Thanks AfN

 

[Spanglish]

I have grown on my balcony for the past couple of years most of the time they get 7 hours direct sun but creeps upto 10 in late summer, this year for the first time i decided to supplement the lighting with a cheap grow box made from cardboard box with a big CFL and a couple of LED bulbs, the improvement in the plants so far has been amazing which leads me to believe that autos would most proberly need 12+ hours of direct sun to get decent sized plants and anything less than this just wont let you get the most from the plants.

 

[Egzoset]

Salutations,

...7 hours direct sun light can be the cause of that? ... ...suggestion tips anything...

...i decided to supplement the lighting... ...amazing...

Please allow me to reply with an old picture as it's been a long while... Here's half on a related experiment i done.

In retrospective i found my plant's performance suffered from light defficiency despite 10 h/d of sunlight which i provided by displacing it from one (indoors) window-sill to the next, twice a day (+ reset!)... My conclusion was that from now on, if i ever launch another session again, my seeds will be germinated under CFLs to gain a wealthy structure for 5 ~ 6 weeks before i can consider moving them behind any window-sill!!

Here's a side-by-side visual comparison where my larger square buckets correspond to an early CFL complement:

There's not much to debate, obviously the AutoMaria II duo in round buckets expressed their misery with a shocking display...



At the time i was satisfied my tiny round buckets apparently resulted in a dwarf height as intended though i certainly wasn't too proud about such modest silhouettes...

Unfortunately i yet have to evaluate my own hypothesis completely but i know these genetics typical short lives come at a price: once set in motion there's no looking back, defficiencies are difficult to recover from. So, i'd avise to aim for low-profile cotyledons as it clearly was some early sign.

Good day, have fun!!

 

[Chester]

When you grow outdoors in pots it's important to keep the roots cool ... using white pots or wrapping black pots in tinfoil can help ... raising the pots off the floor helps also ... a lot of horizontal surfaces in the sun are extremely hot and this passes into the pot which slows growth tremendously ...

 

[AFNUKGROWA]

Well my auto cash crop was in a huge pot so it took longer for the roots to become comfortable in which growth can be stunted untill roots are happy

 

[Peter Pan]

Thanks a lot guys you all provided vital infos I must give them 20 h light and yes the temp was high and I did not watered too much being afraid of water logged roots I guess I was wrong, the pot is really big also so it take longer for roots `i understand that.
Thanks so much I feel safe to know how to proceed.

 

[Vas Deferens]

Well my auto cash crop was in a huge pot so it took longer for the roots to become comfortable in which growth can be stunted untill roots are happy

Um, please explain this theory ?