Myth Busting - Revegging Autoflowers

[McDee]

I think there are some possibilities for these "semi-autos". One of them i think you would not agree can be called semi-auto and i think one hypothesis you would say, yes it is semi-auto. I cant be sure which one is true or if something else is true, but these are some hypothesis i have come to over the years.

Ill explain something about pure auto and photo first, so that it all makes sense.

Autos start to produce enough of these flower inducing hormones regardless of light cycle enough for it to both start flowering and continue to flower until its finished.

Photos however dont produce this on their own much, they might make enough to show sex during vegging, but thats about it. However dark time induces production of these hormones and some strains require different amounts of darkness to either start flowering or to continue to develop through different phases of flowering properly and not get stuck on preflower or early flowering phases.

Now when it comes to these semi-autos, it gets trickier, because its a mixture of these, but the starting of flowering and its phases are more like threshold level things.

The thing is that they obviously do produce more of these flowering hormones than regular photos with less darkness, but not enough to hit all the development changes that have higher threshold for being triggered unless you at some point give more hours of darkness.


Is this because the plant automatically starts to produce half the amount of the hormone that causes flowering, so that its enough to start and a bit more, but still requires some darkness to continue developing through the developmental phases?

Or is it because it produces more of the hormone when it does get darkness, therefore being able to produce enough to go through these phases with for example 16/8 lights?

Or is it maybe because these thresholds have been lowered?

I'm to high to think this much right now lol. I'll try and come back to this later bud, I cant remember half of what I read by the end hahaha.

 

[Tycho]

Reversed with STS for fem pollen in 2019. 24/7 lighting.
I did this by accident by letting the plant live as long as possible so I could get mature seeds from it and collect as much pollen as possible. That would have been the perfect time to clone her.

Reveged LSD-25

As some may know, the reason people say you can't clone an auti is because it "remembers" where it is in it's flowering/growth phase. But if you can get it to this point, it's a simple snip & tuck to get a new plant. However, it will be smaller unless you take the cutting when it's very young (which decreases the clone success rate).

 

[pop22]

First, I immediately spot some bullshit, what nutrients you use has NOTHING to do with anything. Flowering nutrient's don't trigger or enhance flowering ( unless they contain PGRs you don't know about.... ). Consider organic. Organic soil contains ALL the nutrients a plant needs. Even if you load it up with so called flowering nutrients, its still not going to flower before it is ready to.

Secondly, I see no way to " shut off " the Ruderalis gene. I call this myth. Unless someone has grown 20+ stable genetics plants all at once and tested this, I don't believe a word of it. And yep, i've tried it lol.

On Facebook recently, a grower claimed that he's been re-vegging his autoflowers and that it can be done with all autos.





The alleged trick is to keep the light on 24/0 and switch back to veg nutes.

This sparked a TREMENDOUS amount of replies, with a very small percentage saying "oh yeah, we've done this too" and the majority saying "bullshit." Absolutely no one has provided any proof during any of the conversations about it however. The comment about it reverting back to the "prized photo period" was a bit of a stretch lol.

Personally I think some growers are seeing unstable autoflowers, or what's essentially a "semi-auto." Ruderal characteristics but it's still a photo by definition (needs to flip to properly finish.) We've seen it dozens of times over where growers have an auto that doesn't auto, and every time you treat it like a photo and it's good to go. So really, at that point is it still considered an autoflower? I think this is what a lot of growers are seeing when they say "oh my plant re-vegged" or "I have an autoflower mother I keep taking clones from for years," that it was sold and labeled as an autoflower, but that it's a photo dominant strain. Perhaps a bit of semantics?

I've seen autos start to push out new leaf growth at the end of their lives, but personally I take all my meds longer than normal (more amber) than probably most do, and I've yet to see them reveg. I've left autos in pots where they've eventually died (way past harvest window) and they never revegged. Doesn't explain partial harvests either.

But then we were talking about it in the staff room and @Mossy mentioned she had an auto start to reveg going from natural sunlight (outdoors) then moved inside to a grow light (and more hours on than what it was getting.) Very curious stuff.

What do you think? Ever see this phenomenon happen? Truth and merit to the claim, or stoner science? Chalked up to genetic anomaly? Or able to be replicated?

 

[pop22]

Cloning is iffy and not worth the effort usually, but we're talking Revegging.

Well
I can say yes you can, clone autos.
Got 2 growing and they started flowering at the same time as the donor, Is it any good, I’ll find out

 

[pop22]

But "fast flowering" strains are not autoflowers, they are merely and F1 photo/auto cross and contain equal portions of both genetics. I don't believe a true, stable line, autoflower can be revegged, and I've tried it more than once.

I do know if you put a fast flower under NON-UV producing blurple (mid 2015-2017 technology) for 24/0 to veg and then put it under the sun starting at 16/8 it will immediately sex then stretch, flower while continue vegging all at the same time for the whole summer and fall. If you clone that plant while it's still "flowerating" (as I call it) by cloning the very top main cola that keeps growing up at the top of it as you strip the bud off but keep the fan leaves on the top cola and put that clone under 24/0 of NON-UV blurple LEDs it starts vegging again. You can repeat its "flowerulate/flowerating" (as I call it) by switching to 16/8 full real sun light again from NON-UV blurples and repeat. I've had Fast flowers just flower and keep growing and producing new buds and stretching and just keeps going for infinity without switching from veg to flower.

 

[pop22]

Again, revegging is not the same as cloning. Yes, autos can be cloned, but most clones never amount to much. Revegging means taking a plants that had already flowered and reverting it back to vegatative state. With photoperiods, you can do that repeatedly, I had a ducksfoot clone that was from a reveg that I personally revegged and flowered three more times.

Reversed with STS for fem pollen in 2019. 24/7 lighting.
I did this by accident by letting the plant live as long as possible so I could get mature seeds from it and collect as much pollen as possible. That would have been the perfect time to clone her.

Reveged LSD-25
View attachment 1231692

As some may know, the reason people say you can't clone an auti is because it "remembers" where it is in it's flowering/growth phase. But if you can get it to this point, it's a simple snip & tuck to get a new plant. However, it will be smaller unless you take the cutting when it's very young (which decreases the clone success rate).

 

[pop22]

I believe it was Stitch who coined the term. Guess he just found a new way to pass off his shitty genetics.........

semi-auto sounds like a term used to cover random/poor genetics.

 

[Tycho]

First, I immediately spot some bullshit, what nutrients you use has NOTHING to do with anything. Flowering nutrient's don't trigger or enhance flowering ( unless they contain PGRs you don't know about.... ). Consider organic. Organic soil contains ALL the nutrients a plant needs. Even if you load it up with so called flowering nutrients, its still not going to flower before it is ready to.

Secondly, I see no way to " shut off " the Ruderalis gene. I call this myth. Unless someone has grown 20+ stable genetics plants all at once and tested this, I don't believe a word of it. And yep, i've tried it lol.

You can do it by stressing the plant. But chances are pretty good the plant will only stunt. I had a dozen NL Autos that went through hell and back. In the end 9 died, 2 hermied and one stunted. The stunted one gave me about 350 seeds. Some start flowering at 5 weeks from seed. The tall phenos are very Sativish (from the Thai) and will flower until harvest time (Sept) and the drawfs are very indica (Afghani) and are finished at about 9 weeks from seed.

So blocking the Ruderalis is possible as is activating recessive (dormant?) genes. In 2019 I had an 800 plant open pollination grow from F2s with no hermies (4 200 plant plots in one site).

These are the result.
16 weeks from seed (8')

Top Cola(s)

One plant (zero mold)

I've had them hit 10' in corn.

I thought I'd get a crop of mini plants, but only 1 in about 30 are 12-24" single cola dwarfs and finish in about 9 weeks from seed.

It's pretty safe to say they're now Semi-Autos.

Oh... and they take to topping *very well.

 

[Son of Hobbes]

You can do it by stressing the plant. But chances are pretty good the plant will only stunt. I had a dozen NL Autos that went through hell and back. In the end 9 died, 2 hermied and one stunted. The stunted one gave me about 350 seeds. Some start flowering at 5 weeks from seed. The tall phenos are very Sativish (from the Thai) and will flower until harvest time (Sept) and the drawfs are very indica (Afghani) and are finished at about 9 weeks from seed.

So blocking the Ruderalis is possible as is activating recessive (dormant?) genes. In 2019 I had an 800 plant open pollination grow from F2s with no hermies (4 200 plant plots in one site).

These are the result.
16 weeks from seed (8')
View attachment 1232315

Top Cola(s)
View attachment 1232317

One plant (zero mold)
View attachment 1232314
View attachment 1232316

I've had them hit 10' in corn.

I thought I'd get a crop of mini plants, but only 1 in about 30 are 12-24" single cola dwarfs and finish in about 9 weeks from seed.
View attachment 1232318

It's pretty safe to say they're now Semi-Autos.

Oh... and they take to topping *very well.

But how can stress be claimed to be the reason they stopped autoflowering? Most stress causes autos to stunt or hermie, not to act like a photoperiod?

Also who was the breeder? How stable were the genetics?

 

[WildBill]

LMMFAO!........................in corn.

How did you keep from getting nitrogen burn? Corn is a heavy nitrogen feeder.