I keep hearing that you don’t really trim auto’s, or defoliate. What’s the general consensus? I apologize if this topic had been beat to death already.
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Bend and tuck mostly until stretch in flower is done. I do defol also but you dont want to do it early. I usually start all the LST and light defoliating around week 4 depending on size. You can top them too but add a week and a half to your harvest schedule and personally haven’t seen great gains from doing this. Hope this helped.
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I have been lightly defoilating just in attempt to get more light through the plants, but there is just so much foliage there.
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Floor to the top of the biggest plant is just over 4 ft. Do you recommend bringing up the bottoms a bunch more?
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basicly the same as photo plants NO special ways. ect : here is the lifr cycle of autos:
vegation stage weeks 1-3
flower stage weeks 4-10 (+)
this might help in your defoliation - if he bif leaves are covering bud sutes - defo it !
you are right need to feo the lowers leaves for better air flow. many of the bifg fans I see consider pulling them off (you have many) consider light pentration on buds when defoliation ( I you can get over the plant and look down on it - then you will see the busd sites that are blocked by leaves)
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@HawkMan, that’s kind of what I’ve been doing. Going through and just getting rid of all the biggest fan leaves. As much as I can at this point. Also attempting to look down on them like you said.
I’m always concerned that I’ll take to much so I struggle with Trimming. I realize I must to get past that, but kept being told to basically just let the auto’s do their thing. So lots of second guessing. Thank you for the response.
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one gets better each time one does a grow ever think of photo seeds it’s just another 30 days or so some photo get done in 45 day flower. but consideration of space and your time invested are auto vaiiables Freedom of Seeds - Hash Lover (hashplant x NL) 45 day flower time is and is a feminized seeds
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I grow both photo and auto, but am just going through some so I can order more. I really need to add to my space just for more room to work in general
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The wife tops once and defoilates like crazy
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I kind of thought it would handle a lot more than I was doing.
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I know - I always want to increase my growing sapce with alkeast 2 separate rooms --Veg and Flower rooms and then one for me to “workin”
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the way one get better is doing it a tip Kyle Kushman said "“defoilation “space” has to be 2x’s the size of the leaf you are removing” hope I said it right
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At this point I’ve literally grown myself into a corner with very little space to work. I’m with you, I need separate rooms to veg and flower bad.
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that’s exactly how mine is set up, I have in a pool bathroom. I have a veg chamber and a flower chamber and a small cabinet nursery for baby seedlings. Lots of added storage and the plus side is, I can water without worrying about drainage as they are up on grates and over a drain. I’d be happy to show you, and also take any suggestions. This is my first one.
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Wow just found this thread. Always been an interesting topic to me. So many different opinions out there on autos, even from the breeders.
I’d like to share what I have learned so far and this is all just from me torturing autos over the last year or so.
First and for most I think is genetics. Not all autos are created equal. If you are flowering between week 1-2 that is just not good genetics IMHO and leaves you little time to work at all.
If you got good genetics you can do anything to an auto that you can do to a photo…
One of my last autos that recently finished i did kind of a faster version of a mainline. One of the best autos I’ve grown.
Went from this.
To this with no issues at all.
2 plants dried and cured 10.3 zips and some fire smoke.
I’ve grown many and let them go natural. Training almost always seems to produce more and better bud.
Just potted up 8 last night. I’m giving them a couple days to adjust and the training will begin. They were topped a week ago.
Again, genetics make all the difference. Did the same mainline on a northern storm that was running the same time as the big Tangerine and got squat. It just would not stretch, grew one big snow ball.
This all just my opinion from what I’ve seen in my grows. I tend to try things I’m told I shouldn’t
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Hey! Don’t do that @bow4buck ! Lol. I feel alot of us growers are always pushing the limits. Lol.
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it seems I’m always doing this “out-growing” !!!
Basicly here are the three things one needs to grow with sucess - and in that order
Genetics
Medium
Lighting
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Current situation.
The timeliness on auto’s kills me. The one back right still hasn’t started flower when the other 2 of that strain have been flowering for weeks. Front 3 are a different strain.
I completely changed Nutrient lines mid grow, attempting to get that dialed in at the same time.
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Agreed, but I tend to think ya can have the best light ever made and knock your sox off medium if the genetics ain’t there the other 2 don’t matter so much. 
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