Harnessing the competitiveness in Autos

[Jumper114]

Hello Talkers

I grow perpetually, as a few of us do.

For me, the idea of stalling an auto through training and environmental control is fascinating and something I have started to explore in more detail. The upside of this technique is much higher yields vs a cost of much longer harvest times.

The last couple of grows, I have noticed a new phenomenon. Autos when over shadowed seem to exhibit a desire to slow down and then when the shadow has been removed they are happy to march on. If anything reinvigorated. I have a White Widow at day 81 about to hit flower. A Blueberry Treacle, day 74 and a Sour Crack, day 64 all running very slow. Horizontal training is a big factor here however.

Where this take an interesting twist, is that I have noticed that when they shoot up, they try to match or out compete the largest plant in the groom, within reason of their genetics. Exactly as plants try to do in the wild. Competition for light or "slowing" as a survival mechanism,I would think, is most plants natural trait. Plants only want to max out their buds, pass on their genes and die.

I am going to try an experiment using a stand and card to simulate this effect, again vs a natural girl. Driving the girls using their own natural desires seems a good way to improve growing inside. Also gives us growers more control.

What do you think?

This is a topic I have researched and come up pretty blank.

[M_C]

You get the same effect growing earlier in the year.... been there, done that

[Jumper114]

You get the same effect growing earlier in the year.... been there, done that

Hey M_C

Are you suggesting they are aware of what season we plant them in?

I grow all year round - so yields should drop at some point. They have increased consistently all year. But heck - there are so many other factors.

Now my technique is the same, I should detect seasonality.

[M_C]

No, I was suggesting that natural cloud cover can very much darken a day - I did a grow about 10 year ago where we were having an unusually early spring, sun was shining & I was sat outside in shorts & tea shirt getting a tan... then the clouds moved in for a few weeks... still warm but very overcast & dingy - plants hated it & spat their toys out at me

[Herbitual]

You get the same effect growing earlier in the year.... been there, done that

Yeah - but outside?

Jumper's doing it artificially in a grow room - worth the experiment, innit?

[Herbitual]

(Too slow with me reply - apologies)

[GreenIRL]

Cool topic jumper... Very interesting.
I'll be following along

Sent from my POT-LX1 using Tapatalk

[M_C]

Yeah - but outside?

Jumper's doing it artificially in a grow room - worth the experiment, innit?

It's not something I would contemplate... why not just use a lower quality light for a bit? Same thing....

[Herbitual]

It's not something I would contemplate... why not just use a lower quality light for a bit? Same thing....

Because it's 1v1?

Surely (other than genetics) it'd be interesting to see if the shaded one can overtake the other - that'd be worth knowing , non?

[Blue]

Sounds interesting but 81 days on an auto that hasn’t flowered doesn’t sound appealing, I’d sooner be doing photoperiods within those time scales.