My auto is about 5 weeks old and has been flowering for about a week now. Problem is that I see no evidence of trichs forming and I've looked with a loop. I did a search to see how soon trichs begin to show after flowering begins but I just keep coming up with general flowering info. Does anyone know what to expect in regards to trich formation in an autos life-cycle?
There is no difference in timing of trichome production between autos and reg plants.
The answer to your question is that you're too early.
Very few plants start making trichomes the first week or two of flowering, and early trichomes aren't fully formed yet, anyway.
Give this another 2-3 weeks and go back and take another look and I think you'll be satisfied that trichs are forming.
For the ones saying "ruderalis genetics", the fact is that ruderalis plants share about 95%+ of their genetics with ALL other cannabis plants, including wild hemp plants, cultivated hemp plants, indica and sativa-type drug strains.
Of course there are bad auto strains out there, but the better of the commercial autoflowers have been inbred with conventional drug strains now to the point where they retain minimal/negligible genetics from ruderalis plants. So its a mistake to lump modern drug auto strains with wild hemp ruderalis, when clearly they're not the same.