now in your comparison using less power in 12/12 clones vs 24/0 you also have to account for your mother/clone room in your power usage
Well, to be clear, I didn't say you used less energy running clones 12/12. I said that even though autos finish faster, you don't save on energy because they use more hours of light per day.
Of course if you want to accurately tally your energy use, you have to include everything, including ventilation. In practice, a cloning table and a mother plant don't take much energy. Clones can be run literally 8 to a square foot under cheap low intensity fluorescent lighting, and a mother is just one plant that doesn't take much lighting or space either.
Ultimately, unless you happen to be growing in a place where energy is astronomically expensive, I don't think these small differences will matter. Even if autos did take a little more energy per gram, if they provided a higher yield per unit time or per square foot, or some other advantage, it would probably be worth it.
now as far as comparing growth of 12/12 clones vs autos are you not going to count the 2 weeks of rooting the clones??
Its a good question, and no you don't count the time necessary to root the clones (or the time necessary to veg the mother!).
You don't because the clones are rooting while your main crop is growing, and therefore they don't add any extra calendar time to the grow cycle. The clones for crop two are ready to go into flowering the second you make space in the grow area after harvesting crop one.
if not, don't count the 2-3 weeks the autos are vegging before they start to bud..lol..
You have to count that time if (and only if) it adds to the calendar days of the grow cycle. If you're running from seeds at the beginning of each grow cycle, then you'd have to count it.
Alternatively, if you didn't mind transplanting them, you could start your seeds three weeks before harvest in a separate "seedling table" somewhat like a cloning area. The seed table would have to be a little larger than a comparable cloning area, since you'd have to accommodate for true vegetative growth and a certain percentage of male seedlings to be culled later. Plus the lighting would have to be more intense. But the general idea would be the same. Anyway, right after your main crop was harvested, the seedlings would be ready to move into the flowering area, and would themselves be ready in only five weeks.
5 weeks is probably about as rapid a turnaround as you can get growing the plant. I think the fastest conventional strains still take about 6-7 weeks.
transplanting autos are not really a problem if you use a deep pot to start they just keep on growing...I know some people say don't but I have never had any problems with any of my 3 auto strains transplanting, I use large plastic drink cups from McD's until sexing can start about 28 or so in 1 plastic tub and kill the males at 2 weeks by 3 there in there final pots...start a new batch at week 5 and by the time there 3 weeks old and sexed you harvest the 1st batch...I harvest 14 plants 1 to 1-1/2oz each every 5 weeks with one small box and one light can't do that with clones/mothers...
So you basically are doing what I described above, only your "seed table" is under the same light as the main grow? Pretty slick. . .that's worth a rep.
Mind if I ask a few questions about your setup?
-What sort of lighting are you using for your 14 plants and seedlings, and how big is the overall grow space (height too)?
-What strains do you like for this? Why do you like them? How tall do they get at harvest? What's the final pot size?
-Are there any other auto strains have you tried that you didn't like? Why didn't you like them?
and sure mother plants open up a whole bunch of advantages for a grower but by the same token so do autos...I bet if you polled everyone on this site less then 30% keep a mother and clone..sure the bigger fish do, but most people are "closet" growers and don't..anyway enough rambling..
It depends mostly on what you're trying to do.
Mother/clone setups are really more suited for serious/pro grow ups where you want to grow large numbers of the same strain again and again. As you say, I don't think most small "personal use" closet/cabinet type growers are interested in that. They're also useful for maintaining "elite" lines where seeds are unavailable.
I think you've convinced me if you're trying to maximize absolute yield per unit time from a small space, you've basically done that with your autoflower sea-of-green. I guess the disadvantages to this sort of setup are that its labor intensive and you're going to burn through an awful lot of seeds.
Presumably you make your own seeds, so that's not that big of a deal. If you wanted to, you could probably devise an automated watering system or run hydroponically to reduce the hand labor,, though maybe watering 14 tiny plants every 2nd or 3rd day isn't that big of a deal.
With a slightly longer cycle time, comparing to a small sea of green with clones is really going to come down to quality and yield per plant. Even if autos can yield more product in the same time, they'd also have to be better quality to be an unequivocal winner.