beginner advice

Don't do an auto for your 1st grow. You don't get mistakes. A mistake can cause you to have a 3 gram grow. I've seen it. I've had grows as low as 20g from mistakes with autos. Do a fem. And it'll give your weeks off training. Topping lst growing it out in any shape. (Keeping an even energy between sets of nodes is best) lollipop . A lot of that you can't do with an auto or if you do you run the risk for getting NO YIELD.

Second on don't grow auto. Photo is much more forgiving. Auto is that you must be exactly right on the first time. It is way better than to grow from photo. Pick a strain that had been reviewed as easy to grow. Don't go for high THC . These days, weeds are so strong. 15% THC will knock most people out. If it is not strong enough, light up another one. Growing your own will give you more weed than you can smoke.

Don't grow autos..........photoperiod fems are far, far better for beginners!

don't worry about photoperiod or auto as far as learning. you'll actually have more room for error learning with a photoperiods, but if you already have auto seeds on the way, that's fine too. i'd suggest doing very few things other than the basics. Learn a good baseline before adding gimmicks and expensive products. You'll see most of them are bullshit promises made to effectively separate you from your money. e.g. let a plant grow naturally before bothering to do a ton of training. Maybe some training to get an even canopy is fine to do at first, but even that is a minor benefit. Won't effect overall yield much but does give you greater proportion of decent or better bud quality, because it promotes a more even distribution of resources. Canopy size and amount of light (DLI) is what matters most for yield. the rest mostly results in different distirubtion of bud quality across canopy. check out cocoforcannabis guides and articles. The least amount of bro-science you'll find just about anywhere offering growing guides. Read about Daily Light Integral (DLI) to properly get the gist of light. It's a rate of photons.. hours of operation is only half the story and meaningless on its own. You don't have to memorize the math, but understanding it will avoid a ton of nonsense beliefs peddled by people that don't know any better. Can reference DLI tables. No memorization or advanced math needed. Keep it simple. Learn to do things competently, first. See what results you get form that, then do new things one at at ime to properly evaluate what it adds, or does not add. that's the best way to avoid the 'magic' and nonsense that permeates this subculture

Wish you good luck on your first grow

Less is more! Water and light. They will grow regardless. Research the discord

I was going to put very similar to asnoriu. Photoperiod are more forgiving then autos.

autos are harder to grow, consumes more resources, produce less. for pro - autos are easy, but unpredictable, but autos are not easy for beginners. fact.