G13 Labs Auto AK can put me to sleep after ONE bowl. Auto Seeds Trans Siberian will put you on your butt. Dinafem Auto White Widow? Smelly, STICKY, stinky, medicating (according to my Mrs with fibromyalgia.) Had some Freedom of Seeds White Goblin (Ak47 crossed with White Widow,) was some fire looking bud and awesome smoke.
My point is there are some AWESOME auto strains out there that are really potent. To those that argue that photos are stronger; I won't 100% disagree but I do think that's a hardcore blanket statement. There are a lot of companies that produce autos that haven't been grown by growers on AFN yet; I just think you can't say something is 100% when 50% of it hasn't even been grown or documented yet
If you are looking for commercial viability; then treat it like it's a business. Write up a rough business plan. Figure out your overhead. I don't sell commercially (or at all for that fact,) but every grow I come up with a Return On Investment (ROI) plan; it's an estimate on how much I've spent on electricity, nutrients, and grow stuff for that particular grow, then when I harvest I get my dry weight and determine what I would have had to pay street price if I had bought it all myself. I've saved THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS in the past year even after expenses.
I think one of the problems with growing autos vs photos commercially is that you have one plant that can be grown practically indefinitely (the photo strain,) and the other is pretty much born with a predisposition to die (the auto.) Like the others have stated; once you have a cloning/veg area for photos; there's no better way to replicate your bud production. I personally can attest to this; I grew some photos on my last grow and successfully cloned 5 (out of 12) cuttings! One plant turned into 5 new plants; and yes it did take a good 10 days to root but once they did; not only did I have a new plant; I had new plants that were sexually mature and over 2 months old. Little more than a "head start" on seedlings.
And I'll tell you flat out; after growing 20+ plants on my last auto grow; it's a TON OF WORK. Like your evenings? Not any more you don't. Like your weekends? Not any more you don't. You're going to be spending so much time tweaking, training, watering, worrying, etc. It's a labor of love, don't get me wrong. But do understand what you're undertaking here.
