Stltoed
Well-Known Member
What a great explaination! Thanks. I've never grown an auto. I've thought about it, even had a couple strains I wanted to try... Shiznit, Think Big, or maybe a strain that I've grown as a photoperiod. But I'm a pussy, so I'm not sure if I'll ever try one.Hey everybody...
please take a seat and pass those doobies around because today's class is all about Autoflowers! I'll try and keep it to a minimum and just the basics but if you have any questions feel free to ask.
So the obvious question to start with is what is an autoflower? In a nutshell autoflowering plants are plants that begin to flower when the plant has reached a certain phase of development. There is no triggering of this event and it's a natural process that occurs when the plant is ready. This is opposed to photoperiod flowering, in which the plant begins to flower after the summer solstice. For inside growers this means your light schedule changes to 12/12, meaning 12 hours of lights followed by 12 hours of complete darkness.
So where do autoflowers come from? Autoflowers come from feminized seeds. Although you can clone an autoflower by taking a small branch from a mother and letting it grow under a 24 hour light cycle, feminized seeds are the preferred method. Clones will usually produce lower yields than the mothers.
So let's talk about feminized seeds for a bit. Feminized seeds will always produce a female plant, which is the type of plant that produces the psychoactive cannabis flower that we all love.
Autoflowering seeds are particularly useful in northern climates, which have long summer days. Once the nights become long enough to trigger flowering, the rain and frost soon follow. This means that many photoperiod plants fail to develop full flowers before the cold arrives.
Autoflowering seeds also have some advantage indoors for those who enjoy sativas. These plants are generally small, compact, and can handle a wider range of grow environments. Sativas, on the contrary, are tall plants with a long flowering period. By starting with autoflowering sativa seeds it makes it easier to grow these wily plants indoors.
Most indica plants are also short and perform well indoors regardless of whether or not you start with autoflowering seeds.
But how does a autoflower plant come from a feminized seed?
One particular species of cannabis has made autoflowering seeds possible. The often overlooked Cannabis ruderalis is mixed with Sativa and Indica varieties to create autoflowering versions of some of the most popular strains.
Cannabis ruderalis is native to Russia and has developed unique adaptations to the cold environment. Ruderalis plants are very small, only growing up to two feet high. Unlike the psychoactive varieties of cannabis, ruderalis plants produce very few cannabinoids. They also automatically mature in seven weeks, regardless of photoperiod.
Seeds today are indica or sativa stains crossed with a ruderalis variety and bred over multiple generations. The autoflowering genetics are recessive, meaning that it takes quite some time to develop autoflowering varieties of strains. The result is either a psychoactive or high-CBD strain that will begin to bud on its own, regardless of the available light.
So what's the bottom line?
Of course there are several things to consider when running autos. New growers think that autos are easier to run because the wording auto is often misleading and the grower thinks everything will take care of itself. New growers should start with photos simply for the fact if they encounter issues during vegetative growth the problem can be fixed before flowering begins.
Yields from autoflowering plants tend to be slightly less. On the high end, some autoflowering cannabis seeds can yield up to 150 grams per plant, though the average is somewhere in the double digits.
Autoflowering plants should be in their final home as soon as possible and feeding should begin within a few days of being above the soil. Of course that is another topic altogether and this was mainly to give an understanding of what an autoflower is.
Class dismissed!
I noticed you recommend a dark period. Do you see much of a benefit if you run them like that over straight 24 hours? I've messed with the off period to see if the plants would ripen faster, but I had nothing to compare it to, so that didnt work haha.
Thank you again for auto school. " I brought my pencil" that was my best David Lee Roth impersonation. It's one of my super powers
