Today's heavy yielder Autoflowering cannabis seeds are the evolution from the old-age early strains derived form the cannabis rudelaris in a pure state. Seedbanks have been working on these strains during the last years, making a huge efford to create an evolution of these strains, crossing them with indica, or sativa, strains, to get improved individuals, that increases the yields, quality and taste, and also the effect of autoflowering plants.
The base of all autoflowering strains is cannabis rudelaris. This subspecies from cannabis indica has de characteristics of being non-photoperiod dependant (does not need a certain amount of light hours to grow, or start blooming) what makes them perfect to grow them all year long, indoors and outdoors.
Autoflowering seeds have a short vegetative stage, and a quick flowering phase, freeing the grower from many problems with origin in the growing cycle. Are quick cycle plants, that precise low care to get good results, and that's great for anyone, more experienced or less, to grow them in terraces and balconies.
Evolution of Autoflowering plants
If we take a look to the starting point of developement of autoflowering plants (lowryder), seedbansk have achieved, by crossing and selecting with normal strains, an evolution of these plants that has revolutioned the seed market.
Nowadays we can find 2nd, 3rd and 4th generation automatic cannabis seeds able to reach 1,5 meter height and yields up to 160 grams per plant outdoors, what together with the possibility of being able to grow them all year long, has make many growers choose them as the best option for their gardens.
Vigor of Automatic strains
Another reason for choosing autoflowering strains is it's the vigor these seeds show out. The most common thing is these seeds proud quick, and start to develope doing giant steps, what easies the grower's work, and reduces the quantity of problems notoriously.
Today, specially those autoflowering strains coming from a cross with a sativa plant, will reach a consistent height, that allows them to yield a good aount of high quality buds.
Autoflowering strains with better yields
To identify those automatic strains with better yields, cannabis seedbanks have used names that remind you to those characteristics. Just naming a few of them as an example:
Buddha Seeds Magnum and Deimos
If the grower is looking for a good strain, that produces great amounts of buds, should choose one from the told above. Even though growers won't always reach the seedbank's claimed yields, if the catalogue says a strain has better yields than another form the same seedbank, probably it will bring you better yields.We should understand that a plant's yield depends on many factors (light, nutrients, substrate...) but if we take as a reference the maximum yield said in the catalogue we will know, more or less, what strains are better options.
Best season to grow autoflowering strains
As we said above, autoflowering strains are not photo-dependant, so bigger amount of light they recieve, bigger the yields will be. Outdoors, in northern hemisphere, the best season to seed autoflowering cannabis is between May and August. If we grow autoflowering plants during this season we will get the best results, with plants growing and flowering more vigorous.
Best tips to grow autoflowering seeds
1 Transplants: Unlike normal strains, where transplanting is something recommended to improve the root system, autoflowering plants don't like this technique. In most of the cases where growers transplant automatic plants, these suffer a shock, that decreases its capacities, becoming dwarfs, and yielding a wasting amount of buds. This advice works also to jiffys used to germinate seeds. The best option to germinate seeds its to do it within paper towelsand then placing them in pots once germinated.
2 Pot size and material: Plants, in general, have a different developement depending on the pot size we place the,. In case of Autoflowering plants, specially for all those bigger strains, it is recommended to use 15-20 liter pots. A smaller pot would decrease its yielding possibilities, while bigger one would be a total waste of budget in substrate and fertilizers, because plants won't need it. Container's material are also important. testing different ones we discovered that the best results were got using Smart Pots (fabric pots) that improve not only the yield, also de growth of autoflowering plants.
3 Substrate: Bigger the plant is when starting to flower, larger the yields will be, thus those substrates more spongy and soft, are the best option to adapt to the needings of autoflowering plants. We should notice that this kind of soil has less nutrients than others, but this won't be a problem, since we will feed the plant with nutrients anyway. A lightmix soil, or coco, are th ebest way to success growing autoflowering plants.
4 Root stimulators: The same way we recommend a soft substrate, we also like to highlight that the use of a root booster will increase the yield and the quality from the final crop. Adding a root stimulator to watter use to feed plants along its vegetative stage will turn to larger plants, with a better root system, that will derive in increased nutrient uptake, so bigger yields.
5 Irrigation: Another of the most asked question about plants is the how much water should be used to irrigate. In a previous post we talked about how to water plants that we aim you to read. If we want our plants to grow quicker, it is important to don't overwater them. A good pattern to follow is: Try to substrate to absorb the maximum amount of water, and the wait until de substrate has dried again to water it. This in plain text means that once you put your seedlings in a new soil and water it, it ususally takes 4-5 days to dry (what is important is not if it takes 4, 5, 6 or more days, the thing is to wait until the substrate is dry again). At its early stages seedlings (and plants) don't need a daily irrigation to develop, so we'll save time and water at the same time that we are improving the developement speed of plants. As the weeks pass by we will notice that plants are growing, and also requiring water in shorter periods, so we'll see the substrate dries faster, until a moment when plants probably need to be watered once very two days, or even daily.
6 Nutrients: Although autoflowering plants do not need too much nutrients, they consume a certain amount of growing fertilizer, and also blooming fertilizer. The best option is to use a good quality substrate (that ensures nutrients for early stages of plants), and then, after 15-20 days, start feeding plants with a low dose of growing nutrients, and rise the dose while the weeks pass by (this will keep the plants green and healthy). We should keep the growing fertilizer at least until the first pistils appear and then change it for a flowering fertilizer (we can also use both together along first weeks of flowering if needed). A good tip is to add a good bloom stimulator to plant's schedule. This kind of booster increases flower formation, and derives in thicker buds when harvesting.
7 Pests: Even though the autoflowering strains, due to its quick cycle, usually aren't affected by pests, talking about plants, everything could happen, so all kind of insects, mites and molds can appear, so it is recommended to use something against pest along vegetative stage just to prevent.
8 Indoors: If we grow indoors, the best photoperiod to use is 20 hours of light and 4 hours of darkness. Under this light rithm, plants will increase their yields. We specially recommend using 7 liter pots and 16 plants per sqm or 20 plants in a 120x120.
9 Water: Use a good quality water is a must when you are growing cannabis. If we grow in a bad quality water area, it is recommended to use a reverse osmosis filter system. Using RO water instead of tab water will increase the yield up to 30-40%. Nowadays there are cheap RO filters that can source you with a great quality water for plant's consumption, also for human consumption.
10 Optimal moment to harvest: Seedbanks usually provide data about their strains (like taste, flavour, effect...) and also flowering time of each strain. Talking about Autoflowering strains this data is commontly expressed in days from germination. It is a good method to take this information as a refference, althought not as a 100% confident. Plants can evolve different depending on many factors, so if we want to be sure about the perfect moment to harvest is better to take a look to them, and specially look their trichomes (they turn to amber when mature). The optimal moment to harvest is also important to get a high quality taste and flavour. Take care of plants for almost 3 months, and then harvest 10-15 days before optimal moment is a totally waste of time and effords.
Quickest Autoflowering strains
Some growers, due to their situation, or interests, may need plants that finish their cycle quicker. It is easy to understand that these type of automatic plants won't yield as much as others that maybe take 15 days more to finish or so, but we'll get a good yield in less time. Even though specifications of some seedbanks say 45-50 days to harvest, in our gardens non of them had finished before 8-9 weeks from germination.
Due to this small difference between quickest strains and the ones that produce more (between 2-3 weeks) at SantYerbasi we prefer to recommend the ones that yield more, but if the grower still prefers the quicker ones there are some of them that will bring about 40-70 grams per plant outdoors, in about 2 months.
In our tests, the strains that had overstanded by their results, and also for being quicker are:
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