Featuring Frosted Watermelon Autoflower from Mosca Seeds
Autoflowering cannabis plants from seed can be in dirt for as little as three weeks before they start putting on their first flowers! Take a look at these magnificent little autos that we are running for a soil study:
These little autos were barely 4 weeks from germination when these photos were taken.
The overly vigorous girlies are thanks to the excellent DNC Great Lakes Water Only soil that we used, but even the plants in the “regular” water only soil had begun flowering at 4 weeks.
We love this soil for a whole lot of reasons, but we have to give an extra shout out to our fellow Michigan small business.
Buy Local to support your community!
The benefits to autoflowering plants are numerous. First and foremost is the easy breezy grow cycle that requires very little attention from the grower! They are quick - each autoflowering strain has a designated number of days until they finish, and it's never very long! On average, these strains take about 10 weeks from germination to harvest. So in 2 and a half months, you go from seed to harvest! This is in comparison to photoperiod strains that need significant time in their vegetative state (from several weeks to several months) followed by several more weeks or months in flower.
The yields on these strains often tend to be less than their photoperiod counterparts, but with a 10 week turnaround, you could generate as much or more flower from the autoflowering strains as you could with photoperiod strains.
At one time, autoflowering strains had a bad rep. People said these strains were less potent, produced less, and were just too picky when it came to regular cannabis plant maintenance.
All of these myths have their roots buried in the very beginnings of autoflowering strains. One of the first, and most popular autoflowering strains is the original Lowrider. This strain was CBD heavy, and was not bred to be a large producer. It was the perfect strain for a medical patient wanting to keep their grow indoor and low key. Unfortunately, this led to some false assumptions about autoflowers as a whole.
Autoflowering strains are just as diverse as photoperiod strains, and thus, you can shop for a high THC strain like Gorilla Cookies from 420 Fastbuds, which tests near 27% THC.
Or you can shop for a large producer like Critical Neville Haze from Delicious Seeds which regularly produces 600gr/m2 of flower!
There is some truth in the common lore about these stains being more finicky than photoperiod strains. Because of their unique “timed” nature, these plants don’t want to spend any of their valuable flowering time recovering from normal plant adjustments. So if you are going to transplant her, trick her into thinking you have not. You can do this by putting her in the same type of growing medium as she is already in, transplanting her before her dark period, and while the growing medium/soil you are transplanting into should be nice semi-saturated with water, the soil she is currently in should be dry.
Do your research before topping! Some auto strains take well to topping - mainly sativa dominant strains, but many indicas do not like to be topped.
As a rule, autoflowering plants just want to be left alone. They know what they are about, and the regular trimming and pampering us growers like to put our plants through are not necessary for autos. This makes them great for beginners and low maintenance growers alike. So long as we can restrain our busy fingers from pinching and pruning!
We did a “worst case scenario” run on a Frosted Guava Auto Fem plant to see how prolific the plant could be under the worst conditions we could reasonably imagine. The plant was in a 7 gallon pot with 2 other plants, in recycled dirt, and received nothing but water and some “tea” over the course of its grow.
She was planted after germination on September 23rd, and by December 1st, she looked like this!
This is a pretty average size for an auto to grow into, though the worst case scenario definity stunted her a little. She also didn’t produce as much as she could have if we had treated her like the princess she is, but we were still very pleased with the results.
The stunning red and orange colors that you see here in the pictures indicate just how close to harvest she was when these photos were taken.
We will post a true and honest review of the smokability of this auto after she has cured for a while. After all, just like fine wine, weed needs some time to settle into its terpene profile for the best smoking experience.
Overall, we think autoflowering strains are an excellent choice for a simple, quick grow! It is a different experience than growing photoperiod plants, but they have their own merit as a flavorful, potent finished product.