How to make autoflowering Cannabis seeds?
Autoflowering strains flower quickly and automatically, depending only on their biological clocks, unlike photoperiod strains, which require a change in the light-dark cycle to begin flowering.
To make autoflowering seeds, you need to crossbreed a female non-autoflowering Cannabis plant and a male Cannabis ruderalis strain. Once your male Cannabis plants’ pollen sacs start to develop, you need to keep them away from other plants. When sacs open, place a plastic zip-lock bag over them and shake it gently until pollens are all inside the bag.
Two weeks after your female Cannabis plants develop their white pistil, you can proceed to pollination by placing the plastic zip-lock bag with pollens inside over the pistils’ stem. Then, shake it gently around the stem and pistil. After two hours, you will need to shake it once more before removing the bag.
After some weeks, you will see that seeds will grow in your female Cannabis plants – your autoflowering seeds!
How to make autoflowering seeds?
What are autoflowering Cannabis seeds?
Today, growers are fond of autoflowering seeds. They are simple to grow. Most cultivators grow autoflowering seeds since they do not have to worry about light cycles or how much light a plant receives.
After 2–4 weeks of growth, autoflowering cannabis seeds create plants that blossom independently from their light cycle. Growers do not have to modify the light schedule to start and induce and maintain the flowering stage.
What makes Cannabis seeds autoflowering?
Crossbreeding indica or sativa plants with ruderalis strains produces autoflowering strains. Ruderalis is a wild Cannabis subtype that develops in short summers but many daylight hours (e.g., Northern Europe or Siberia). Instead of flowering when the days are getting shorter at the end of summer, these plants have evolved to flower according to their biological clock.
What are the advantages of growing Cannabis from autoflowering seeds?
The main advantage of growing Cannabis from autoflowering seeds is that you do not have to adjust the light schedule to start and maintain the flowering stage of your Cannabis Plants. But there are even more reasons to grow Cannabis from autoflowering seeds.
Varied Cannabis Strains
If you grow outdoors and live in a region that only works for very few photoperiod cannabis strains due to short summers, growing autoflowering cannabis strains will give you access to much more strains.
Easy to Setup
If you want to cultivate marijuana the traditional way, you’ll need to separate your plants in the vegetative and flowering stage into growing rooms with the respective light cycles. You only need one grow room with autoflowering Cannabis.
If you’re growing conventional photoperiodic Cannabis, you’ll need to ensure your grow space is well-sealed against the light. If this is breached, it will be disastrous. On the other hand, a light leakage does not affect the flowering stage of your autoflower Cannabis as severely.
Fast Blooming Plant
There are autoflowering strains that flower in just five weeks. With a 2-4-week vegetative stage thrown in, a strain could be grown from seed to harvest in just seven weeks. As a result, you will be able to reap many harvests each year.
Stealthy Growing
While autoflowering strains are becoming more diverse, versions that grow to about 40-50cm are still available. As a result, they can be grown in a closet, a tent, or even a balcony. If the grass is tall enough, you might potentially hide such a plant in a distant field. Furthermore, auto flowers do not require a support system to keep long branches from bending or breaking.
Unnecessary Light Adjustment
It is not necessary to switch to a 12-hour light cycle. As a result, if you like, you can follow a regular lighting schedule all year. If you consider this possibility, you can cultivate autoflowering plants at different stages in the same space, given that your grow lights light spectra are suited for the vegetative and flowering stages.
What are the disadvantages of growing Cannabis from autoflowering seeds?
Despite their advantages, autoflowering seeds come with their drawbacks. As a novice grower, you also need to learn about this to set proper expectations in the long run.
Smaller Harvest Yield
The yield difference between autoflower Cannabis and photoperiod plants has shortened drastically. Some auto types generate more buds than low-yielding photoperiod plants at this time. An autoflowering strain, on the other hand, yields less on average.
An example is the Super Critical Cannabis strain. This strain offers up to 29 ounces (800 grams) per square meter. However, the auto-flowering version may only produce up to 23 ounces (650 grams) of Cannabis.
Poor Quality of Clones
Autoflowers, unfortunately, do not create high-quality clones. Clones inherit the same age as the mother plant since they are identical copies.
Consider the case of a grower who took a clipping from a two-week-old mother plant. It means the clone will only have 5–6 weeks to vegetate, flower, and develop.
The ultimate consequence will be an undeveloped plant that has not even completed the flowering phase or much less grown to a reasonable size before the life cycle is over.
How to make autoflowering seeds at home?
If you are one of the many newcomers to this fascinating seed variety, we have put up a quick guide to help you get started making your autoflowering Cannabis seeds at home.
Step 1. You need to select a female non-autoflowering Cannabis plant, either indica or sativa strain, and a male Cannabis ruderalis strain, an naturally autoflowering variety, for crossbreeding.
Step 2. Keep your male Cannabis plant isolated away from your female and other plants once it begins to develop its pollen sacs.
Step 3. Use a plastic zip-lock bag over the sac of your male Cannabis plant once the sacs open. Then, shake it until the pollens are inside the plastic zip-lock bag.
Step 4. Moving to your female Cannabis plants, two weeks after it develops its white pistil, it is now ready for pollination. To do this, put your plastic zip-lock bag with pollen over the female pistils’ stem and shake it gently around the stem and pistils.
Step 5. Two hours later, shake the plastic zip-lock bag again before removing the bag. After a few weeks, seeds will grow in your female Cannabis plants, and you now have your autoflowering seeds.
What is selective breeding?
If you want to start breeding your strain, you will need to put in more effort and attention. Selective breeding allows you to isolate the desired characteristics from the rest of the plants. Plants with the most potent smells, fastest development, or optimal size, for example, may be chosen.
The chosen plants will then be kept entirely separate from other plants. Pollination will be performed in a safe environment such as a grow tent or a different room, with extreme care given to prevent pollen from entering the breeding space coming from external sources.
The mother and father plants do not have to be the same strain, but if you want to keep the line going, use sibling parents, and the seeds produced should result in plants with the desired features. The fantastic results usually appear after 3 or 4 generations. It takes time, but it is well worth the effort.