Every seed catalog you read seems to imply that autoflowers are the ideal choice for novice growers, and most growers that ask themselves the question do not look further into exactly what that implies. The reason why autoflowering cannabis plants are popular among beginners is actually a genetic compromise that makes photoperiodic strains more desirable for the overwhelming majority of home growers, however, and this article explains exactly why.
The fine print of “autoflower”
The genetic basis for autoflowering is ruderalis, a wild cannabis subspecies that has been bred into other cannabis varieties to give them the ability to flower on a timer inherent to ruderalis itself. The practical implication of this is that an autoflower seed does not require the shift from vegetative growth to flowering to be induced by reducing the amount of light delivered to the plant each day, as an autoflower will automatically begin flowering a few weeks into its growth, regardless of its light exposure. This seems to be an advantage to growing an autoflower, as it removes the possibility of accidentally prolonging the vegetative growth period by failing to reduce the amount of daily light. What the “autoflower” label does not indicate, however, is that ruderalis – and by extension, ruderalis hybrids – are generally low-yielding plants that have poor concentrations of cannabinoids and terpenes.
Hybridizers have been working on autoflowering cannabis strains for decades, which has resulted in massive improvements in the qualities of ruderalis hybrids, but one must still remember that every autoflower is a ruderalis hybrid. The combination of traits that makes autoflowers desirable to growers comes at the cost of decreased potency and yield potential, and a loss of flexibility in one’s growing schedule that photoperiodic varieties do not share. Ruderalis genetics are what make autoflowering possible, but those genetics do not come without significant drawbacks. The word “autoflower” itself advertises convenience for the grower, but what it hides is that “it requires a different set of care requirements, some of which are stricter”.
Time is money, but only up to a point
The most obvious argument in favor of autoflowers is the drastic reduction in the time between planting and harvest it enables when compared to growing a photoperiodic strain. An autoflower can indeed be harvested between 8 and 10 weeks after germination, which is a stark contrast to the 12 to 16 weeks it takes to grow a photoperiodic plant from seed to harvest. This apparent difference is what makes many growers – especially the impatient beginners mentioned above – think that autoflowers are superior in almost every regard, but this ignores the advantages of a longer vegetative growth period. A photoperiodic plant that has spent a minimum of four weeks in veg will have a larger overall size than an autoflower, a more robust root system, and a higher yield potential.
While one might consider the extra time spent growing a photoperiodic plant to be an undesirable hurdle, one must compare it to the additional potential yield. An autoflower has a predetermined schedule it must follow, but a photoperiodic plant can be vegetated for as long as the grower wishes, which benefits both the yield and the quality of the resulting harvest. When it comes to time invested in cultivation, autoflowers may indeed have an edge, but when it comes to time devoted to earning money from the harvest, the extra time spent growing a photoperiodic plant pays off in increased yields.
Autoflowers are unforgiving
This is the point at which the “autoflower = easier for beginners” equation begins to fall apart, as growing an autoflower is actually much stricter in several key areas that are particularly relevant to the mistakes of novice growers. Watering mistakes, nutrient errors, pH issues and a variety of other problems occur with surprising regularity among inexperienced growers, but each of these problems has a much more severe impact on an autoflower. A photoperiodic plant that has been watered incorrectly can simply be vegetated for a longer period of time to recover and stabilize, but an autoflower simply cannot recover from errors in its care. The ability to prolong an autoflower’s vegetative growth period is limited by its genetic makeup, and so stress during its early growth stages will affect its flowering period, resulting in a lower yield.
One could prolong an autoflower’s flowering period in an attempt to compensate for its slowed growth, but this will only yield mediocre results at best. If one makes a mistake when growing an autoflower, there is no opportunity to correct it by prolonging its vegetative growth period. This dynamic places much greater emphasis on the precision of one’s care for an autoflower, while a photoperiodic plant has much more leniency in its care schedule. Autoflowers may be “easier for beginners”, but their “difficulty” is much more punishing to common mistakes.
Pruning, training and shaping the canopy
The ability to train one’s plant is one of the most important tools a grower has at their disposal, and a ruderalis hybrid simply cannot be trained like a photoperiodic plant. Pruning, low-stress training (LST) and SCROG netting are all techniques used to manipulate the plant’s shape so that it can occupy the grow space more efficiently, and they all rely on the plant’s ability to withstand stress and recover from it. The whole point of these techniques is to manipulate the plant’s growth pattern to make it bushier and more uniform, so that it can better utilize available light, but this can only be done if the plant has been vegetated for long enough afterwards for the recovery period following these interventions.
This is not an issue for photoperiodic growers, who can intervene at any point during the vegetative growth period and prolong that period afterwards if needed, but an autoflower has a shorter and predetermined vegetative growth period. This means that autoflowers cannot recover from stressful interventions as effectively as photoperiodic plants, limiting one’s ability to intervene in their growth pattern. LST and similar techniques are indeed viable with autoflowers, but one must use much lighter interventions to accommodate their shorter growth schedule. The ability to shape and train one’s plant is yet another area in which photoperiodic varieties are much more desirable for growers who wish to maximize their yields.
Clones, or growing from seed?
The ability to clone a plant is one of the most sought-after advantages offered by photoperiodic strains, but ruderalis hybrids simply cannot be cloned reliably. Taking a cutting from an autoflower will not give one a young plant, because an autoflower that has begun flowering will not revert back to vegetative growth no matter what one does. This means that every autoflower seed represents a unique plant, and so one must be much more careful when germinating autoflower seeds. If one wants to clone a photoperiodic plant, however, they can take cuttings from it at any point during its vegetative growth period and provide those cuttings with the care they need to turn them into young plants. A single worthwhile phenotype can be turned into an entire generation of identical plants simply by taking cuttings from it and cloning them, ensuring a consistent harvest every time one grows cannabis.
The ability to clone one’s plants is an obvious advantage for growers that want to maximize their yields, but it is also much more important for growers who use training techniques discussed earlier, as clones can be trained much more easily than plants grown from seeds. It is not just the yields that matter when cloning is possible, but the consistency of those yields as well, which is yet another reason why photoperiodic strains are much more desirable despite their longer growth schedule.
Understanding what one reads on seed packets
Once one decides which category of cannabis plants they are interested in – autoflowers or photoperiodic plants – one must learn how to interpret what one reads on the tiny bags and vials that contain them.
If one knows that they will only have the resources or the space to grow one batch of plants at a time, then one should make sure to buy feminized seeds, because there is no point in wasting time and resources on plants that will not produce flower if one has only one grow cycle to work with. One must remember that feminized seeds simply mean that the breeder has worked to ensure that almost all the seeds in the package will grow into female plants, as opposed to regular seeds that have an equal chance of resulting in male or female plants. Male plants are undesirable in almost all cases, because they do not produce flower, but they also waste space if one wants to grow plants for their flowers. The combination of feminized and photoperiodic seeds are what make CG Australia’s feminized seed range so desirable for growers that only want to grow one batch at a time, as those growers can avoid wasting time, energy and space on male plants while still being able to utilize the advantage of control over one’s plants’ growth schedules offered by photoperiodic plants.
If one does not only want to grow one batch of plants at a time, one should make sure to acquire regular seeds instead, as those seeds have a 50% chance of yielding a male plant and a 50% chance of yielding a female plant. The ability to sex one’s plants is obviously desirable for breeders, but growers that do not want to waste space on male plants and still want to grow regular – as opposed to feminized – autoflower seeds simply have no viable option other than to risk an equal chance of obtaining a male or a female plant with each seed they use. There are obviously advantages to growing from regular seeds, but they only apply to people who want to engage in breeding or who want to have access to male plants for reasons besides producing pollen.
Indica, sativa and ruderalis refer to cannabis subspecies, which is a classification that mostly determines the plant’s structure and effects (with ruderalis having been largely bred out of modern autoflowering strains). These designations are largely useful for growers who want to know how tall their plant is going to grow or what kind of effects they are going to experience when they consume it, but nobody is strictly required to have that knowledge in order to grow a plant.
Yield potential, potency and terpene concentration are the most important characteristics of one’s plants, but most people who use regular, feminized or autoflower seeds forget about the obvious importance of choosing when one intends to harvest their plants.
Photoperiodic growers have the ability to stagger their harvests and prolong the flowering period of an individual plant by manipulating its light exposure, which makes it much easier to maintain a perpetual grow with a consistent harvest schedule. Autoflowers, on the other hand, have a predetermined lifespan that determines when they will begin flowering and when they will stop, which makes it impossible to prolong an autoflower’s flowering period the way one would prolong a photoperiodic plant’s flowering period by adding more light. Each autoflower seed represents an individual plant with its own growth schedule, which means that those plants will begin flowering on different dates depending on when they have been planted, and so it is much more difficult to keep a perpetual grow with autoflowers. Some autoflowers are much faster than others, which also complicates things, because some of one’s plants may have finished flowering long before others have even started.
If one grows photoperiodic plants, one can simply stagger the beginning of one’s plants’ flowering periods to ensure that one’s harvests are consistent. This becomes much more difficult when growing autoflowers, because each of one’s plants will have its own flowering schedule. If one uses cloning techniques to maintain a perpetual grow with an identical set of plants, this disadvantage disappears. A photoperiodic grow with cuttings is much easier to manage when it comes to ensuring a perpetual yield with a consistent harvest schedule, and can be much more rewarding in terms of potential yield, as well.
Where autoflowers make sense
This is not to say autoflowers are not desirable to some growers, because the advantages they offer cannot just be ignored. The ability to grow an autoflower indoors under the radar is much more convenient for stealth growers than trying to hide a tall photoperiodic plant indoors. Autoflowers simply consume much less vertical space and much less time than photoperiodic plants, which is obviously an advantage in certain circumstances. Autoflowers also allow one to turn a batch of plants into a finished, ready-to-harvest yield much faster, which can be useful for growers that want to complete a single harvest as soon as possible. Some growers also prefer to work under 24/0 or close to 24/0 light schedules, and so a ruderalis hybrid that does not require the light schedule to be altered can be much more convenient to work with than a photoperiodic plant. Autoflowers have their advantages, and so one should consider them carefully before deciding that photoperiodic plants are definitely the superior choice.
The actual conclusion
Photoperiodic cultivation is much more flexible and much more rewarding for the majority of home growers, especially the majority of novice growers who are likely to make some of the mistakes outlined above. An autoflower grower does not have the option to prolong their plants’ flowering periods to improve their yields or make adjustments to their plants to correct previous mistakes, and they cannot stagger their harvests in order to maintain a perpetual grow with a consistent harvest schedule. The ability to clone one’s plants, to train them and to control when they will be harvested is much more important to most growers than the ability to skip a step in one’s growing schedule and harvest sooner. A photoperiodic grower can recover from a wide variety of problems much more easily than an autoflower grower, which makes photoperiodic strains much more desirable for most growers.
Growers should interpret what they read on seed packets with this information in mind, as those tiny packets do not just list marketing buzzwords for growers to interpret. The words “autoflower” and “feminized” advertised by some growers may seem like much more desirable options to the unprepared buyer, but they mask other information that can help most growers understand why photoperiodic strains can be much more desirable options. Most photoperiodic strains can yield much more flower per square meter than ruderalis hybrids, even autoflowering ruderalis hybrids that have been greatly improved by decades of selective breeding.
