The breeding of auto flowering strains of cannabis plants is constantly becoming more and more popular.
New strains and autoflowering hybrid seeds are appearing on the market rapidly but why are these seeds so popular, and how are these new breeds being created.
At the most basic level autoflowering cannabis seeds should be able to grow into fully flowering plants in far more lenient conditions than cannabis plants typically require. While normally growing a marijuana plant will require extremely well regulated lighting, generally beginning with around 18 hours of light and 6 hours of dark at the same times every day during the vegetative stage and shifting to 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark (to trick the plant into thinking it’s autumn) to induce the flowering stage.
An auto flowering seed however should be able to grow in constant light, and will not require any changes to the set up in order to kick start the flowering process. This is a much more simple process, which gives beginners a far higher success rate.
When growing an autoflowering seed the grower simply needs to plant the seed, leave it in a position where it has constant, 24 hours a day light and make sure that the soil is kept moist by regularly watering it. As well as being less hassle care for, auto flowering plants will typically be ready for harvest in a relatively short space of time.
The flowering stage should kick in after 3-5 weeks depending on the type of seed that has been used and the conditions it has grown in. When the initial signs of flowering are detected all that the grower has to do is change the light bulb to a flowering bulb which will help the process along. After this it will be roughly two further weeks before the plant is ready to harvest.
A lot of breeders are currently trying to create new and hybrid strains of cannabis seeds that will auto flower. The most common method of achieving this is by growing an established auto flowering male plant and cross breeding it with any other female plant. Initially this will produce a very low percentage of auto flowering seeds, but constantly inbreeding these seeds will yield higher and higher numbers of auto flowering seeds.
By: Alistair Summers
