I started with 2 regular seeds and kept the 1 female. I'm outdoors in about 40 gallons of soil. I'm in the southwest and its very dry and bright. The kc is not plagued with pests or disease it just looks super shitty. It sprouted march 10th and this is nearly 4 months now and still no buds. It's definitely female but where you would expect to see buds there's just clumps of little mutant dwarf leaves. it has some pistils you can see the white hairs here and there. It is other wise healthy. I have never had autoflowers grow well outdoors don't waste your time.
So this is why you are not seeing production.
1. Auto flowers need at least 18 hours of daylight for thriving conditions. With 24 hours being preferred.
2. The South West U.S. only gets a max of like 13 hours of daylight at it's peak. Less I think as you head south. It is also hot and arid. Which I believe auto flowers are NOT a fan of.
3. Auto flower genetics are terribly unstable. It is very common to get seeds that do not actually use the auto flowering gene, yet they carry it and pass it on to their offspring. Would you want to ever have a bag of seeds that could be auto flowering or photo period specimen? Sounds like our gene pool IS getting fucked up.
4. Odd growth on auto flowers in my opinion are because they're used to way more light or just confused. Could you imagine being a plant using the photo period gene but also in need of 24 hours of light? (I'm not saying this is even possible, but back to point 3. Auto flowers are unstable as hell and much is still unknown.)
As you stated they flat out don't grow well outside or without controlled light. It's sad and pathetic and I am now an advocate against these crosses.