The Popularity of Auto Flowering Strains?

I keep reading how auto-flowering strains are becoming extremely popular in Canada and Europe. Why is this? I don't understand the advantages of these and seems like it would be more of a hassle than anything.

I can understand why it would be appealing to noobs who don't want to mess with changing the photocycle, or don't have the space for a veg room- but what other advantages can be had? There must be something I am not seeing, why do I keep reading how they are becoming so popular in places other than America?

Also, how do these things even work? How does one breed a strain into an auto-flower?

the strains are cross bred with autoflowering ditch weed. This creates a cross that should hopefully autoflower while retaining most of the qualities of the good cannabis.

that is a very simplistic explanation, but it is the basics.

The one significant advantage I'm aware of is being able to harvest outdoors early in the growing season.

epicseeds said:

I keep reading how auto-flowering strains are becoming extremely popular in Canada and Europe. Why is this? I don't understand the advantages of these and seems like it would be more of a hassle than anything.

I can understand why it would be appealing to noobs who don't want to mess with changing the photocycle, or don't have the space for a veg room- but what other advantages can be had? There must be something I am not seeing, why do I keep reading how they are becoming so popular in places other than America?

Also, how do these things even work? How does one breed a strain into an auto-flower?

Click to expand...

An Autoflower plant is a normal ses plant sativa/indica that has been crossed with a ruderails.
A ruderails is a plant that is found in europe, canada and russia in climates where the plants flower very early.
The crosses then flower regardless of amount of light (to a certain extent).

The benefits of it is simply that it can be planted very early and multiple grows done when the temperatures are high enough.
Extremely popular in europe due to short summers and often very cold and wet autumns so other strains just dont make it.

Well...atleast thats my take on it.

Ok, so it seems that its only real applicable use is outdoors?

indoors out doors it grows anywhere anytime without regard to light schedule.
But you cant clone it, you cant get a good yield and it is less favorable (IMO) to regular photoperiod plants.

But its like Miracle Grow, some people love it and some dont.

Now that there are some real AF pros around RIU, all these myths that go around about autos are going to be put to rest.

I also don't understand why the rookie growers flock to autos, you can really fuck them up and there is no time to fix them. I am using them for outdoor growing. I also like to chuck some in my veg cab for some thing different. Outdoors if you have a good season you can get 3 harvests in. That was hard to get done without hoop huts previously.

The mexican rudi used in the orig lowryder cross came from a strain collector from mexico. Who is now passed away. It wasn't from some ditch weed... That is what JDr. claims.. Others think it is a cross of FinX an auto hemp. Lets get some facts out there.. What ever the plant was, most breeders are working away from orig lowryder phenos.

It isn't easy to make an auto strain, once you wrap your head around the process you see that auto breeders spend alot more time on a strain then most photo sensative breeders do. If you are truely interested in learning, i can get into a bit, about making your own. It would just be easyer to buy some beans and grow some one elses hard work.

Bh.

its nice to have one or two autos while your vegging your normal strains if you dont have a perpetual harvest going

The main advantage to me is you get seed to smoke in 60 days without a stringent 12/12 flowering schedule. They are small and less nute demanding. Perfect for CFL grows. Don't slam autos, they have their purpose IMO. Acceptable potency too.

Canada and Europes grow scenes are all about the sea of green. They're thinking is that when growing indoors, a sea of green with autoflowering plants has the quickest turnaround and the best yield. Pretty sound to me. Look at the nutrient feeding schedules for products from Canada i.e. Nutriplus. It is a 2 week veg period before the flip, which is about how long the autos take to start flowering.