Automatic marijuana seeds have become one of the more in-demand types of seeds on the market today. This is because of how marijuana has increased in terms of usage in the past few years as more and more regions are now beginning to see its positive effects.
And because of the increase in the demand for cannabis, it might not be surprising for dispensaries to run out of the good stuff from time to time. This has led to certain users to become growers of their own marijuana plants.
If you are a grower or are planning on becoming one, you can certainly benefit from planting autoflowering seeds regardless of whether you are growing cannabis plants for profit or for personal use. These seeds certainly are a wonder in today’s society as the cannabis industry has seen a sharp increase in the demand for autoflowering marijuana seeds.
Related Cannabis Blogs
Automatic Marijuana Seeds: What are they?
We often associated marijuana strains with the two main species of cannabis: Indica and Sativa. As you might already know, Indica strains are smaller types of cannabis plants that have sedating effects. Meanwhile, sativas are the ones that are usually massive and have a mentally invigorating effect.
However, there is actually one more species of marijuana. Called cannabis ruderalis, these plants originate in cold northern climates with shorter days and less sunlight. Summers are usually just as short as well, which means that these regions do not always get a lot of lot.
Despite those factors, cannabis ruderalis has managed to survive and even adapt to its climate and environment. The prolonged absence of light has allowed this type of marijuana plant to develop an ability to move from the vegetative state to the flowering phase with just the passage of time. In other words, it is not like Indicas or Sativas that both rely on the photoperiod to flower.
Over time, breeders have discovered the benefits of cannabis ruderalis’ growth behavior and managed to splice its genetics with that of common indicas or sativas to form new counterparts of those strains that have the same ability as that of cannabis ruderalis. These types of strains are called autoflowering marijuana.
The Lowryder is commonly regarded as the first autoflowering cannabis strain. This strain came about when a man called the Joint Doctor got his hands on some mysterious seeds he called “Mexican Rudy”, which he believed came from a cross between a Mexican strain and the ruderalis plant. He crossed this strain with another plant to create the first Lowryder seeds.
Autoflowering marijuana strains usually retain the effects and flavor of their original strain. In a sense, an autoflowering version of Granddaddy Purple will still feel and taste like the usual GDP. However, the biggest difference is in its growing behavior. They will have the ability to flower automatically no matter how much light they get and are generally easier to grow compared to normal Indicas and sativas.
Why Use Autoflowering Seeds?
There are many benefits to using autoflowering seeds. These are simply some of which:
They grow extremely fast
One of the traits commonly shared between automatic marijuana seeds is that they are fast-growing types of plants. Some strains would only need about six weeks to flower but most of them usually need seven to eight weeks. For any cannabis grower, 50 days is not a very long time to wait for your marijuana to be ready for harvesting.
You can harvest them more
Speaking of harvest, an autoflowering strain’s quick-growing ability allows it to be harvested more times in a single year compared to other types of strains. That means that you have more chances of collecting buds from your cannabis plants because of how they simply grow faster than normal strains of cannabis.
They are easier to grow
The ruderalis plant has endured thousands of years of harsh weather conditions in northern climates. This has helped them become hardy and resilient plants that can withstand almost any adverse condition you can throw at them. In that sense, they are resistant to molds, pests, and diseases. This means that they are a lot easier to grow compared to other strains that can easily die out or get “sick” when facing adverse conditions.
Of course, they are autoflowering
This ability to automatically flower is the best part of using automatic marijuana seeds. When you use conventional cannabis seeds, the plants would need to have certain numbers of light and dark hours to move from the vegetative state to the flowering phase. In that sense, you have to monitor how much light they are receiving.
But, in the case of autoflowering cannabis plants, you no longer have to worry about how much light they are getting because they will automatically proceed to the flowering stage as they mature. That means that time is the only determining factor for them to flower. This makes it easier for you to grow them.
How Automatic Marijuana Seeds are Produced
If you are convinced of the wonders of autoflowering plants and want to have your own seeds of this variety of cannabis, you can actually do so instead of going to the local dispensary or seed bank over and over again to restock on some automatic marijuana seeds.
Breeding cannabis seeds take one male parent and one female parent. Marijuana is a diploid plant that takes a chromosome from its father and another one from its mother. In that sense, its genetics will always be a combination of its parents’ traits.
What you need to have is a parent plant that has both non-photo dependent genes. That means that it is a true autoflowering plant that can only give off the chromosomes of an autoflowering plant. Meanwhile, the other parent needs to have either or both the chromosomes of non-photo dependent marijuana or of a photo dependent plant. That means that it can be three things: a hybrid of an autoflowering variant, a pure autoflowering plant, or pure non-photo dependent marijuana.
As long as one parent is a pure autoflowering plant, you will always get offspring seeds that have autoflowering genetics. But the problem here is that they might turn out to become hybrids if one parent is not pure. Nevertheless, hybrids will still have autoflowering capabilities.
The problem arises when you are breeding two hybrids together because both of them have photo dependent and non-photo dependent genes. If the offspring manages to get the photo dependent chromosomes of both of its parents, then what you get is a pure non-autoflowering plant. As much as possible, try to avoid breeding two hybrids if you want to have seeds that have autoflowering capabilities.
