What are auto flowering cannabis plants?

Normal strains of cannabis need to have a reduction to 12 hours of light before they will start flowering but autoflowering cannabis strains completely eliminate the need to induce flowering by reduction of day-light hours. It eliminates the need for a timer or the need to wait until autumn for the marijuana plant to start flowering and it will grow consistently well and finish under 24 hours of light, from germination to harvest, in eight weeks to 10 weeks.

Autoflowering cannabis plants altogether do away with a vegetative growth stage. Basically, you plant it, it sprouts, grows a set of leaves, then immediately and automatically begins flowering. This generally starts after around 3 weeks, the males showing signs of flowering a few days before the females. As a result, 'autos' are the quickest, most compact, and most easily hidden marijuana plant available.

Auto strains can easily be kept hidden because of their tiny size and early flowering, whether planted in fields, in yards, on patios or even on windowsills. When planted in the spring, they will produce ripe bud earlier than any available variety. Autoflowering cannabis seeds can be planted, grown and harvested several times per season (in your garden for example), without attracting unwanted attention. Due to their super-fast life cycle (8-9 weeks), auto flowering marijuana strains can be planted up to early August. They can be simply and very succesfully grown in the most unlikely locations, from Alaska and Norway (auto flowering cannabis will bud and finish in the 24hr light of Arctic summers) to the city flat and apartment balconies of the world!

Having no vegetative stage, autoflowering strains cannot be cloned or regenerated. Replanting seeds is a must but having 8-10 week growth cycle producing your own seeds and creating your own strains is not a problem anyway. Anyhow, this plant’s special advantages do away with any reason for cloning in the first place. Also, seeds are much easier to move around and handle and have a higher success rate than clones anyway.

Improvements in auto flowering cannabis seeds

When the joint doctor first released lowryder to the world growers were blown away with the benefits of autoflowering cannabis seeds but some found the end product to be somewhat lacking in potency and yield. Since then many breeders have worked with auto flowering seeds to increase the yield and potency by crossing lowryder or the original ruderalis strain with well established cannabis strains such as ak47 and white russian.

This has lead to the production of strains which can match the potency of normal flowering cannabis plants and are getting very close to matching their yields as well.

Companies such as shortstuff seeds have selectively bred many generations of auto flowering hybrids to come up with strains such as mi5 and Onyx which now grow to around 1 metre (3 feet) in height and can produce yields of 30-100g (1-3oz) per plant which is not far off traditional strains of marijuana.

The joint doctor who was the original producer of the lowryder straiun has not stood still either and has crossed his lowryder 2 with AK47 from serious seeds to produce the EasyRyder strain. This strain still stays fairly short but the additon of the very strin ak47 to its genetics has made this one of the most potent strains of autoflowering cannabis available today.

Autoflowering cannabis resources

Autoflowering cannabis strains have become so important in the world of marijauna custivation that they even have their own forums now:

http://www.thctalk.com/cannabis-forum/forumdisplay.php?57-Autoflowering

http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/forumdisplay.php/53-Auto-Flower

https://www.icmag.com/ic/forumdisplay.php?f=65606

http://autoflower.net/

http://www.themarijuanaforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=28

Indica dominant Kush strains such as Himalaya blue diesel from short stuff seeds can have medical benefits because of their high levels of CBD.

Female cannabis plant

The sex or gender of an autoflowering cannabis plant

Autoflowering cannabis seeds are sold as regular or feminsed seeds. Feminised seeds will only produce female plants but regular plants can produce both male and female plants

All Cannabis plants, including autoflowering cannabis plants, are either male or female. Once it has flowered the male plants produce pollen which pollinates the flowers of the female plant. Once the female plant has been pollinated it will begin to produce seeds. If the female plant does not come into contact with flowering males and isn't pollenized the flower/buds continue to grow and produce THC. Female plants which are not pollenized are referred to as sensemilla (without seeds).

More in-depth information on the gender of marijuana plants

Female Pistils - notice the sac and the feathery frond-like structure. Usually after five days to two weeks you will begin to see a pair of tubular nodes. Hopefully they will have white hairs protruding from them as this denotes a female plant. These little hairs are known as pistils and they are the first sign your plant is flowering.
Female Cannabis – The female cannabis plant, unlike the male, is grown to produce marijuana. Premium marijuana is produced in seedless form by eliminating all pollen sources from the growing environment. Seed production reduces the value of marijuana dramatically by lowering the yield and potency of the flowers.
The female flowers appear as two long white, yellow, or pink pistils protruding from the fold of a very thin membranous calyx. The calyx is covered with resin exuding glandular trichomes (hairs). Pistillate flowers are borne in pairs at the nodes one on each side of the petiole behind the stipule of bracts which conceal the flowers. The females are recognized by the enlargement of a symmetrical tubular calyx (floral sheath). They are easier to recognize at a young age than male primordia. The first female calyxes tend to lack paired pistils (pollen-catching appendages) though initial male flowers often mature and shed viable pollen. In some individuals, especially hybrids, small non-flowering limbs will form at the nodes and are often confused with male primordia. The female plants tend to be shorter and have more branches than the male.