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Issue #49 - Sunday, March 24, 2013

Dear Fellow Grower,

In today's issue...

• You'll learn the difference between autoflowering & photoperiod strains.
• Discover 3 proven auto-flowering strains available online
• See the amazing results one grower has produced with autoflowering Northern Lights.

Happy Growing!
Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside (founders of GrowWeedEasy.com)

"Earth laughs in flowers."

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Photoperiod Cannabis Strains:

• Will vegetate essentially indefinitely on anything between an 18/6 and 24/0 light cycle

• Can be cloned, one seed = unlimited plants

• Will flower once put into a 12/12 light cycle

• Usually will produce a usable yield in a longer amount of time

• Can produce a larger plant and therefore higher yield

• Will produce a more potent bud

• Can take more abuse due to unlimited vegetation period

• Responds well to topping and super cropping in the vegetative cycle

Autoflowering Cannabis Strains:

• Will vegetate for a limited amount of time before automatically going into flowering mode (each strain's vegetative time will be different)

• Cannot be cloned (in the traditional sense), one seed = one plant

• Will flower automatically, regardless of light cycle

• Usually will produce usable yield sooner

• Will produce a smaller plant and therefore limited yield

• Will produce less potent buds

• Can't take much abuse due to limited growth time

• May not respond well to topping and super-cropping

Both Photoperiod and Autoflowering:

• In its natural state, cannabis is an annual plant. This means that these plants grow from new seeds every year, and die at the end of the flowering process, ideally mating, creating and releasing seeds that will grow as the next generation

• Can be stressed and hermie (grow both male and female parts) as a result of incorrect light cycle changes

• Seeds can generate male or female plants, unless seeds are feminized

• Need the same amount of nutrient care

• Can potentially be grown to produce the same size plants with similar yields

• Respond well to LST and SCROG

Photoperiod Cannabis Strains

Photoperiod cannabis is the 'industry' standard; it is the natural state of THC-potent cannabis strains.

Cannabis sativa and cannabis indica will vegetate almost indefinitely on anything between an 18/6 and 24/0 light schedule, and will only enter full flowering mode when its lighting schedule is limited to 12/12.

When growing outdoors, photoperiod strains of cannabis are planted in the spring, naturally entering flowering mode at the end of the summer when the days become shorter.

These cannabis plants will universally be ready to harvest in the fall. 

The exact time to harvest for photoperiod plants depends on the specific strain and your location (the timing of sunlight availability varies based on your latitude). 

Photoperiod strains of cannabis will not naturally grow outdoors during any other time of year besides Spring and Summer (at least, not without supplemental lighting and enforced darkness).

Photoperiod cannabis may be easier to grow indoors for new growers because it can be abused in the vegetative state and have time to recover because it can be vegetated until the grower decides to change the light cycle to flowering. The flowering process is generally thought to be the most delicate time for the plant; so the utmost care should be given to a plant in its flowering cycle.

Note by Nebula: In some instances, photoperiod strains of cannabis may be easier to grow indoors if you are a new grower because you can give yourself as much time as you need in the vegetative stage. During this stage, cannabis plants are hardy and can bounce back from problems. Even if you make a lot of mistakes, you can still get big yields because you are in control of when the flowering stage begins, unlike with autoflowering strains. Once the flowering cycle is initiated, your plants are more "set" as far as their overall health and structure. Once a cannabis plant starts budding, there is basically a countdown until buds are ready to harvest (this amount of time is mostly based on the strain). Though the plant may have an initial last "stretch" of vegetative growth when the light cycle is first changed over, as the plant approaches harvest towards the end of the flowering stage, almost all growth halts except the development of bigger buds.

This bears repeating: The flowering process is generally thought to be the most delicate time for the plant; so the utmost care should be given to a plant in its flowering cycle.

Photoperiod cannabis can be cloned indefinitely. This means that a single photoperiod plant can basically live forever and be used to create an infinite amount of plants. 

Cuts taken from photoperiod cannabis plants can be rooted to create clones of the original plant, and these new clones can be vegetated into large plants before being put into (or back into) the flowering stage.

Autoflowering Cannabis Strains

Autoflowering cannabis is a human-created crossbreed of cannabis ruderalis and cannabis sativa and/or cannabis indica.

Cannabis ruderalis is a strain of cannabis with a unique property. This strain naturally enters the flowering cycle based on time since germination, regardless of light cycles or photoperiods.

This is in contrast to photoperiod cannabis, which will generally only enter flowering when the light cycle has been changed to 12/12. 

The automatic flowering nature of ruderalis creates a smaller plant, as its vegetative cycle is naturally limited, whereas a photoperiod strain can be vegetated into a much larger plant before switching to a flowering light cycle.

Note by Nebula: The auto-flowering plant pictured to the left is 2 months from seed and has been well-cared for. This plant naturally stayed short and bushy and displays the classical growth pattern of most auto-flowering strains. This plant still has a few weeks before time-to-harvest, and buds will continue to fatten up.

Cannabis ruderalis is also a non-THC potent strain, so when it is cross bred with high-THC-producing sativa or indica, it retains some of the ruderalis properties, and some of the sativa or indica properties, leading to a lesser THC content than a strictly non-ruderalis strain.

Between these two traits, autoflowering strains will theoretically produce not only less bud, but also less potent buds.

Photoperiod strains that are flowered immediately or grown in limited root-space can produce similarly small-sized, quickly flowering plants, but they ought to have a larger THC concentration than their autoflowering counterparts. THC content is still a matter of debate between autoflowering cannabis proponents and detractors.

Autoflowering strains seem more user-friendly for new growers because of the absence of light-cycle decisions. This is a sort of fallacy, as new growers tend also to abuse plants more than seasoned growers.

Autoflowering strains will enter flowering (the most delicate stage of growth) regardless of their health .

Note by Nebula: The auto-flowering White Widow plant pictured to the right is sick and stunted. Because of the auto-flowering nature of this strain, the grower was unable to nurture the plant back to health before the flowering stage began. In this picture, the plant is 2.5 months old (started from seed like all autoflowering plants), and the buds are almost ready for harvest even though they're still so small and airy, they're practically non-exitant. As a result, the total yields from this plant will be very low (just a few grams). This can be discouraging as the grower must start over with a new seed in order to try for a bigger harvest. 

Photoperiod growers have the choice of entering the flowering period whenever they choose, allowing them to choose this when their plants are healthiest, as well as allowing for more vegetative time for their plants to recover from earlier mistakes.

Autoflowering strains will enter the flowering stage in stressed or unhealthy states automatically, which can limit bud yields.

Autoflowering cannabis cannot be cloned in the traditional sense.

That is, autoflowering cannabis will always retain its 'internal flowering timer.'

If you make a cut of autoflowering cannabis, it can potentially root and create an independent plant, however, this clone will still have the internal clock set to the same automatic flowering clock as its mother.

The clone and mother will still flower at the same amount of time after the original seed they both came from was germinated. Given that autoflowering strains have a very short vegetation cycle, it is debatable whether or not you'd gain a larger yield from making a lot of small flowered clones from one auto or if you let the auto vegetate and flower into one large plant.

Along the same lines, the limited vegetative cycle does not allow for very much drastic growth techniques like topping and super cropping, as the plant doesn't have a lot of time to recover from these before it flowers.

Autoflowering cannabis can be grown outdoors any time of year (assuming it has a reasonable, stable environment in terms of temperature, etc), since it will flower with any light cycle.

Autoflowering cannabis can be grown outdoors in conjunction with photoperiod cannabis to harvest twice in a summer season; once quickly from the autoflowering, and later a second harvest from the photoperiod cannabis.

Autoflowering cannabis is thought to be best grown in anything between a 18/6 and 20/4 light cycle, as it gets a lot of light, but also has time to recover in darkness. It can, however, be grown in 12/12 permanently or 24/0 permanently.

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