If you have never grown autoflowering cannabis seeds before this article will help guide you to the best practices when growing these types of cannabis seeds outdoors, and indoors for a bit to get top growing results and most importantly amazing buds.
What are Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds?
Autoflowering cannabis seeds are cannabis seeds that instead of needing 12 hours of darkness like photoperiod plants for a 24 hour day to flower. This type of cannabis strain has a preset grow time, and will flower automatically without needing 12 hours of darkness to start flowering.
Autoflowering cannabis seeds will grow through their vegetative stage, flowering stage in an average of three months. They also can flower with 24 hours of day lighting. This is great for growing autoflowering cannabis seeds outdoors.
Are Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds good for outdoors?
This can depend on where you live in the world. We think that growing autoflowering cannabis outdoors in northern climates works great for these types of seeds. However if you live closer to the equator where it is warmer and with longer seasons you may not want to grow autoflowers outdoors.
Why Autoflowers are great for northern climates
When growers grow cannabis in more northern climates this also comes with shorter growing seasons. When you have a shorter growing season outdoors, it typically comes with short wet falls.
This can make it very difficult to grow cannabis outdoors in this climate, you will have to contend with frosts, bud rot, and mold that can kill your beautiful buds overnight once fall hits. Autoflowering cannabis seeds outdoors can help fix this. They will not need longer nights in the late summer and fall inorder to start the flowering (budding) period. Therefore they can be flowered at any time outside without the need to wait for a cooler fall harvest.
Do Autoflowers do better inside or outside?
This also depends very much on the climate that you live in. While autoflowering cannabis seeds outdoors in warmer climates can do very well, we recommend growing photoperiod plants in warmer climates. If you live in colder climates then growing autoflowers indoors will result in cannabis that will do better then if it was grown outside. Autoflowers can do very well however in colder climates, by following our advice below.
The Importance of Getting Autoflowers as Big as Possible
Since the growers only have time to get their autoflowering plants as large as possible before they start the flowering cycle. Autoflowering cannabis will start to flower no matter how large or small the plants are after about one month of growing. For this reason it is really important to have the vegetative cycle dialed in, to get the plants growing fast for bigger plants when they automatically start to flower.
Planting autoflower seeds outdoors
We recommend starting autoflowering cannabis seeds indoors, before planting outdoors. Because these types of seeds will finish flowering after about three months it is best to start them a month before you can plant them outdoors.
The reason why we recommend this is because starting your seeds indoors can allow them to grow faster without the cold nights outside. They are also far saver inside from frost, and animals and slugs and snails that are common in the spring in most places.
Once you have grown them for about a month you can transplant them outdoors.
When should I start autoflowering outdoors?
As mentioned above, it is a great idea to start autoflowering cannabis seeds indoors first. Once the weather is warm enough outside and the risk of last frost has passed it is important to get your plants outdoors quickly.
This is one of the biggest benefits to growing autoflowers outdoors. Growers can take advantage of the long spring days, and short spring nights to get your autoflowers with very large buds. Once you have them outside they have the full benefit in cooler climate to take advantage of the best time of year for growing.
Instead of flowering like a normal photoperiod plant last summer early fall your plant will start to flower as soon as they are moved outdoors. Typically the hottest and longest days are in June and July for most northern places on the planet to grow cannabis. With autoflowers you are able to take full advantage of the hottest part of the summer to flower your cannabis plants. This is in direct contrast to flowering cannabis in the fall when the days are shorter and colder.
How long Autoflowers grow outdoors?
A typical autoflowering cannabis plant will grow for approximately 3 months before they can be harvested. This will be the same outdoors. So if you plant in the spring after the last frost you can expect to have a harvest, in middle to late August. If you start your plants indoors as suggested above you can expect to have the plants harvested in mid to late July if started indoors in mid April.
What are super autoflowering seeds?
Since autoflowers are crossed with low THC varieties of cannabis they can be weaker for THC content than traditional photoperiod cannabis plants. New Super Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds are seeds that will be autoflowering however they are bred to be just as high in THC content as other species of cannabis.
If autoflowering cannabis seeds are not bred correctly they can be very weak in potency for cannabis plants. Depending on the genetic makeup of the plant they can inherd low potency genetics from the ruderalis cannabis. This is the low THC cannabis seeds that are crossed with higher potency cannabis to create autoflowering cannabis seeds.
High Yield outdoor autoflower seeds
It can be sometimes difficult to find higher potency autoflower; the same can also be said for high yielding autoflowering cannabis seeds. Because ruderalis cannabis plants have traits that are more closer to Hemp cannabis plants then higher yielding cannabis strains, the yield can be far less. If you would like to read more about cannabis plant genetics we suggest this guide.
Therefore it is very important to have strong growing conditions to grow your autoflowers. By making sure everything is in check for growing you can increase the yield of this type of cannabis plant. Also it is important that you plant autoflowering cannabis seeds in full sun and heat to maximize their outdoor growing potencial.
Best outdoor Autoflower strains this year
- Northern Lights Autoflowering
- Jack Herer Autoflowering
- Bruce Banner Autoflowering
- Gorilla Cookies Autoflowering
- Zkittlez Autoflowering
- Super Cheese Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds
- White Widow Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds
- Wedding Cake Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds
How much does an outdoor autoflower yield?
Typically autoflowering cannabis strains will have a lower yield compared to photoperiod cannabis seed strains. With new super autoflowering cannabis seeds, growers can achieve higher yields from their auto strains of cannabis.
Do Autoflowers yield more outdoors?
Autoflowering cannabis will actually yield less outdoors than photoperiod cannabis. The reason for this is that you can have time outdoors depending on where you live. You can grow far larger plants because they have all summer to grow, before they start to flower outside. For this reason you can produce a far larger harvest outdoors with photoperiod cannabis plants. This is why it is a good idea to take advantage of the late spring early summer heat and long days.
What are Autoflowering feminized cannabis seeds
These types of seeds are feminized to grow only female autoflowering cannabis plants. These seeds are different from photoperiod cannabis plants because they will be all female with no males and still start flowering automatically after one month of growth.
90 day Autoflower seeds
Most autoflowers that you will purchase from any reputable seed bank will grow vegetatively for one month and flower for two months. This will make most of the autoflowering cannabis seeds on the market today 90 day autoflowering seeds.
What is the highest yielding Autoflower?
Some of the highest yielding autoflowering cannabis seeds that we have grown and tested are, Green Crack, and Big Bud autoflowering seeds. For autoflowers these have great yields when grown outdoors.
Final Thoughts
While we are not as big of fans of autoflowering cannabis as we are of photoperiod cannabis plants, we believe they do offer great value to northern outdoor cannabis growers that have a short growing season. Growers of these seeds can know they will finish flowering in a set amount of time without having to worry about late season issues like bud rot and gray mold ruining their entire crop before harvesting. If you would like to learn more about growing Autoflowering Seeds we suggest this guide for growers.
