An autoflower is a day-neutral cannabis plant: it switches to flowering at a set developmental age, typically 3-5 weeks from germination, rather than in response to long nights. Seed to harvest is often about 9-12 weeks. The trait comes from northern, short-season populations (often labelled ruderalis) and is controlled mainly by a recessive locus mapped as Autoflower1 (Toth et al. 2022), so both parents must carry it for true-breeding autos.
In practice
Autos can run under 18/6 or 20/4 from seed to harvest, and growers stagger them for continuous harvests.
House positions:
- Any setback costs time: an auto runs on a fixed countdown from germination and can't recover lost days.
- Transplanting is almost a no-no: plant in the final container (founder observation on taproot reaction).
- Train, don't top: topping never matches proper LST on an auto.
- "Good for beginners" is true only because autos quickly show who has a green thumb, not because they forgive mistakes.
Yield per square metre per year is very hard to beat with autos. Cannabinoid levels usually sit slightly under photoperiod sisters, though elite autos can match them.
Don't confuse with
- Photoperiod: flowers in response to long nights.
- Fast version: a photoperiod hybrid bred for short flowering, not day-neutral.
- Ruderalis: the source populations, not a synonym for every auto.
Germination is the stage where a viable seed absorbs water, splits its shell and pushes out a root (radicle), usually within 1-7 days at 20-30 °C.A name for wild or feral, short, early-flowering northern cannabis populations, the historic source of the autoflowering trait; not a separate species in GenetixBay's view.A recessive allele only shows its effect when a plant carries two copies of it; in a single copy it is masked by a dominant allele and carried silently.18/6 is the standard vegetative light schedule: 18 hours of light and 6 hours of darkness each day, keeping photoperiod cannabis from flowering.A perpetual harvest staggers plants at different stages, usually with separate veg and flower spaces, so that harvests come every few weeks instead of once per cycle.Transplanting moves a plant and its root ball into a new container or the ground; done gently it causes little shock, but GenetixBay advises against it for autoflowers.A cannabinoid is any compound that binds the body's cannabinoid receptors or shares the typical cannabis terpenophenolic structure; the plant-made ones are phytocannabinoids such as THCA and CBDA.The daily length of light versus dark; photoperiod cannabis flowers when nights grow long enough, rather than at a fixed age.The dominant primary root that grows straight down from the radicle of a seed-grown plant, with lateral roots branching from it.A plant that flowers when the night exceeds a critical length (days are short enough); photoperiod cannabis is a short-day plant.
