Feminized autoflowers - a little rant

Agaricus · Mar 27, 2012

I think I'm liking feminized seeds for regular, clonable plants. I recently sprouted a freebie Blue Widow and she's looking really fine.

However, in shopping for autoflower seeds I'm noticing more and more fems and less and less regulars. And it pisses me off.

IMO fems just aren't worth it for autos. You pay a big premium per seed. The yield per plant is relatively low. You can't clone 'em and you can't do a seed run.

So why buy 'em?

A few years ago I did a nice seed run of LR#2 and had lots of seeds for myself, for gifts to freinds, and for trade. I was a very happy camper.

Now it seems that most of the newer strains are available only in fems. I understand the desire of the breeders/banks to limit the ability of the individual grower to make their own, thus more profits.

But fuck, it just gets too expensive for the comparatively low bud per bean. Not to mention losing the fun factor of making your own seed and auto hybrids. I just ain't gonna but 'em. Period.

Anybody else feel this way? :lightning:

mitch_connor · Mar 27, 2012

Agree, was having a look for some new AF's recently out of interest, and everything is fem.

Personally, the only instance where I would prefer fems is for a cash crop AF-SOG, would make it a little easier not having to cull males and pot up.

But to buy 12, 36 or higher numbers of fem AF seeds would not be worth it at the inflated prices they charge for them.

I'm sure there are occasions where people would only want fem, but i guess it comes down to your own situation and what you want to do.

The smaller AF breeders on seedbay etc are still rocking the regs and I thank them for it. SGS, Mdanzig, Cheesey when he was here.

I'd say it's purely out of greed really to offer ONLY fem, i'd prefer the option.

Some of the breeders (non-auto) held in highest regard on icmag aren't touching fems, like chimera, Bog etc etc

Sam the Caveman · Mar 27, 2012

just make some sts solution to make more fems

Chronage · Mar 27, 2012

That does seem rather messed up. Though I guess maybe selling them that way as opposed to even offering regulars in AF sells more to the general audience. I do agree too about the cash in hand and inability to breed.

guest59452 · Mar 28, 2012

why cant you make seeds from fems? like 2 dif strains

Agaricus · Mar 28, 2012

You could use pollen from a non-autoflower but the seeds (correct me if I'm wrong, you botanists out there) would be a mix of regular and auto.

Anyway, the objective in my case is to maintain the strain. If it's good I want to grow more, so I won't buy anything I can't propagate one way or the other.

I'll have to check out the autoflowers next time I'm on the 'bay. I'm going after a Nirvana 4-pack pretty soon and I may throw in a package of AF's along with them.

moonquasar · Mar 28, 2012

You can get fem pollen from fems...to make more fem seeds. It is an option, as sam pointed out.

PhenoMenal · Mar 28, 2012

Sam and moonquasar are correct, you can apply silver theosulphate, giberelic acid, or my personal favorite colloidal silver to a female grown from feminised seed to force it to producing more pollen to then create a new round of feminised seeds. I've done it before with feminised Cinderella 99 and the results were very clone-like.

Krull · Mar 28, 2012

Agreed 100%.
You can use reversal techs sure but it's not easy and, sincerely, i prefer the m/f way.
Try to educate your friends on buying non-feminised seeds, buyers drive the market...

Peace

=K

PhenoMenal · Mar 28, 2012

Krull,

You can use reversal techs sure but it's not easy

It's actually very easy, and very affordable ...

see the thread in my sig

Krull · Mar 28, 2012

PhenoMenal said:
Krull,

It's actually very easy, and very affordable ... see the thread in my sig

I've done some search in the past and you PhenoMenal are one of the few posting consistent results with this method, so i believe that making some CS is easy but making it work to reverse needs some proper work and trials.
Mind that with autoflowers you have males showing off in 15-20 days from seed, you cant beat that in simplicity imho...

Peace

=K

Agaricus · Mar 28, 2012

Pheno, that's great information! :tiphat:

I gotta try that!

It would really be handy to not need a mum for clones. I'm very limited on space so can only keep 3 or 4 going at a time. This way I could just seal up the seeds, throw them in the fridge, and not worry about a good pheno croaking off. I lost a nice Satori a couple years ago and it really sucked.

That Blue Widow's looking really good, so maybe I'll CS a couple of her clones and see what happens.

LuciferianSahdu · Mar 28, 2012

i luv autos thats all i know, i luv erbs to, basil rosemary oregano etc, all them take two months to finish, now my erb does also, traditional cannabis to me is a plant im not thrilled on, it has very little application in the wild unless u wanna wait at times 5 months, add blue light for more fems to come out or do what im doing, just order the fem seeds n order some regs, have the regs make seeds n then down the road make fems out of them with colidial silver, autos remind u that your grown a weed n nothing else, as it should be.

Agaricus · Mar 28, 2012

I like the autos too, and it looks like some really good strains are coming out. First autos I grew were LR#2 just after it came out and I was really pleased. I recently came across some Diesel Ryder beans I thought I'd lost, and I'm hoping they're still good after 5 years. Sometime soon I hope to pick up a pack of auto AK47 or something else tasty.

I still really like growing good old-fashioned photoperiod pot. They get so nice and big and bushy outdoors, and I'll soon be starting my first SCROG in the tent. Last grow was a vertical scrog and that was fun but now I want to try the traditional method.

I still can't believe how far we've come since growing bagseed in the seventies.

guest59452 · Mar 29, 2012

i like fems, becuz u know they r going to be female saving on soil and having to transplant multiple times.

FoCo(No.Co) · Mar 29, 2012

Agaricus said:
You could use pollen from a non-autoflower but the seeds (correct me if I'm wrong, you botanists out there) would be a mix of regular and auto.

Autoflowering gene is recessive, so the F1 generation would be all regular(assuming the regular strain that you are growing does not have a recessive auto gene). F2 gen would be 75% regular, 25% auto.

F1-
RR x aa = Ra, Ra, Ra, Ra

F2-
Ra x Ra = RR, Ra, Ra, aa

blackosprey · Mar 29, 2012

Agaricus said:
You could use pollen from a non-autoflower but the seeds (correct me if I'm wrong, you botanists out there) would be a mix of regular and auto.

Anyway, the objective in my case is to maintain the strain. If it's good I want to grow more, so I won't buy anything I can't propagate one way or the other.

I'll have to check out the autoflowers next time I'm on the 'bay. I'm going after a Nirvana 4-pack pretty soon and I may throw in a package of AF's along with them.

I HIGHLY recommend SGS's autos. The FSxPB is a lot of fun to grow.

Bonequicha said:
i like fems, becuz u know they r going to be female saving on soil and having to transplant multiple times.

when you are working with AFs, you don't want to do a whole lot of transplanting, maybe once after sex is shown, but its even better if you can start in your final pot. Use regular seeds, and then cull out the males as they show, which happens fast.

blackosprey · Mar 29, 2012

FoCo(No.Co) said:
Autoflowering gene is recessive, so the F1 generation would be all regular(assuming the regular strain that you are growing does not have a recessive auto gene). F2 gen would be 75% regular, 25% auto.

F1-
RR x aa = Ra, Ra, Ra, Ra

F2-
Ra x Ra = RR, Ra, Ra, aa

Foco, thanks for this info. I am by no means a student of Mendel, it in fact kind of flies over my head, so I have a question...at which point in the F train will true auto flowers develop if following your above formula?

Intern@tional · Mar 29, 2012

I will tell you.
F3-
aa x aa = 100% aa
You select autoflowering plants from F2 seeds and you make F3 seeds 100% auto.
Peace.

FoCo(No.Co) · Mar 29, 2012

Intern@tional said:
I will tell you.
F3-
aa x aa = 100% aa
You select autoflowering plants from F2 seeds and you make F3 seeds 100% auto.
Peace.

Yes sir.

Feminized autoflowers - a little rant

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