I just wanted to see everyone's take on these subjects. I've heard autoflowering strains are garbage and that feminized seeds taste and perform worse than regulars. Please shed some light.
Autoflowering strains are not as potent because the autoflowering trait comes from breeding with cannabis ruderalis, a type of MJ that produces virtually no THC, so that part of the trait is bred in as well. Feminized seeds from a reputable breeder are fine -- grow well, full potency, taste the same.
Autoflowers are a novelty. They require 18 or 20 hours of light per day to grow to their full potential. This costs more $$ on electicity. And they are (at least a little) runderalis. I say occasionally the strains have superb breeding and are actually very potent, but never as potent as a kick-ass traditional sativa or indica which flowers by photoperiod instead of by age. You also have to use a seed for each plant that you grow autoflower, because they are not really cloneable. For most people growing out a good mother plant or 2 and clipping clones and going that route will be better, you'll end up with consistent results and you can "dial in" on the finer details of your crop.
I've never done auto flower, so no help there. AFA femmed seeds, it just seems that about 85% of "Help! I have a hermie" threads have the words 'feminized seeds' in there. Just saying. Wet
true, but no once likes taking care of a plant and then they find out thats its male, unless you got all kinds of space... i also heard that Fem'd seeds dont give you as good of a phenotype, i guess just because of the way they make them.... hoping i get the cherry AK47
It all depends on the breeder. It takes more than pollinating a female with a male to make good seeds, it's all about selective breeding. If your breeder did a good job, your autoflower plant would have the gene to autoflower from the ruderalis, but the rest of it's characteristics from a sativa/indica. That's hard to do. Same with fem'd seeds. Not hard to make, hard as hell to stabalize (so the seeds won't go hermie themselves). Beginners love fem'd seeds because it's guranteed to be female, but some breeders should just gurantee it'll be a hermie. I won't name any names
There are very few real breeders, but a boat load of pollen chuckers that call themselves breeders. Wet
Lots of ppl are biased about autoflowers(obviously, as you can see above) but theres some great autoflowering strains. Ive actually grown quite a few and have had huge colas covered with resin that'll knock you on your ass once smoked. So not for one second will I believe there not as potent as say a clone or norm seed. Depends on the growing techniques. There also beneficial in a way that you can have 2 auto harvests for every 1 reg harvest. The only downside to autos is they dont yield as much. Great for beginers tho I believe... Ive never had a FEM seed hermie on me. Ive had some just die, but never hermie. So I think that all has to do with stress.
great replies...the reason for me asking this is because I plan to do my first grow next year and space is an issue...at most i would be able to grow 2 plants at a time, maybe just 1 as a matter of fact but I heard femmed is the way to go for a first timer even with hermie considerations as well as me not being able to grow a bunch and just kill off the males. Can anybody tell me about Barneys femmed seeds? I'm really interested in one of their strains I saw on attitude and I know that they are a good company so I was wondering if anyone ever used any femmed seeds from them.
I have seen the opposite. I've seen a lot of folks saying that femmed will go hermie, but when it comes to people who actually use femmed seeds I can recall only two who said they had a hermie, and one of them also had light-control issues. Many, many femmed seeds growers reporting no hermies. So most of the comments I have seen that tie femmed seeds to hermies are comingn from people who haven't grown femmed and are just repeating what they have heard. I've used femmed from reputable breeders for years and have never had a hermie. Femmed seeds aren't "for beginners", they offer clear advantages for any grower. They cost more per seed, but usually not double, so after you discount non-femmed seeds by 50% expected males you actually can pay less per seed considering only females. But it takes space, lights, nutes, soil, bigger fans, bigger filters, costly electricity, etc to grow out plants only to end up chucking half of them. So, femmed seeds save you money and let you maximize your space and resources. To me there are only two disadvantages to femmed seeds: first, if you want to breed your own seeds then obviously you need a male, and second, the breadth and depth of strain variety is a bit limited among femmed seeds. Some strains don't stabilize well so breeders do tend to concentrate on creating certain femmed strains and hybrids, so not as much variety available. But there still are plenty of choices IMO to meet anybody's tastes and requirements.
I'm currently growing a Barneys Farm FEM Vanilla Kush and so far so good. Is only bout a week old but I'm sure it'll turn out fine