Auto-flowering cannabis seeds are considered the best way to go for new growers as well as experienced ones. Auto-flowering seeds show rapid growth and get ready for harvest within eight or nine weeks with ongoing production of potent effects.
Whether you’re growing auto-flowering seeds indoors or outdoors, the process remains the same as growing regular cannabis seeds. However, it becomes a lot easier to work with auto-flowering seeds. If you wish to produce the best quality cannabis, you will have to know how to grow auto-flowering seeds.
In this guide, we have discussed points with some of the top cannabis seeds companies such as the i49 to get the best solution for your optimal cannabis growth. We have listed down all the ways, methods, and stages to grow your auto-flowering seeds efficiently. So, follow them till the end.
Auto-flowering Cannabis Seeds:
Plan For Your Cannabis Growth
Most growers prefer to use auto-flowering seeds rather than regular seeds as they grow faster with the assurance of getting all female plants. Also, their easy-to-grow property fascinates most growers to choose them. Most auto-flowering strains take 8-10 weeks to reach the harvesting stage, but the speed depends on the type of strain.
This rapid growth of auto-flowering seeds suggests that they are less likely to be attacked by pests and insects. Most of these seeds are bred with strong genetics to prevent and fight off potential threats to plant growth.
An autoflower will fetch you a smaller yield compared to the regular seeds. However, you must prefer quality and success over quantity. Despite a smaller yield, you will get the guarantee of success with your auto-flowering seed rather than working hard to end up with poor quality or no harvest with regular seeds.
How To Grow Auto-flowering Cannabis Seeds
If you want the most effective growth of your autoflower seeds, then follow this step-by-step guide properly.
Week 1: Germination Phase
The germination for auto-flowering seeds takes about three days to complete. The root will travel into the soil and develop sprouts on the ground. If you want to start germinating your cannabis seeds, you have to take proper soil mix. Usually, autoflower needs a lesser amount of nutrients than regular seeds, but they will still need nutrient-rich potting soil to boost growth.
It is important to add compost, peat moss, perlite, and small portions of vermiculture in your potting soil recipe. The easiest way is to buy a pot’s complete kit from a gardening store or online store. This kit box will include a seedling pot along with pellets for optimal germination of your auto-flowering seeds.
If your seeds have started to show signs of sprouting, you will have to transplant them into your potting soil. If you’re using a pot for potting, then it’s all well, but if not, you have to transplant the seedling carefully and prevent it from any shock.
Week 2: Post-Seedling Phase
In this phase of your cannabis growth, your seedlings have achieved the ability to create energy from light sources. For indoor growers, LED lights will be the best option to give some light to your auto-flowering plant. Apart from providing optimal energy to the plant, LEDs will be a time-saving, cost-effective, and power-saving option. If you have an indoor auto-flowering grow setup for a large plant, you can use a single LED light. However, for growing outdoors, you won’t need any artificial light source, though many growers still do that.
Week 3-4: Vegetation Phase
Well, if you are done with your plant’s seedling stage, you will be witnessing the vegetative stage of your cannabis growth. Now, you have to focus on creating the ideal environment for your cannabis growth. You will need to add reinforcements.
This phase is crucial as your plant will start to show different changes. This is when the fan leaves of the plant sprouts, enhancing the process of photosynthesis and boosting the capability of the plant to produce potent flowers. So, as a grower, you must ensure to keep watering the plants along with the proper maintenance of temperature, lights, and humidity levels. Also, try not to focus on using any fertilizers now.
If you’re an indoor grower, then it’s time for you to start focusing on low-stress training for your plants. However, you must ensure to perform such training at the early vegetative stage only. This type of training can be risky yet effective as it helps the developing buds to absorb most energies from the grow lights.
Week 5-6: Flowering Phase
Within the fifth week of your autoflower cannabis growth, you will start to notice tiny hairy sacs on the nodes. This will turn into sticky buds. So, at the beginning of the flowering phase, you have to lower the humidity level of your growing room. You have to keep your plants hydrated throughout this phase.
In the flowering phase, your cannabis plants become prone to mold attacks, which can ruin all of your time and hard work. This is the main reason behind lowering the humidity. You have to be attentive to the amount of water in the soil and air. Most importantly, you must use distilled water with a pH level of 5.8-6.2 for the best growth.
Week 7-8: Monitoring And Preparing The Plants
Now, you are just a few steps closer to your final harvest. Well, you must have got an idea about how easy growing autoflower is. With the start of week 7, you have to focus on keeping the environment in the best ideal conditions. For outside growers, you have to ensure that the place is neither too hot nor too cold. For indoor growers, checking the humidity level is essential to prevent mold formation. Instead of the humidity level of 70% used in the vegetative stage, here, you will have to keep the humidity around 40%.
Also, you will have to look at the soil conditions. You can use a magnifying glass to detect any signs of pests at the underside of the fan leaves or on the soil surface. You have to check for the signs of nutrient deficiency in your cannabis plant. You can use camera lenses to check for the signs of this deficiency.
If you have given any nutrients to the plants in this period, you have to start flushing them out in the eighth week. You have to stop feeding the plants with nothing except water. You can flood your plant’s soil to remove all traces of chemicals so that the plant doesn’t eat them. This will help you eliminate the chances of chemical trails on the plants at harvest.
Now, you have to continue this flooding process for about two weeks. However, try to do it twice or thrice a week only. Then, you have to leave your pot dry before harvesting.
Finally, it’s time for you to do the trimming of your cannabis plant. You can use any trimmer to work on the small nodes and remove the fan eaves from that part. Moreover, you can choose to cut any top leaves that don’t give much appeal. This trimming will help the plant to receive more light and decline the chances of mold development.
Week 9: Pre-Harvest Phase
This is the phase when all of your hard work and time will show you the ultimate good results. However, you have to ensure that your plant remains infestation-free in this phase. For this, you will have to maintain the ideal conditions of cannabis growth and harvest.
You have to maintain the same guidelines for temperature, humidity, lighting, and watering that you followed since the seventh week. In this phase, your fan leaves might appear rusty or discolored, which is expected as the buds absorb the final nutrients from that part to boost their quality.
Week 10-12: Harvesting Phase For Your Plants
You have come to the end game now. This is the final phase of your auto-flowering cannabis plants. Depending on the type of strain, your cannabis plant will be all set for harvest anywhere between 10-12 weeks. How to know it’s time for your harvest? Well, if you start noticing the trichomes of the plant to turn whitish and the pistils to turn brownish-red, you can consider it as ready for harvesting.
No matter how much you trained your cannabis plant, some of its buds will automatically place themselves closer to the grow light and complete ripening earlier than other buds.
Again, it’s the type of strain and seed quality that determines the results of your cannabis harvest. So, if you’ve started with the best quality seeds along with high THC content strains, you can relax about the results.
So, follow this guide and enjoy growing cannabis. Happy Growing!