My Opinion On Auto-Flowering Strains
Hello Steemians
So far in all of my grows I've grown 3 Auto flowering strains.
- Blue mystic from the breeder Nirvana seeds
Cream Caramel from the breeder Sweet Seeds
Critical Kush from the breeder Barneys Farm
And I am Currently Growing 3 more strains
The White Train from Mephisto Genetics
Critical Ogre From Seedsman
Bubba Kush From Humboldt Seeds
Autoflowers Are Finicky
Even though they are maid to seem like an easy strain to grow because you don't have to change light schedules they are actually a bit more finicky than photoperiods. When i was growing Cream Caramel mold took over 3 of the 5 seeds.1 died and the other 2 were severely stunted and didn't come out to much of anything. The environment was humid and i should have been paying closer attention but i had photoperiods in the same tent that grew just fine.
Energy Wasted
The average of most auto flower strains is usually around 70 days from seed so thats 10 weeks. Now lets just say you are using a 1000w light bulb and energy costs .10 cents per Kwh and you run the lights for 18 hrs a day. With those numbers it comes out to 126 dollars for the electricity consumed over that 70 day span.
Now lets just say you have a Normal Photoperiod that has the a 10 week flowering period plus a 3 week veg period how much will that cost.
16hrs X 1Kw X 21 days X.10c per/Kwh = $33.6.
12hrs X 1kw X 70 days X .10c per/Kwh = $84
So in all it would come out to 117.6 dollars. almost ten dollars less even with an extra 3 weeks of lights.
Yields
Autoflowering yields are also low compared to photoperiods. The same strain auto usually runs a whole 100g/m2 less than its photoperiod counterpart and it sucks up more energy when growing. I have heard that the next Gen auto-flowers are a lot bigger than previous ones. The Critical Ogre I'm growing is said to be a pretty good yielding strain so we’ll see how that turns out.
Cloning
You can’t clone auto flowering strains in the normal sense of what it is to clone. Yes it is possible to clone but really hard to do. The clones usually just come out to stumpy little nubs that wouldn’t be worth the time or cloning gel used. Most of them just end up dying cuz auto-flowers are very finicky.
So for the most part I don't feel like Auto-Flowering strains are worth the time and effort. They are harder to grow. They suck up more energy and usually have lower yields.