Autoflower weed growing is getting increasingly popular among Americans who want to cultivate cannabis for themselves. There are tons of benefits to this decision. First, you don’t need to pay extra money for the dispensaries’ taxes and overheads, which naturally become a financial burden on the end-user. Second, you are the one who controls the process and can choose the strain to your liking, watching your favorite weed grow and mature day by day. It’s a unique treat to see how your therapeutically beneficial buds develop and mature on the weed plants, caring for them and seeing your crops reward you with big yields.
But is the process of autoflower seeds’ cultivation as easy and hassle-free as marketers tend to depict it? Is it enough to have a pot and a pack of seeds to succeed? Here we cover the basics of auto weed growing and use two notable examples to show how things work – Wedding Cake and Super Lemon Haze.
Peculiarities of Growing Autoflower Seeds
First, you should note that autoflower seeds won’t trouble you with light-and-dark cycle adjustments. They don’t depend on the photoperiod changes to start flowering, so you may keep the lights on just as much as you do when the first sprouts appear; it is okay to keep to the 18/6 lighting schedule throughout the full growth cycle of auto plants.
Next, autoflowers develop quickly. As a rule, you will harvest the buds in around two months, as these plants have a shorter life cycle compared to plants growing from feminized seeds. Thus, you have no chance of a mistake and must plan everything properly before planting the germinated seeds into the pots. Autoflowers hate being transplanted during the vegetation stage, so you should choose a large pot at once, avoiding the stressful plant migration afterward.
Please mind the soil pH level into which you put the germinated seeds. Its range shouldn’t deviate from 6-6.5; otherwise, the soil won’t be favorable for healthy plant growth and development.
Growing Wedding Cake Auto
Now, let’s proceed to our cases’ detailed descriptions. We’ll start with a story of growing the Wedding Cake autoflower seeds https://askgrowers.com/seeds/wedding-cake-seeds-autoflower, which can become your step-by-step guide in your cultivation project.
- The optimal setting for indoor Wedding Cake auto planting is a 5-gallon pot.
- You should set up the lighting system with 250W LED lights to supply the plants with an optimal light spectrum.
- During the vegetation stage, the plants thrive in temperatures of around 800F (which is around 27 degrees Celsius). You will never go wrong by giving them 20 hours of daylight a day (though 18 will also be totally fine).
- Wedding Cake plants may flourish even better if you use the defoliation technique; it involves clearing the stem off some large fan leaves at the bottom of the plant. This procedure should be done half a week before the end of the vegetation stage, ensuring that the plants are ready for flowering and will receive enough air and sunlight.
- Once the plants transition from the vegetative stage to flowering, it may take around seven weeks for the buds to fully mature and start emitting the magnetic smell.
- The harvest collection time starts when the trichomes on the buds start changing color from white to amber.
Growers report that Wedding Cake auto is an incredibly convenient strain that requires minimal effort in the cultivation process. The plants are ready for bud harvesting in around 11 weeks of cultivation, which is impressive even for autoflowers. The plants are resilient to pests and diseases, so they won’t cause hardships even for totally inexperienced farmers.
The average harvest you may expect from planting Wedding Cake autoflower seeds is around 500g per square meter of an indoor plantation, while outdoor yields reach 750g per square meter. The buds collected from mature plants usually contain 25% THC and 2.4% CBD, which is an optimal therapeutic combination for stress, anxiety, and pain. The collected harvest will please you with a fruity, sweet flavor and a deeply calming effect with euphoric sensations typical for Indica weed.
Growing Super Lemon Haze
Now, what’s different or specific about growing Super Lemon Haze seeds https://askgrowers.com/seeds/super-lemon-haze-seeds-autoflower?
- The strain is overall easy to grow, though cultivators point out the need to monitor the plants closely and check the warm temperatures. Super Lemon Haze loves tropical climates, so it will feel better in temperate, colder environments.
- Many experienced growers recommend using the hydroponic setup for Super Lemon Haze, though the method may sound pretty challenging for beginners. Anyway, it is the best option for ensuring vigorous plant growth and proper root oxygenation.
- It’s vital not to overfeed your Super Lemon Haze plants, especially before harvesting. Thus, a useful technique to remove the nasty smell and taste of nutrients from your weed buds is to “flush” the plants one week before harvest collection. By doing this, you ensure the excess salt is flushed out of the soil, and the plants are free from unwanted chemical elements.
The main point growers should remember is that Super Lemon Haze is a Sativa-dominant cultivar. Thus, it grows pretty tall in most cases and may be non-suitable for small, compact indoor setups. The regular height of its plants is around 78 inches. So, you will benefit from this strain’s cultivation outdoors much more, reaping big yields from large, spacious plants.
The outcome of this strain’s growing project is usually 35oz of flavorful buds per plant. This weed has a pleasant spicy flavor with shades of citrus and lemon in its aroma. The THC content of this strain ranges from 15% to 22%, depending on the growing conditions and the grower’s experience. Thus, by growing Super Lemon Haze for yourself, you get a good stock of weed that will set you in a creative, energetic, and euphoric mood whenever needed, helping you to stay focused and sociable.
Autoflower Growing Is Fun
As you can see, growing autoflower strains is not that hard. The key rule is to prepare the soil and watch for the plants’ transition from one stage to another, giving them the essential support and nutrition required at each phase. Try these tips out and see how your Wedding Cake or Super Lemon Haze plants reward you with rich, flavorful yields.
Lana Braslavska, an expert in cannabis cultivation and a full-time blogger at AskGrowers, prepared this article. Lana works in close collaboration with seed banks to share the best practices and growing tips with aspiring cannabis cultivators. She knows much about weed strains and can provide individualized recommendations for every strain’s best growing methods.