Ultimate Guide To Growing Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds: Part 1

In the interests of research, I have decided to grow 5 different auto-flowering cannabis plants next to each other outdoors (in southern Europe) in 10-litre soil pots to see which does best in terms of yield and high.

They will all be cultivated organically using the same soil mixture and lighting conditions.

The seeds are all uplifting daytime strains that promise significant yields.

What are autoflowering cannabis seeds?

As their name suggests, autos (as they are commonly called) flower automatically after a certain period of time, no matter what light cycle they are exposed to.

You see, traditional cannabis plants only flower (produce buds) when under 12 hours of light followed by 12 hours of darkness continually.

This makes autos especially useful for outdoor grows or if you simply don’t fancy messing around with light cycles.

Choosing The Strains

1. Magnum

A reliable autoflower I have grown before that has a beautiful high and impressive yields. Expecting at least an ounce from this plant.

2. Six Shooter

This is the Fastbuds high production autoflower. Never grown it myself before but promises very high yields. Looking forward to seeing how she goes.

3. Jack 47 XL

I grew Jack 47 before (without the XL) and it was just an amazing plant, almost exploding with many many bud sites. I really can’t wait to see how this new version turns out.

4. Critical Nevilles Haze

I’ve never grown this before, but Neville’s Haze is the backbone of many cannabis strains as well as being incredibly high yielding in its regular form, so this one will be very interesting. Very excited about this plant.

5. White Diesel Haze

This gets some pretty amazing reviews on the Sensi Seeds website. And I do like Diesel. Hoping for some good yields here.

Getting The Soil Ready

To begin with, I bought some standard potting soil from the garden centre and some 10-litre smart pots, along with a packet of worm castings, coco and the Biotabs starter kit. The soil already had a little perlite in it.

Coco

Coco, or coconut fibre, certainly isn’t essential however mixing it with your soil (to a ratio of about 30/70 coco to soil) is recommended by several autoflowering seed creators. Therefore, I simply add two handfuls of soil to one handful of coco as I fill up the pots.

Biotabs

Biotabs are an organic and easy-to-use fertilisation method that encourages vibrant plants with very little trouble at all.  No PH metes or EC measurements are necessary.

Startex and worm castings

I have five 10-litre pots so for this I’m adding 4 teaspoons of ‘Startex’ to the mix of my 70% soil and 30% coco. I also add a couple of handfuls of worm castings to the soil mix for good measure, then poking a single Biotab tablet 5 cm down into the mix.

Water, Bactrex and Orgatrex

After this I soak the pots with 5 litres of water which has 5 teaspoonfuls of Bactrex and 25ml of Orgatrex mixed thoroughly into it and we’re almost ready to go.

Mycorrhizzal fungi

Finally, I put a little bit of mycorrhizzal fungi around the centre of the soil where I am going to plant the seed and stir it in a little, so that once germinated the roots will be able to come into contact with it.

Planting the seeds

Making a small hole in the soil using a match, I then put the seed a very small way into the soil – only around 5-7mm down. Use a match or something, not your hand. Then I gently make sure the seed is covered.

I then carefully drop water onto the planted seed area every couple of days until germination takes place.

That is most of the hard work done, now it’s simply a case of gently adding water when the pot gets lighter and watching how the plants get on.

I’ll be reporting back each week so you can follow the progress.

Post any comments or questions below!