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The Story Behind Autoflowering Cannabis

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Kosta M
The Story Behind Autoflowering Cannabis

Cannabis, as we know it today, is a species of plants that are actually quite ancestral. In fact, the first cultivations of marijuana took place more than 12.000 years ago in central Asia, around the place now occupied by Mongolia.

Furthermore, marijuana became one of the first plants to be domesticated and intentionally cultivated by humans. This implementation then started spreading around, all over Eurasia, and by the year 2000 BC. It could already be found among cultivations far west, near Germany, as well as far east, reaching Japan. 

But the weed from the old days isn’t nearly close to the one that we know today. The genetics that we know today are the result of years and years of evolution from skilled growers that experimented with their male and female plants to create newer and improved breeds. 

For instance, autoflowering plants were way far from what they are today. 

It all began with Cannabis Ruderalis, which was about the worst thing in its beginnings, they couldn’t make hemp fiber with it, and consuming it only produced a bad headache. In fact, Ruderalis was actually considered more of a pest due to one characteristic that, little did they know, would be cherished later on: it grows and flowers where domesticated cannabis can’t. 

These Ruderalis plants began to seem promising as the cultivation of marijuana kept on expanding, now towards Siberia, where most plants died not being able to endure the 20 hours of daylight in the summertime, and only 4 of darkness. These photoperiodic plants, the ones dependent on light to flower, died, while the Ruderalis proved to stand up to anything, flowering independently of light, but rather following their own internal clock. 

But cultivators couldn’t yet see the potential in these plants, and as the 20th century began, it was completely ignored by scientists. Instead, they opted to study two of the three cannabis subspecies that they divided the plants into, the Sativa and Indica, and the Ruderalis was set aside and smoked only by the desperate youth. 

But later in the 1970s, a new wave of breeders stopped to rethink the Ruderalis, but they failed at the attempts of creating stable autoflowers. 

It wasn’t until an eager breeder from the United States was set to experiment and make the Ruderalis work. The first experiments weren’t too promising, with plants that contained no more than 8% of THC. And then came The Joint Doctor to save the day when he came across a strain that was known by then as the “Mexican Rudy”, which grew short and flowered early. 

The Joint Doctor started crossing the Mexican Rudy with several other breeds and began creating some newer ones. Upon his sixth generation of breeds, he developed the Lowrider, known as the first commercially available autoflowering cannabis strain. 

And while this Lowrider’s characteristics didn’t seem quite promising for some, with little THC content, a smaller frame than the other breeds, and with low yields, other breeders were able to catch the vision. 

Many other influential breeders, such as Donny Danko from High Times, took a pro-autoflowers stance and continued to spread the word on how these genetics were excellent for specific types of growers. These breeders continued to breed newer genetics, while others, such as Fast Buds emerged with their own experiments. 

Now, we’re able to find autoflowering cannabis strains (https://2fast4buds.com/autoflowering-cannabis-seeds) that no longer stay in the small frame characteristic of the Lowrider, but ones that can reach 150 cm tall and yield big amounts of monstrous buds. At the same time, these more modern genetics incorporated the quality of feminized marijuana seeds. Briefly explained, feminized means that when you plant those seeds, you’re guaranteed to obtain female plants, which are the ones to produce smokable or consumable buds. When seeds aren’t feminized, there’s a 50-50 risk of the plants resulting in male plants, which is far from ideal, they produce little to no buds, with almost no THC content, and they can even pollinate your other female plants and turn them into hermaphrodites, which means, buds filled with seeds, not so good. And that, is the history behind autoflowering cannabis strains, well, a summary. These breeds are yet growing and evolving, and they’ll continue to improve as years go by.

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Kosta M
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