Autoflowering seeds vs. regular seeds
The first large-scale marketed autoflowering variety, back in the 2000s, known as Lowryder, was bred by the Joint Doctor. He crossed William’s Wonder, Northern Lights #2 with an unknown ruderalis simply called “Mexican Rudy”. Auto-flowering seeds were made using genetic manipulation. This was done by cross-breeding various cannabis strains with cannabis ruderalis strains, which in turn, created cannabis plants that change to flowering automatically, usually after three weeks. Cannabis seeds generally need specific cycles of light hours (photoperiod) in order to move from the vegetative stage to the flowering stage properly, but there’s no need for change in the light cycle or removal of males with auto-flowering seeds. As they flower automatically, it’s entirely possible to have two harvests in a single grow season.
Pros:
The speed with which they develop during flowering is typically faster than any other cannabis seed type.
Doesn’t require the same complexity as other seed types and also allows the discreet growth of crops due to their smaller size.
Ideal for novice growers, as they are generally easier to grow, both indoors and outdoors.
Cons:
As they are smaller in size, there’s also the inconvenience of a lower yield per plant.
Feminized seeds vs. autoflowering seeds
Through trial and error, feminized cannabis seeds were brought about. Earlier, feminized seeds were made with from two female cannabis plants who were put under stressful conditions. To stress the plant, growers would prune leaves or branches or disrupt the light cycle. This process created the female plants to transition into a hermaphroditic state. Pollen from the hermaphroditic plant, were later used to pollinate the “pure” female. However, this caused hermaphroditic qualities (or, the propensity to create male cannabis plants during stress) to be passed down to the resultant seeds. Fortunately, the process of creating feminized seeds today has dramatically improved and is now the most commonly used method aside from rodelization*. Thanks to the help of traces of colloidal silver, it became possible for the purest of female cannabis plants to create male cannabis plants, done by further stressing the plants into producing pollen.
* Letting unpollinated female plants live several weeks longer than the normal harvest time.
Pros:
Guarantees 100% female cannabis plants, which doesn’t require discarding male specimens in the process.
Cons:
Don’t allow the development of male cannabis plants, which may not be the best choice for those who are aiming to produce seeds or to create new hybrid strains.