About taste, smell and effects - Autos VS photoperiod

Smell, taste & high are better (cleaner) at photos. Autos often have this woody, herbal taste and it's possible that the ruderalis genetic makes it a bit trippy. But it becomes better, if you look at Sweet Seeds, they write it in the Datasheet of the Autos. They are using at the moment a minimal single-digit percent of ruderalis genetics to include the autoflowering mechanism. Earlier it was twenty percent. If you want a Auto, use new strains. 😉

photoperiod will almost always outperform an auto of the same strain. Most photos are tuned into autos. not the other way around so their is loss in the transition. Some autos are great, and are good for end of season WPM/Mold issues if photoperiods don't work well.

If your new, forget autos, they are not all they are made out to be. Autos are fussy and fiddly and unles you are a great grower with great equipment, getting good results can be difficult due to their limited life cycle. If you are new to growing, you will learn a lot more and get better returns growing photoperiod fems hands down. Taste and smell have more to do with growing techniques, drying and curing methods rather than purely beinng strain specific. Potency/effect is strain specific, but most seed strains these days are more than potent enough..........don't be fooled by THC percentages, effect is a combination of many things, not just THC amounts. Finding somethig you like is a journey of discovering hits and misses..........there is only one way to do it and that is to grow them. Buy seeds from big, long time established breeders, they may cost a bit more, but you are paying for well stabilized genetics and a lot of R&D that went into making quality strains..... think Barneys Farm, Sweet Seeds, Mandala Seeds..........all their products will give you top class results.........20+ years in the industry is not a result of luck, it is the result of good breeding and good products. Generally, cheap seeds = cheap results with unstable plants. Like everything in life, you only get out what you put in! There are no short cuts to growing good buds, time and effort will be rewarded, short cuts and skimping on inputs will lead to less than optimum results. You will make a lot of mistakes, learn a huge amount and each harvest will be better than the last..........growing is a wonderful hobby. I have grown 100s of strains over the last 40 odd years and never grow autos any more, only photoperiod fems, I like to be in control of my plants, not grow plants that do whatever they want!

Hey 👋 Same Name, but different genetic material / pheno & genotypes. Nothing more to add to below comments. Just plant what you think you like, and see if you really like it 🤷🏼

Education on the distinct uses of the words cultivar, phenotype, genotype, chemotype, and varietal are all lacking in the cannabis community at large. Same can be said for something as simple as the distinction between filial one and F1 hybrids as an agricultural term. Learn these terms and you answer the question for yourself (and arrive at what Aesthetic said). An example is Runtz. Real "RuntZ" licensed is like a very specific varietal, a specific selection from a non-agricultarally rigorous filial one chucking essentially...just hunted on the backend rather than bred for on the frontend. Everyone and their brother has a Runtz because the parents have been disclosed. The issue is that the parents were also specific individuals out of (often filial one) generations. So the mom for Runtz from company A and B might be called the same thing, even have parents and grandparents called the same thing, but they were all individuals. you have the same last name as your parents, but your hypothetical brother has your same parents and same name. Do you see how generations and nomenclature become important quickly when talking genetics? There is math to get around this problem but it involves proper breeding (and pheno hunting for a unicorn on sheer large numbers really isn't that). You can either grow clones (pro move) or hop on the band wagon for some rigorously made F1 hybrids...or someone with something F4. As far as autos, there is zero reason to ever even want to run an auto indoors unless you are a nerd for autos, you have free auto seeds, or are sponsored by a seed company. Autos are generally for extreme low-effort gardening folks indoors and beginners. Outdoors, the skill ceiling for autos really opens up. Mostly with harvest cadence and timing (like planting both autos and photos, then getting an auto harvest in a couple months before your photos resulting in two harvests in a single outdoor season, etc.). I hate to agree but rudaralis in general is giga-ultra-mids. Anything autoflowering is gonna be starting there as the very basis for the entire concept of the flowering style, essentially. So take some fire and cross then backcross it with giga-mids, and what do you have? I guess that answer is subjective. Folks like nightowl and mephesto do craft quality autos and I'd put their beans up against anyones but it really is just a bummer to see, those types of folks could actually be moving the community forward with reg (even fem photo) work...

unless you have a specific reason that makes an autoflower beneficial, like outdoors avoiding a wet season, you should stick to photoperiods. more control. more room for error. better genetics, though not as big of a gap as there once was. More robust plants on average. Probably greater consistency among photo seeds too.

What aesthetic gentics said - and double for autoflowers, because it is bred with even less realated plants to whatever lineage it is claiming to be. With a photoperiod they can at least buy a clone of some real genetics, breed it with some internal plant line and call it 'wedding cake' -- at least a larger percentage of the genetics is actually wedding cake compared to what goes into making an autoflower. there's probably more generations of breeding a stable auto than whatever they are doing with photoperiods. plus ruderalis genes suck, lol.

seed banks are borderline lies. Theres only ever been 1 of each strain and each seed is technically its own strain. so alot of companys put names on things because they sell better and even if they do have seeds that come from that plant. its still going to be different. after years of growing seeds and being let down, i started growing clones and its made a world of difference. but no this companys white widow or sour diesel is not THE white widow or sour diesel. you can do some research to figure out the original breeder but even their seed lines are still going to be different than the actual strain listed. but the actual breeders of certain strains will have better seeds than all the other seedbanks that pop up. grow diaries doesnt help with this either. they still have this company and that company with these hype strains but its not legit. even google makes it almost impossible because all of these seed banks are the first ones to pop up. best of luck. in my opinion though, i get better flavor from photo periods. autos have all smelled the same to me. but i also havent paid for anything new in the past 5 years so maybe theyre better now? best of luck. any questions feel free to message