0:11

Ladies and gentlemen , stoners and growers

0:13

, welcome to a midnight rendezvous

0:16

like no other . I'm your host , socrates

0:18

Groes , broadcasting live

0:20

from the server in the heart of America . Join

0:23

me on this extraordinary journey through the

0:25

lush foliage of my autoflower garden

0:27

to learn how to grow your own fire at

0:30

home . This is Autoflower

0:32

Power , the podcast that takes you deep

0:34

into the hidden realms of the horticultural

0:37

marvels that we call autofowers

0:39

. On this week's episode

0:41

, we will be discussing purchasing your first

0:44

autoflower seeds for your first

0:46

garden . My goal in

0:48

this episode is to make sure that you

0:50

feel confident in the knowledge to make your

0:52

first seed purchase for autofowers

0:54

and make sure that you get off to a great start

0:56

. So sit back and enjoy

0:58

this episode of Autoflower

1:01

Power . The

1:10

first thing we want to do when we're purchasing autofowers

1:12

is making sure that we're actually getting autofowers

1:14

and not photo periods . So when you're

1:17

checking out any seed banks or anything else , just

1:19

make sure that you're understanding the difference between

1:21

an autoflower and a photo period

1:23

. These are the two major types

1:25

of photoing or flowering

1:28

cannabis plants that you can grow

1:30

. Photo periods do require a

1:32

light switch , which means that you are

1:34

changing the light schedule from a longer schedule

1:36

to a shorter schedule when you want them

1:38

to go to flower , so you control when they go into

1:40

flower , versus autofowers

1:43

, and the auto part is that

1:45

they flower whenever they want , so you don't have to do

1:47

any light schedule change . We've gone over

1:49

the light schedule changes quite

1:51

a bit in other episodes , so feel free to check

1:53

those out , but what we're discussing

1:56

today is specifically about autoflower

1:58

seeds . So when we're going

2:00

to a website , we want to make

2:02

sure that we are getting actual autoflower

2:05

seeds . Some of the benefits of autofowers

2:07

for beginners are that they are

2:09

automatic and that you don't have to worry about

2:11

switching the light schedule . Another

2:14

advantage that can

2:16

very commonly come across new

2:19

growers radars is that they tend to

2:21

finish a lot quicker than photo periods

2:23

, so they can be a couple months

2:25

shorter than photo periods . In fact , some

2:28

autofowers you can go from seed to

2:30

harvest in a short of 65 days

2:32

. Typically it's closer to 80 or

2:34

90 days , but there are certainly some fast

2:37

finishing autos that you can get done

2:39

super quick and that's really attractive

2:41

to people who are just starting

2:43

out , and that's one of the main reasons people are actually drawn

2:46

to autofowers in the first place . In

2:49

addition , because

2:51

they go on their own rate and you can't get them too

2:53

huge . Typically they

2:55

tend to be smaller to some degree

2:57

than photo period

2:59

plants , but again , that really has to do with how

3:01

much you can just veg out and the time you can

3:03

put into a photo period

3:05

to let that thing grow bigger and bigger before

3:08

you put into flower . There's

3:10

a lot of great new genetics for autofowers

3:13

that can grow absolutely massive

3:15

. If you do any night

3:17

owl stuff or

3:19

anything like that , you can see just

3:21

monster plants . There's guys online

3:23

like auto-podimus who are pushing

3:26

17 ounces plus

3:28

20 plus ounces from autofowers

3:31

. So there's really no limitation as far as

3:33

photo period versus auto , but

3:35

it is just something to consider when you are

3:38

choosing autofowers over photo periods

3:40

. Real

3:43

quick , before we move on , I just want to make a note

3:45

that there is a difference in

3:47

addition to auto and photo

3:49

. You also want to keep an eye out for

3:51

feminized versus regular

3:54

seeds . Typically , you won't find a

3:56

lot of regular seeds available for sale

3:58

, but you will find them from time to time from

4:00

certain breeders , including night owl

4:03

, and basically what the difference is

4:05

is that the feminized

4:07

seeds guarantee that you're going to get flowers

4:09

, and that's really what we're going for

4:11

when we're growing cannabis at home is we're trying to

4:14

get those big buds , the

4:16

flower that we can smoke , and if you've

4:18

got male plants you're not going to get any flower

4:21

, you're going to get just seeds and pollen . You

4:23

won't even get seeds . You need female plants for seeds , but

4:25

you'll just get pollen and you'll be very

4:27

sad with your results and all the time you put forward

4:30

. So , to

4:32

kind of cut out the middleman there

4:34

, always buy feminized seeds . If

4:36

you're just growing for flower , if it's a breeding

4:38

project or something like that , I encourage

4:40

you to go get regular seeds of a variety

4:43

so you can try different

4:45

things and have different potential males to grow

4:47

so you can get different types of pollen . But typically

4:50

for the home grower , for the

4:52

beginner grower , you're going to want to look for

4:54

auto flower seeds and you're going to want to look

4:56

for feminized auto flower seeds

4:58

. That brings me to

5:00

one more little labeling distinction

5:03

that you might see and that is

5:05

the generations , which

5:08

might say F1 or F4 , etc

5:10

. Basically , what an F4

5:12

would be would be that it's

5:15

the same genetics bred down

5:17

for generations , so it's taking

5:19

the same genetics and bringing them with themselves

5:21

and themselves and themselves over

5:24

and over . And what that does is it really stabilizes

5:26

the genetic characteristics . There's

5:29

two things to keep in mind . There's a genotype

5:32

and a phenotype . The

5:35

genotype is the complete

5:39

range of expressions that a plant

5:41

can have . It's everything within its genetic

5:43

makeup . So if it's a hybrid

5:45

between a sativa and an indica

5:48

, it can go one of two

5:50

ways , obviously , and lead

5:52

one direction or the other . And that

5:54

full spectrum is what's called the genotype

5:57

. The phenotype is actually

6:00

what appears in your garden

6:02

. So that is somewhat dependent

6:04

on the conditions , what

6:06

you're feeding it , the environment

6:08

that it's in , but that will all be dictated

6:11

by the genotype . So

6:13

when you're looking at an F4 , for

6:15

example , you're looking at something

6:17

that a breeder

6:19

has probably seen and said

6:21

, oh , this one particular plant

6:23

has this one particular quality or

6:26

this set of qualities that

6:28

I'm looking for . That could be a flavor

6:30

, that could be a disease or pest

6:32

resistance , that could be a particular

6:35

structure , that could be a particular smell

6:37

or effect and that has been

6:39

kind of chased through multiple

6:42

generations . So a breeder will

6:44

grow out a bunch of one plant and say this

6:46

is the one that shows the most characteristics

6:48

that I want . So I'm going to reproduce this particular

6:51

plant . Does that again ? There's

6:54

a variety of plants again , but then again

6:56

reproduces the one that has the most

6:58

of those qualities that he wants . So

7:00

once you get down to the fourth generation , a lot

7:02

of those qualities are pretty stable and

7:05

a lot of that excess genotype

7:08

has been discarded . So

7:10

you really mostly have what you're looking

7:12

for , or a more true plant to

7:15

what you're hoping for in the phenotype

7:17

, whereas when you see something

7:19

like an F1 , an

7:22

F1 is a true hybrid

7:24

that means that you've taken two

7:26

genetically diverse parents

7:28

so that's a different male strain

7:31

versus a female strain and

7:33

you combine them . And what happens

7:35

with an F1 is that you get the most

7:37

variety in the genotype

7:40

, so that means that the phenotypes will

7:42

be the widest variety . So if you get an F1

7:44

, there's a real good chance that if you pop

7:47

five of them or three of them or whatever

7:49

, you're going to get a variety

7:51

of different flavors , taste structures

7:54

, even though they're from the same parents

7:56

, and one of the benefits

7:58

of this is that you get something called

8:00

hybrid vigor . What

8:03

hybrid vigor is is a

8:05

tendency of first-generation

8:08

hybrid plants to both be

8:10

more vigorous , to grow more

8:12

quickly , to be a little bit more strong

8:14

and to yield more . So

8:17

there is a bit of

8:20

chaos turned up on that meter

8:22

because you don't know exactly what the phenotype

8:24

will be . You haven't really dialed it in yet , but

8:27

there's some really cool parts about growing F1s

8:29

. So if again

8:31

, just to go over this so if you see something

8:34

like an F4 , 5 , 6 , 7

8:36

, it's more likely going to be very

8:39

particular to the description

8:41

or kind of the metrics that they're

8:43

giving you on the breeder's page

8:45

or the seed bank page , whereas

8:47

if it's an F1 , you're going to have

8:50

a lot more leeway both in flavors

8:52

and you know growth style . So

8:55

that's one thing to consider when you're looking at

8:57

seed packages and considering the

8:59

breeding that has already gone into them

9:01

. So where

9:03

do you order seeds or where do you buy

9:05

seeds from ? Well , there's a couple different ways

9:08

you can get seeds . One of the

9:10

easiest ways is to go down to your local growth

9:12

store and nowadays a lot of them

9:14

will have seeds available for

9:16

you to purchase right there . So if you have a local growth

9:19

supplier , that might be a cool

9:21

place to go . Maybe talk to some locals and see

9:23

what they've grown and tried and

9:26

get some recommendations from them Always

9:28

cool to support local , if possible . The

9:31

next place that you will find seeds

9:34

are from seed banks . Seed

9:36

banks are different companies throughout

9:39

the world . You can find them

9:41

from Europe that ship here , you can find them

9:43

all over the United States , and each

9:47

one has a variety of breeders

9:49

that they select and they stock

9:51

, and some of them have particular

9:54

types of things that they specialize in . So , like auto

9:56

flowers , there's a couple auto flower seed banks

9:59

. There's a couple like land race

10:01

speed seed banks

10:03

that specialize in plants

10:06

that are , like , localized , that are

10:08

not hybridized , and

10:10

you can buy seeds from them . So , depending

10:13

what you're looking for , you're gonna want to try to find

10:15

a good seed bank . I

10:18

would say the best way to find a seed bank is to

10:20

look on Instagram

10:23

or forums like

10:25

auto flowerorg is

10:28

a great resource for places

10:31

to get seeds and get reputable

10:33

seeds . And what do I mean

10:35

by reputable seeds ? You

10:37

can get cannabis seeds from

10:40

a lot of different places and they will probably do

10:42

okay . One thing that I want

10:44

to mention while we are talking about buying seeds

10:46

is white label seeds . Basically

10:50

, what white label seeds are are

10:52

they have

10:54

big cannabis seed

10:57

producers , especially in

10:59

Europe , who just go and

11:01

they just , you know , grow a bunch of cannabis

11:03

and they grow a bunch of seeds and

11:05

they send them over in bulk to

11:08

different seed banks and

11:10

those seed banks will go and they will label

11:12

them whatever the most popular strain of

11:14

the month or the year or whatever it is , and

11:16

they'll sell them under that name . These

11:19

seeds , most of the time , will do good

11:21

. So let me just tell you my story about my first

11:23

seeds . I went to a website

11:25

that was recommended through

11:28

some you know , bs forum advertisement

11:31

. Of course I went to an advertisement on a forum . Instead

11:33

of listening to the people on there , I

11:36

bought seeds . They were northern lights

11:38

, auto flower feminized seeds

11:40

. They were exactly what I was trying to get

11:42

and I grew them out and

11:45

I grew a pretty nice plant and I smoked

11:47

it and I enjoyed it and I didn't think twice

11:49

about it . And it really wasn't until years

11:52

later that I learned about white label

11:54

seeds and I realized that that northern

11:56

lights probably had nothing to do with northern lights

11:58

and it was just some generic

12:00

seed that happened to produce , you know

12:03

, halfway decent auto flower cannabis

12:05

. But it really wasn't what

12:07

I paid for . It wasn't northern

12:09

lights , it wasn't bread . You

12:12

know the way it should have been and

12:14

you know I don't know the genetic lineage

12:16

of it , so I can't really say exactly

12:18

what it was or wasn't , and

12:20

I would just recommend against

12:23

going white label . If you can find

12:25

that out , you might be able to search a seed

12:27

bank and search white label with it to

12:29

find out if there's any information about it

12:31

. There's a really good episode

12:33

on Dark Horse Genetics podcast

12:36

that I'll link to in the description . That

12:38

talks about white label seeds and

12:40

why it's a big problem for

12:43

both seed banks and for breeders

12:46

who get ripped off doing this . It's

12:48

dishonest business , basically . So

12:51

watch out for white label

12:53

seed banks and you

12:56

will find great seed banks with great

12:58

breeders on a bunch of different websites

13:00

. So let me just name

13:02

a couple that I'll put in the show notes

13:04

to Seeds . Locker is a

13:07

great new seed bank . Multiverse

13:10

Beans is another great seed

13:12

bank that you can order from . Both these

13:14

guys have a lot of auto flowers on hand

13:16

and ready Really

13:18

good guys and they will help you out and

13:21

yeah , so I would recommend

13:23

those two to start off with . You can also

13:26

sometimes go directly to

13:28

a breeder . Pretty cool

13:30

news is that Night Owl actually

13:32

just created their own website

13:35

for the first time , so you can now

13:37

order directly from DAZ at Night

13:39

Owl . It's nightowlseedscom

13:41

, and if you head over

13:43

there and you go to the seeds

13:46

tab , you can see they've got a bunch

13:48

of seeds on here . And

13:52

actually , while we're here , I think it's

13:54

a good time to go over some seed

13:56

description reading . So

13:59

if you right now , this is March

14:02

4th 2024 . So

14:04

things might be different . But the first

14:06

thing listed on the Night Owl Seeds webpage

14:08

is Bouncing Soul Auto Regs

14:10

. Okay , so what do we know

14:12

just by reading ? That they're auto flowers or autos

14:15

, but these are regs , regs

14:17

regulars . That's not what we want . We want feminized

14:19

seeds . So we're going to skip the Bouncing Soul

14:22

Auto Regs and we're going to go to the next one

14:24

, which is Kemen Juice F4

14:27

Auto Fem . So what do we know just automatically

14:30

by reading the name on this ? Basically

14:32

, we know that these are auto flowers , so they're

14:35

not going to be photo periods , they're feminized

14:37

seeds . That means we're not going to get any

14:39

issues with non-flowering plants , we're

14:41

not going to have to cull any males . This

14:44

is an F4 . So that means

14:46

it's been bred over four generations

14:48

. What has it been bred with

14:50

? Now that we click on the details , we see some

14:53

beautiful pictures and we see

14:55

it is a cross between Chem91

14:57

clone only and ChemDogging

14:59

with a Citrus Chem

15:02

Pheno . This is Generation F4

15:04

Feminized Auto

15:06

Flower . It comes with three auto

15:08

flower seeds . That's pretty typical

15:11

in a pack of auto

15:13

flower seeds , as you'll get three , but

15:16

typically if you order from the breeder you

15:18

will get a couple extra . So

15:20

my experience is

15:22

, when you order from the breeder you'll typically get five

15:25

to six in a three pack Six

15:28

if you're lucky , but definitely four

15:30

or five . The next thing

15:32

that says here is that it yields two to four

15:34

ounces . That's a pretty broad general

15:36

range . I would bet

15:39

, depending on the conditions , you could grow

15:41

a lot more than that . You

15:43

could also probably grow a lot less than that , obviously

15:45

, if you stunt the plant . So

15:49

just something to keep in mind is that that yield

15:52

is not guaranteed

15:54

. So the next

15:56

thing on here is harvest time 75

15:58

to 85 days from sprout

16:01

. That's probably pretty accurate . To be honest with you , 85

16:05

days is fairly typical for the

16:07

amount of time that an auto flower takes , especially if it's in the

16:10

two to four ounce yield range

16:13

. So then there's

16:15

a description here . Let's

16:18

go over just a couple of notes on here

16:20

. I'm going to skip down a couple paragraphs to Kevin

16:23

Juf's F4 , our

16:25

Indicadominant plants Squat

16:27

, sturdy , with fat leaves and solid

16:30

branching that will hold themselves up through flower

16:32

without assistance . The satellite

16:34

branches can reach almost as high as

16:36

the main cola and each will yield

16:38

similarly sized flower clusters

16:40

. Her nugs are extremely

16:43

dense and glisten with greasy white

16:45

trichomes complemented by vibrant

16:47

orange pistols . The flower structure

16:49

leans more to the old school side of

16:51

things , with resin production focusing on

16:54

the flowers themselves instead of spilling

16:56

over onto the fan leaves and down the

16:58

stalks like some of my other varieties

17:00

. Don't let the lack of

17:02

fan leaf trichomes fool you . Her chem

17:05

potency and flavor after harvest

17:07

more than make up for a lack of

17:09

resin rails while growing . Her

17:12

effects are uplifting , mentally

17:14

sedative , physically great for evenings

17:17

and social gatherings . Be sure

17:19

to have ample air flow late in the flower

17:21

as to keep her rock hard buds

17:23

happy and healthy . If you're into

17:25

old school funk , then Kevin Juf

17:28

should definitely make an appearance in

17:30

your garden . Cool , there's a lot

17:32

of information there . It talks

17:34

about these plants are Indicadominant

17:37

plants . That means that they are going to be a little bit more

17:39

sedative . It says that

17:41

they're squat and sturdy . That means you're

17:43

probably not going to have giant tall

17:45

plants . If you've got kind of a shorter

17:47

tent that you've got to worry about

17:49

. With a short light on there

17:52

they grow into flower without assistance

17:54

, so most likely you're not going to need any kind

17:56

of cage system or support

17:58

any kind of trellising

18:01

on there . These are great things

18:03

to know before you go into

18:05

it . It says you know the

18:08

extremely dense and glistening

18:10

with trichomes . It gives you a great idea

18:12

of what you can expect , especially into an F4

18:15

where some of these characteristics have really

18:17

been worked on and stabilized . It

18:20

even tells you you know later on . It says

18:22

be sure to have ample air flow late in

18:24

flower as to keep her rock hard buds happy

18:27

and healthy . This is something that commonly

18:29

comes up is when you are growing your first

18:31

big fat nugs . You're so impressed with

18:33

them but you're not keeping up with the air flow

18:35

. So when you are

18:37

going and purchasing seeds , there's

18:40

a ton of information in these profiles

18:42

. You could even do more homework if you

18:44

want and go back up to this

18:47

, cross the Chem91 by Chem

18:49

Dogging and look more into those

18:51

, dig deeper into those and

18:54

kind of see what the genetic heritage of these

18:56

plants that you're going to be growing are . You

18:58

can find a lot of this information on both seed banks

19:01

, on Instagram , from breeders or

19:03

on breeders websites . So keep an eye out

19:05

for that and make sure that

19:07

whatever you're picking is

19:09

something that you're interested in , whether it

19:11

is , you know , the smells or the

19:13

taste or the structure . These

19:16

things are all important and there's so many varieties

19:18

out there . It's really worth checking out a

19:20

bunch to really decide what you want to grow

19:22

. So let's wrap

19:24

this up with a quick discussion

19:27

, especially for new growers , on

19:29

am I going to get in trouble for buying cannabis

19:31

seeds from the internet ? The

19:34

short answer is probably not

19:37

. I'm

19:39

not a lawyer , so don't take any of this as

19:41

legal advice , but from my understanding

19:44

, cannabis seeds contain

19:47

less than 0.3 , or

19:49

whatever it is THC

19:51

that's required by law to

19:53

consider it hemp and under

19:56

a recent agriculture bill it

19:58

was considered legal to

20:01

sell and have cannabis

20:04

seeds because of the basically non-existent

20:07

THC quantity in them

20:09

. Sprouting , germinating , growing them is

20:12

another can of worms that I can't

20:14

get into . But I would say , for

20:16

the most part , if you are just buying

20:18

seeds online , for the

20:20

most part most of these companies are pretty discreet

20:23

. They'll just send you some kind of a

20:25

black bubble envelope with

20:27

your name on it and some generic return

20:29

address , so no one's gonna think anything

20:31

about it , but

20:34

realistically I wouldn't

20:37

worry about it . That's just me , though

20:39

. I've been doing this for a while and I've never had any issues

20:42

. I've never had packages lost or stolen

20:44

. Sometimes things take an extra

20:47

day or two and I think it's just the mail

20:49

. I don't think it has anything to do with the contents

20:51

. So my

20:53

two cents is if you want seeds

20:56

and you can't find them locally , I wouldn't worry

20:58

too much about purchasing

21:01

them through a reputable

21:03

purchaser . If you have some reason

21:05

why you are concerned about your

21:07

bank or you know someone who

21:09

has access to your credit card , check

21:12

out a website like privacycom

21:14

. That's a way to create

21:17

. This is totally

21:19

legal . By the way , the sounds shady when I say

21:21

this , but it's a way to create debit

21:23

cards to be used online that don't necessarily

21:26

have your real

21:28

personal information tied to them , even though

21:30

that they are tied to a bank account

21:32

that you own Not

21:35

really an endorsement , but I've had pretty good

21:37

luck with them and I like using them for purchasing

21:40

things online . So

21:42

with that I would say basically

21:44

, just don't worry about purchasing seeds . If you're

21:46

looking to grow auto flowers and you can't find

21:48

them locally , go for it . Go

21:50

through a good breeder or

21:53

seed banks website . You can usually pay

21:55

by credit card . Some of them

21:57

will allow you to send physical cash

21:59

or checks to them . Some

22:01

of them you can pay with Bitcoin or cryptocurrency

22:04

. It really depends what you're wanting to do

22:06

and what you can find on these websites that you want to

22:08

buy . So take a look around

22:11

at a . We'll have some links

22:13

in the show notes to different seed banks and a couple

22:15

of different breeders that we recommend and

22:18

take it from there . I'm really

22:20

excited for you to get your very first auto

22:22

flower seeds . Thanks

22:30

for checking out this episode of Auto

22:32

Flower Power , where we've discussed

22:35

buying your first auto flower

22:37

seeds from the internet . Typically , we've

22:39

discussed the difference between feminized and regular

22:42

seeds and why you're probably going to want feminized

22:44

as a beginner grower . We've discussed

22:46

F1 versus F4 generations

22:49

and why F4 is more stable

22:51

with the genetics and F1 might give you more

22:53

hybrid vigor and a bigger yield . We've

22:55

also discussed white label seeds and how

22:57

to find a great seed bank or a great

23:00

seed breeder . We've

23:02

also gone into how to read a strain

23:04

guide and what you can really expect from some

23:06

of those numbers and what some

23:08

of those labels mean on there . But

23:11

not least , we've talked about how to buy

23:13

seeds online and whether or not

23:15

it's safe for you to do

23:17

so . So I hope you've taken

23:20

something from this podcast that

23:22

gets you going and gets you excited to buy

23:24

some seeds online . If you

23:26

do , please let me know what you get . I'm really

23:28

excited to hear . Shoot

23:31

me an email at SocratesGroves , at protonmailcom

23:34

, or check out the website

23:36

at SocratesGrovescom for

23:41

more notes from this episode

23:43

, including some seed banks and awesome

23:45

breeders . So until

23:47

next week , take it easy . Bye

23:50

.