DIY Autoflowering Cannabis

by Jeff Lowenfels

  TOASTER OVEN OR REGULAR OVEN FIRECRACKERS

  Set temp at 110–120°C (230–250°F)

  0.2 to 0.5 gram Cannabis (0.2 gram makes 3 to 6 sandwiches)

  Saltine, Ritz, Graham, or similar crackers

  Aluminum foil

  Nutella (almond or peanut butter are suitable substitutes)

  1. Wrap Cannabis in the foil (like a Hershey’s Kiss).

  2. Bake for 15 minutes in aluminum foil.

  3. Mix with the nut butter and put a thin layer on crackers.

  4. Wrap the sandwich in foil and heat again for 15 minutes.

  MICROWAVE OVEN FIRECRACKERS #1

  0.2 to 0.5 gram Cannabis.

  1. Heat the nut butter for 45 seconds on the highest setting (adding an equal amount of butter is optional).

  2. Mix in Cannabis.

  3. Wrap in foil to keep warm.

  4. Eat after 15 minutes.

  MICROWAVE OVEN FIRECRACKERS #2

  0.2 to 0.5 gram Cannabis

  1. Mix the nut butter, regular butter, and Cannabis.

  2. Spread on top of crackers.

  3. Microwave for 30 seconds. Some prefer bursts of several seconds. Let cool and consume.

  COCONUT CANNA SPREAD

  Coconut oil

  Cannabis, finely ground

  Powdered sugar

  Vanilla

  1. Mix equal parts of the ingredients.

  2. Heat the mixture in a frying pan for a few minutes.

  HAVE FUN, BE SAFE

  Enjoy your harvest. However, be safe. When eating Cannabis the effects can be delayed for 2 or 3 hours. Use moderation at all times. And, by all means, respect local laws.

  8

  HOW TO CREATE YOUR OWN HEIRLOOM VARIETIES

  ONE OF THE great things about growing tomatoes as a hobby is the ability to get as deep into it as you want. It just depends on what you want out of your hobby. So too with Autoflowering Cannabis.

  There is a complete spectrum of activity intensity from plunking seed into soil and walking away, satisfied with only a small harvest, to developing your own heirloom seeds or clones and going for maximum yields and strength. Autoflowering Cannabis plants are great hobby plants.

  The choice is obviously yours. However, even if you decide you are not interested in this more advanced aspect of growing Autoflowering Cannabis, it is a good idea to know how your Autoflowering Cannabis plants came to be. You might later decide this is an aspect of gardening with Autoflowering Cannabis that you actually would enjoy.

  BREEDING FOR SEEDS

  With tomatoes, breeding is pretty easy. You choose open-pollinated fruits with the best taste or size or take seed from plants that resist mildew and repeat season after season until you are satisfied. Sometimes you might paint a bit of pollen from one flower to another and come up with an interesting cross. It is pretty easy.

  Autoflowering Cannabis plants don’t have the same kind of flowers as do tomatoes. Tomatoes have one flower that has both the male and female parts. Cannabis produces male and female flowers. Crossing them is different.

  There are a few new terms you will want to know before you begin breeding Autoflowering Cannabis. As with many things in the Cannabis world, some terms have come to be used in particular ways.

  PHENOTYPES

  A phenotype is the sum of the traits you see in a plant. In the Auto-flowering Cannabis world, the word phenotype is used to describe a characteristic like height, as in tall or short phenotypes, or bushy and tree-like phenotypes. Some of these characteristics result from genetics, but others are as a result of abiotic (environmental) influences such as sunlight or temperature.

  Some varieties are not stable, and so the same plants grown in the same area may be totally different phenotypes. They display different traits even though they are of the same variety. These seeds are unpredictable.

  The job of the breeder is to select traits and breed them into (or out of) what will hopefully become a new wanted strain of Auto-flowering Cannabis that is stable. This is usually accomplished by exploring traits of various available stock.

  CROSSING AND BACK-CROSSING

  Discovering new phenotypes with new traits can be accomplished by “crossing” two plants and then crossing the offspring with each other and seeing what appears. Or you may want to keep the trait the first cross created. This is what makes the hobby so interesting. There are so many possible outcomes.

  Performing a backcross consists of breeding one of the new off-spring with one of the parent plants. It stands to reason that when you perform a backcross, you end up increasing the chances the next generation will have traits like the original plant. This is because there is more genetic material identical to that of the original plant. And, it turns out, with Cannabis you only need to do a backcross once or twice to see results.

  Of course, once you have a plant with the traits you want, you have to make sure it is stable. This can usually be accomplished by backcrossing again, one more time. This isn’t as much difficult as it is time-consuming. In addition, you might not find what you are looking for or you could lose it altogether. This is why breeding Autoflowering Cannabis is an interesting hobby.

  REALLY SIMPLIFIED GENETICS

  There are lots and lots of books on genetics, and some, no doubt, were written with Cannabis in mind. The subject is lightly (very lightly) covered here as it is a good idea to have a picture in your mind of how Autoflowering Cannabis varieties come to be.

  First, Autoflowering Cannabis is a diploid plant. This just means it gets its genes from its mother and from its father. Some genes are dominant, and some are recessive and hide in the background. Depending on the parents, different traits manifest themselves.

  Since we are dealing with Autoflowering Cannabis, autoflowering is an important trait. By way of an extremely simple example, let’s make a plant with a dominant photoperiod (P) trait and a non-photo-period recessive trait (r).

  Let’s assume that the father plant has two of the P traits in its genetics, PP. The mother has two r or non-photoperiod traits, rr. (These pairs are considered homozygous for those who do crossword puzzles.)

  Now, cross these homozygous plants. The father can only give a P gene to offspring. Likewise, the mother can only give an r. Thus, the offspring have one trait carrier from each parent, represented as either Pr or rP.

  The fact that these first-generation crosses have two different traits makes them (in breeder speak) F1 hybrids because they are the first of the new generation made from a cross. However, if both the parents are PP, the offspring will also be PP. This is known as breeding true or true breeding.

  Let’s run through the possible combinations when we cross a hybrid pair, Pr with Pr. The possible combinations of offspring are PP, Pr, rP, and rr. Only the PP will be a true breeder, always creating an autoflowering offspring. The Pr and rP are hybrids that will be auto-flowering because of the dominant P. Finally, the rr will be dependent on a photoperiod.

  This is basic Mendelian genetics. It is not complicated, but unfortunately, while it is useful for explanations, it is not accurate. Traits are carried on DNA, and there is nothing singular about them as Mendel thought (and most of us were taught).

  A few things become obvious. For example, crossing a true Auto-flowering Cannabis with another true Autoflowering plant is easiest. In fact, it is very easy from a genetic standpoint. The day-neutral gene is recessive, but in both parents, so the possibilities of getting an rr, to keep to the simplified example, are greater.

  Mixing an Autoflowering Cannabis with a photoperiod plant is much more difficult because the day-neutral gene is recessive. Not very many, if any, of the F1 generation from such a mix will have day-neutral traits. Statistically, the next generation will have 25% day-neutral plants, however.

  Since it takes a couple of months to grow plants, you can see how breeding for a stable plant takes time. In fact, if you are lucky and all things go right, you are going to have to grow up to 6 or 7 generations before
you can know your phenotype is stable and be certain that it will stay that way.

  This is all a bit of work. This doesn’t mean you cannot use the harvests from your female crosses if you want. And, you are not dealing with the longer growth period of regular Cannabis. It is even probably quicker to develop your own variety of Autoflowering Cannabis than your own heirloom tomato.

  F1 HYBRIDS AND HYBRID VIGOR

  Sometimes when you cross two plants, you get a plant that does exceptionally well. This F1 hybrid is said to have hybrid vigor. If you happen to have an F1 cross that performs just as you want it, then you preserve it by recreating its lineage, not by crossing it with itself or its parent.

  You should be familiar with this concept as a tomato grower. Open-pollinated seeds you can cross and recross with other open pollinated seeds. Try to breed an F1 hybrid with the same F1 hybrid, and you will not be able to maintain the so-called hybrid vigor.

  The way around this is to keep a line of the parent plants going. This way you can continually recreate the cross. This is how it is done for many home garden and agricultural seeds (especially corn). It is easy to see why there is a need for professional breeders.

  A predominately male flower with some female parts. GBD/DAZ MEPHISTO.

  CHOOSING PARTNERS

  Just a bit more before you know enough to start breeding (or decide to skip it and just buy seed). First, you need to choose a female partner that has the flower traits you want. This is easy as you almost always see these traits expressed because the female has flowers.

  What contribution a male plant can bring to the table is a whole other matter. It is only by experimentation that you can figure out what a male plant is contributing. Once you find one capable of passing on desirable traits, you may want to stick with it for a while. It can be a time-consuming and frustrating process to cross male plants with female plants looking for desirable male traits to be passed on.

  You will be pollinating one female plant with pollen from a male plant. There is some argument about pollinating feminized seed-grown females. Doing so increases the potential of getting plants that produce male and female. Just be aware. You will have to use what you have to use!

  HOW TO MAKE FEMINIZED SEED

  It makes sense to buy female seeds because it takes the guesswork out of growing plants that will actually develop useable buds (which males won’t). Buying is also easier than creating your own feminized seeds, accomplished by forcing the female plant to produce pollen sacs.

  The feminization process is started by spraying plants with colloidal silver or a growth hormone, gibberellic acid. Both of these chemicals induce female plants to produce pollen sacs at bud sites. (Untreated buds will develop into flowers, and you will see the difference.) After two weeks or so of forming, the pollen sac will swell and start to open. Keep spraying the flower up until this point.

  The sac, or the leaf protecting it, will next start to open. This is when you want to collect the pollen. Too early and you may find an empty sac. (This would be a shame after all your work.) Once filled, collect the sacs with a tweezer and put them in a baggie. Shake it and the pollen will fall from the sacs. Then you collect the pollen.

  Use this pollen to fertilize a female flower that is a week or so old. Obviously, this won’t be from the original plant from which the seeds were developed, and this is just fine. You will be increasing genetic diversity whereas normally the plant would self-pollinate.

  After a few more weeks, the fertilized calyxes will break open as seeds pop out. Congratulations. You can now plant these seeds and see what you have developed.

  ASSESSING THE CHOICES

  Fortunately, there are more and more breeders selling seeds of Autoflowering Cannabis, primarily through dispensaries, but also via the Internet in places where it is legal to ship them at this point in time. Since all of these started with the same breeding stock, it is not unusual to find crosses with the major Cannabis indica and Cannabis sativa strains.

  If you are entering a breeding program, you can use already developed Autoflowering stock for your crosses, or you can use the bigger cousin plants to breed with a particular Autoflowering Cannabis that is of interest to you.

  Landrace Cannabis growing at the base of Mt. Dhaulagiri, near the village of Kalopani, Nepal. Isolated for centuries, landraces make for great genetics. AME HUNKELHEIM, WIKICOMMONS.

  Landraces

  A landrace, or landrace variety, is a particular strain of any plant that has been developed in one specific area of the world over a period of a hundred years or more. They have always been great for breeding purposes because, having gone generation after generation without crossing with other strains, their genetics, and thus their traits, are extremely stable and don’t vary among plants. They are almost invariably 100 percent sativa or indica.

  With the exception of landraces, all of the thousands of varieties that are available today have been breed for special characteristics—mostly related to prohibition! There is nothing wrong with this, but for example, parents that required long growing seasons were then bred for shorter growing season length.

  With legalization, plants don’t have to be hidden and information about genetics can be openly exchanged. Many of the earlier desired traits no longer matter. Now breeders are going back to landraces to look for genetics from these original varieties.

  These special varieties are the basis of many breeding programs. This is important because when you see the name of a country or a region in the name of a Cannabis strain, it is most likely a landrace (or a very close descendant of one).

  Famous landraces such as Acapulco Gold and Panama Red are well-known sativas. Perhaps the best-known landrace indica is Hindu Kush. These and other landrace strains are covered in the next chapter.

  My friend Tom Alexander convinced me that Autoflowering Cannabis plants have great landscaping potential. Tom published an early information newsletter called Sinsemilla Tips which taught many how to grow and later published a cutting-edge magazine called Growing Edge.

  Strains for color

  One of the goals of a breeding program is often to achieve various colors in the plants. Some flavonoids are yellow. Anthocyanins are red flavonoids. There are a few hundred of these pigment molecules that impart a range of blue to purple colors. Developing these is one of the goals you might want to incorporate into your own breeding program.

  Tom put a few Autoflowers outdoors by a swimming pool, and they were stunning. Sure enough, these plants are quite the conversation starters. In Alaska, where we have cooler evenings, I have had plants turn a lovely purple color that only enhanced their uniqueness and delicate beauty.

  More and more breeders like New Breed Seed and Mephisto are working on developing colorful plants—both flowers and leaves. Recently, I saw a plant grown from Australian seed that didn’t even look like a Cannabis and, while only 10 inches tall, had hundreds of nodes. Now that prohibition is over, there will be no stopping progress!

  There is an amazing array of colors to choose from to start a breeding program, since colorful photoperiod Cannabis flowers are great sellers in dispensaries, and commercial breeders have hunted for, and incorporated, all the colors of the rainbow. When you grow a plant with blue, yellow, purple, and pink hues, some of which scream with psychedelic overtones, you have really reached a peak in this hobby. You may not want to use it after you harvest it, as it is so pretty!

  Autoflowering Cannabis can act like maple trees that turn color. Cool temperatures result in the stronger chlorophyll pigment breaking down and the background colors appear. Breeding stock for this kind of color change includes such famous Cannabis varieties as Fruity Pebbles, Black Tuna, and Pink Flower Shaman.

  The colors available for breeding are truly stunning. ADOBESTOCKPHOTOS.

  There are really two ways to get colorful plants. The first is to grow at least the maturing stages in cool conditions. Outdoors you are at the mercy of the climate, but indoors, it doesn’t take muc
h to provide, especially for the smaller Autoflowers, a cool environment.

  Of course, achieving a cross with fantastic color may not result in a cross you want in terms of its cannabinoid content, or its flavonoids for that matter. Still, some growers won’t care, just as they really don’t care if that chocolate or plum tomato tastes good, just as long as it looks great.

  Red and pink—Red and pink hues can be found when the pistils of some strains turn purple. Often this is caused by a lack of phosphorus, so be careful. (This is not how you want to gain the desired color.) In some varieties, it is the leaves that turn into the red zone. This is usually driven by genetics and not weather. Try any of the “Pink” named phenotypes such as Pink Lady Kush, Pink Lemonade, or Pink Flower Shaman.

  Yellow hues—Yellow colors are caused by carotenoids and flavonoids just like in vegetables and fruits. The flowers display the color. They are induced by cold temperatures, too, when the green chlorophyll fades, but also by alkaline conditions.

  Alien OG, Grapefruit, Lemon Kush (Lemon! How appropriate), Kandy, Skunk, and Wicked OG can display yellows. Yellow varieties often have gold as part of their names. (Acapulco Gold, anyone?)

  Black hues—Black is not really the color displayed, but it is the right term for what is a whole range of dark flower colors that are close to black. If the genetics are there, cold (10°C, 50°F) temperatures can induce leaves to show a dark color (but that is very cool, at least for the vegetative stage).