Semi-autos. What are they, how to create mothers?

Breeder's Lab
#1

Hi all!

Can anyone point me in the right direction of some information on working with semi-autos? All information I seem to find is very old forum posts. I don’t trust something from 2010 when they were probably in their infancy.

Basically just wanting to know if they are able to be kept as mothers and what the lighting schedule would look like. Also, I am assuming they just have a faster flowering time? They have been bred with an auto but not stabilized to make it fully automatic if I am understanding right?

Thanks all!

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#2

They would be a mix of autos and photos, no such thing as semi auto unless its a gun :wink:

For a mother you would have to find a photo plant, which would be just growing one, and if it didn’t flower on 18/6 it would be a photo plant. You cant keep auto moms, every cutting would be at the same stage of flowering as the mother.

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#3

yea I can semi see where your going with this… so are you on about fast versions.? I was first interested in them by sweet seeds… ive always had a few percy autos by mephisto lurking in the fridge also… Ive found them better IMO than dutch passions and fast buds… but recently aqquired the hso fast versions of there original… want to see how they compare in speed but I believe at some stage through the sorting of photo to auto breeding… they test and select which ones don’t flower under 18 but have shorter times once flipped and work with that… @Shadey how does that sound ive looked into it a little a while back…

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#4

Thank you! Yes, the no cloning or training is why I don’t go with autos. I am buying some seeds in the future from a private breeder on Strainly. He is calling it Sour Lemon 105. 105 because that is how long it takes to flower in days. The better term would probably be Early or Fast flowering. I do think I have seen some strains with this verbiage added.

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#5

Hi Lunash
Yes, you can certainly create semi-autos…basically heterozygous…Pp (Photo and Auto genes)…these will not breed true if you are to create seeds…That said, you should be able to create a faster flowing mom…

Cheers

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#6

Thank you! No breeding projects here. No room, unfortunately. I am going to try these though, hoping for a nice mother to keep for a while.

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#7

Yeah those are early finishers but still require a light time change to trigger flowering. where as autos will go into flower under any light time period.

105 is 15 weeks, I would say that is not an early finisher :wink: sounds more like a full on sativa.

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#8

Ha! That is interesting… I wonder if he means total growing time? Then it would be an auto though… Strange!

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#9

They do make giant autos which I would presume take a lot longer to reach maturity, I have only grown the regular type autos a couple of times, I have one Purple Kush autos from Grease Monkey above ground atm with another 3 waiting to break surface. I have a single giant auto seed, cant remember what its called, and several other auto strains, which I will try over the coming weeks, trying to start 4 auto plants every 2 - 3 weeks for staggered harvests and make some fem seeds from them.

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#10

Yeah, semi-auto is a made up term. They are either autos or photos, with photos being dominant. So, as @MrToast mentioned, the “fast versions” have one dominant photoperiod ( P ) gene and one recessive auto gene ( p ).

I’ve made these crosses before, and the auto can, indeed shorten the flowering time. My Juanita cutting takes 10-11 weeks to finish, but when I crossed it with the Lowryder2 auto, the progeny flowered in 8-9 weeks.

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#11

i concur to reiko’s comment

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#12

From what I’ve read it is a term typically used for early flowering outdoor plants (for northern climates) that stay in veg with a 24/0 or 22/2 light regime and no other stress factors like being root bound. Just 4 or 6 hours of dark might already be enough to trigger the flowering response.

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#13

I’ve run strains from Daz and Sweet Seeds.es as well. Ive been working a sour lemon auto line to f4 and I did hit some photo females with the pollen. The resulting offspring expressions were a shorter veg time with a 40-49 day flowering period. Females from this group were seeded and began to regrow when left in the veg garden. I’m prolly doing it wrong but I leave my autos in the vegging photo cycle. They get sunshine and supplemental cfl all night. Hope that helps. Devil Cream Auto is my favorites of his.
Aloha

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#14

Mighty Mite I believe is one

I could be wrong

Dequilo

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#15

Sudanese from RSC is listed as semi auto I believe. Compact fast finishing equatorial sativa. I’m a bit confused by the terminology as well. Does it just mean a percentage of the population grown will autoflower?

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#16

No it means they just start flowering at a slightly higher light period than a full auto, for example, like 14 hours of light, as opposed to flowering when reaching sexual maturity in any amount of light, as a full auto would I believe.

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#17

So I tried just vegging a few “fast flowers” last year for an exceedingly long time (while I grew out and finished some full autos) and at about 3.5 months they started to flower at 18 hours. So what I took away was; its more like they finish flowering fast when treated like a photo, and veg for a super long time before flowering if treated like an auto IMO.

Caveat; I only grew 3 of them from 1 breeder, so my experience may not be typical, just what that breeder had produced.

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#18

I did just that last summer crossed a photo with a auto , a 15 seed test run resulted in 5 fast males 4 misfits turfed , 1 full auto and 5 fast flowering only after flipping to 12/12 did they start to bud.
Not any scientific testing just observation of growth the plants all showed resemblance to the orange goji side which required 10 weeks to finish these new plants with the auto crossed into them appear to be finishing at the 7 week mark .
I didn’t take clones so no info if they’d stay in veg continually or if they’d eventually flower under 18 hrs light , that will be a test down the road to do.

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#19

I completely understand what you are saying, in that there is a continuum between auto, early flowering, and later flowering. However, as someone who has grown many of the older school, early onset/eventually will flower whether you like it or not strains like, East Island’s Dutch Treat, Guerilla Gold #2, Mighty Mite, and Early Sativa, there is something a little different with these that just seems to require a way to categorize them as being unique. It’s not like you can set your light cycle to 22/2 and keep an East Island Dutch Treat in veg, trust me. So is it auto-flower then? Well, not really, as topping it will delay flowering and they do react to the photoperiod dropping. Some of the mighty mites will go a little later and you may be able to keep a mother, but you will be fighting a never ending battle of trimming, making sure it’s not even slightly root restricted, and almost begging to be able to take clones off it. If not semi auto, then something else? If it was just either auto and then different light cycles to keep them cleanly in veg, then I get your definition, but it’s the extra sensitivity to other factors that seem to ask for another category. It’s a land where they will eventually flower whether you like it or not, but they are also influenced by photoperiod. Please help me out here, and if anyone that has also worked with these type of plants, it would be great to hear from you.

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