Seed selection help

[Justones]

I'm planning my next grow. I'd like some recommendations on seed selections. It will be an indoor closet soil grow. I plan on making a 4x3x7 enclosure. Possible LED light.
I would like feminized seeds because I don't want to deal with growing a male to have to pull out. I'm looking for something pretty easy to grow & not worry too much about it going hermie on me. This would be my 2nd go at it. Also something high in THC would be nice perhaps.
I was looking at Delicious Critical x Jack Herer Auto Autoflowering Feminised Seeds. But figure maybe I should ask around first.
Also is there much of a diffrence on autoflowering vs non autoflowering when your growing indoors & you control the lights?

 

[TheFertilizer]

I don't know if I would go with a cross if I was looking at feminized seeds and wanting to rule out any chance of a hermie. When you cross strains you invite more chance of instability in the genetics than with say just one or the other.

Most seed banks will typically say whether or not a plant is better suited to outdoor or indoor environments, if it grows tall or bushy, the THC content, and a lot of other characteristics. You'd be better suited to pay attention to these characteristics to find one that you think suits your own needs.

As far as auto flowering versus photoperiods in terms of differences, the autoflowers will flower completely on their own even if you leave them with 24 hours of light all day long. Photoperiod you need to have a timer and control the the light schedule to AT LEAST 12 hours of dark before they will flower. You can use any light schedule you want to flower so long as there is 12 hours of more of darkness, so you can actually mimic the light available in your own outside envrionment, using things like a Diminishing Light Schedule to promote different effects in the bud. With an autoflower, you're pretty much leaving it up to the plant when it wants to flower. One advantage of that is that you pretty much only have to water, feed it, make sure you have plenty of head room in your tent and just wait for the plant to do its own thing. On the other hand, if you want more control over at what size you want your plants to flower ( for example if you wanted to grow SOG or SCROG) then you would want more precise control over when your plant flowers and an autoflower would be undesirable for you.

The other thing to keep ind mine with autoflowers, although it's a matter of debate, is that potency for autoflowers may be slightly less than for their photoperiod counterparts. The reason for this is because all autoflower strains are crossed with Ruderalis, usually Lowryder, which has never been a particularly high potency strain. Now I have heard people say that for the most part, they can't tell the difference between the potency, but it's something you might want to consider if you're looking to start your own breeding projects as well. That goes back to strain stability, and in general you will probably have an easier time using two pure landrace strains to make your own special cross than to use any type of autoflower because as I said those are always crossed with a Ruderalis type strain.

As a beginner and growing in a tent, if you want to try out auto-flowers I would just pay special attention to making sure you select one that's not known to grow very tall, which shouldn't be a problem since the Lowyder gene generally keeps most auto genetics more bushy and small. When you grow regular photo periods though, you have to know how much the strain stretches when flower is initiated and be able to plan accordingly so it becomes a little bit trickier, though not really that difficult. Most strains will get about 1.5 to 2 times as tall as they are when you start a flowering light cycle, so the main idea is to never let them grow too tall before switching over to flower so that you don't run out of space in your tent.

 

[Justones]

That's alot of good info there TheFertilizer, Thank you.
I had read there were 3 kinds of cannibis. Sativa, Indica & Ruderalis. The Ruderalis was one I had not heard of till recently. So thank you for giving some insight on that.
My first grow was just some good bag seed. Seems to be doing alright for an outdoors grow. But it's been a real hassle to move things around to keep it safe. So looking forward I'm wanting to move indoors. Also I figure it should help with bug/pest issues.
Plus now after growing something & taking care of it. You look at stuff sold in bags & can't help but wonder. Is this really something you want to consume? Wonder what they sprayed on it etc etc.
Aside from all that. I wanted to buy some good genetics seeds. Because I'm amazed at how some of the stuff looks in pictures on here. Just some jaw dropping awesome grows.

 

[TheFertilizer]

That's alot of good info there TheFertilizer, Thank you.
I had read there were 3 kinds of cannibis. Sativa, Indica & Ruderalis. The Ruderalis was one I had not heard of till recently. So thank you for giving some insight on that.
My first grow was just some good bag seed. Seems to be doing alright for an outdoors grow. But it's been a real hassle to move things around to keep it safe. So looking forward I'm wanting to move indoors. Also I figure it should help with bug/pest issues.
Plus now after growing something & taking care of it. You look at stuff sold in bags & can't help but wonder. Is this really something you want to consume? Wonder what they sprayed on it etc etc.
Aside from all that. I wanted to buy some good genetics seeds. Because I'm amazed at how some of the stuff looks in pictures on here. Just some jaw dropping awesome grows.

Nothing wrong with bagseed in my opinion. Generally speaking, most cannabis is limited by its genetic potential in how potent it can get. However, for a long time and probably still to this day depending on location, commercial weed is not really taken care of as well as it could be, and so doesn't live up to its genetic potential even if it could be very potent. That being the case a lot of the time if you get bag seed and give it some good tender loving care, it will wind up much better than the product that you received it in. That won't always be the case though, and now days there's so many legal states that high quality bud is so prominent I honestly can't remember the last time I saw low or mid grade commercial weed. How did your first grow turn out? If it wasn't very potent, i wouldn't doubt your skills, it was probably not in the weed's genetic potential to get that potent, and that's when you will need to think about purchasing seed.

This was grown from bagseed...

 

[Justones]

Beautiful bud there.
I'm currently still growing my 1st since march. It's about 38/40 days into flower. I figure im about half way or round abouts into flowering. They appear to be a type of sativa from the looks of the leaves. I've made my share of mistakes like little nute burn etc. But the two girls are healthy & seem happy. One is bigger and has about 26+ stalks or colas? Not sure on the spelling or whatever on that. The 2nd is smaller because when they were little & started inside a light fell on them & broke the stalk over. That stunted the growth trying to recover that one. I almost pitched it out. But it made a come back. There was a 3rd that was huge also. But it grew balls. So once I knew it was male it had to go.

 

[Justones]

Here's my girls from the drone. Btw those are silk flowers attached to the cage. A little misdirection.

 

[TheFertilizer]

I like the bird's eye view there

Yeah those leaves look a little more sativa based. How do the buds themselves look?

 

[Justones]

Thanks,
I suppose they look decent. A bit airy would be my description. They are still filling in a bit & starting to smell more as the trichnomes are starting to form more. Whats your opinion?

This pic was about 3 weeks ago. Doesn't show much, I just liked the pic.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Sativa sounds about right based on the looks. Still very young buds, they'll be filling in a lot more in the next two or three weeks.

 

[Justones]

They look a little better each passing week that's for sure. I was hoping to get a bloom fert recommendation in another post. Seems to be a zipped lip subject. Thus far I've just been giving them what I figure they need by looking at them. I've got bloodmeal, bonemeal, Epsom salt, dried banana peels, egg shells & a few other various sources of natural things for nutrients. So it's been a lot harder than just mix something up from a bottle & feed them for me. I think I've been pretty resourceful though. Soil was also a hand mix deal.

 

[TheFertilizer]

They look a little better each passing week that's for sure. I was hoping to get a bloom fert recommendation in another post. Seems to be a zipped lip subject. Thus far I've just been giving them what I figure they need by looking at them. I've got bloodmeal, bonemeal, Epsom salt, dried banana peels, egg shells & a few other various sources of natural things for nutrients. So it's been a lot harder than just mix something up from a bottle & feed them for me. I think I've been pretty resourceful though. Soil was also a hand mix deal.

Just focus on the P and K ratio for a bloom nutrient. You want the nitrogen to be pretty low, probably about half the level of the K. I don't remember when one is in more demand in late and early flowering, but you can look it up and adjust for a early, mid and late bloom mix as well. Otherwise, I would just focus on using ingredients that have higher P and K ratios to N. It will be kind of difficult if not impossible to measure what the NPK of your final mix is, but if you use all ingredients that are high in P and K then the resulting mix should be the same proportion. The Organic section of the forums has a nice list of organic nutes and their NPK levels. Remember not to reduce your levels of N too fast when you transition from veg to flower, wait until you start seeing buds forming.

I am doing a organic grow for the first time as well but I didn't put it together myself at all. A friend of mine makes his own formula and sells it and he gave me a few ounces of the stuff, so I figured I would give it a try. I usually use synthetics.