Sort of... they didn't just come out of the blue... botanists have been crossing Russian Ruderalis since the late 70s. It is not a genetic mod thing, just careful breeding with an understanding of Mendelian genetics. For years people thought autos weren't useful until Lowryder hit the scene... Ruderalis wasn't potent enough until the good doctor made his strain. It just became popular in the past ten years or so when Lowryder hit the market, then about 5 years ago there was an EXPLOSION of crosses and stable auto lines and now mostly just femmed autos. Funny, they realized if we have to buy their fem seeds novice growers will have to keep buying from the producers. Reg autos are very hard to find now... breed those so you don't have to order seeds again!
Here's a simple breakdown on the breeding question for you:
AutoXAuto= always auto
Fem AutoXReg Auto= Always Reg Auto, slightly higher chance to get an occasional hermie (depending on how the previous breeder femmed it)
Fem Auto+Colloidal SilverX Fem Auto= Fem Auto
Auto x Photoperiod= always photoperiod. Cross the offspring again and you have a 25% chance of getting an auto in the next generation. Cross two autos from this generation....BOOM! 100% auto seeds from the auto x auto cross.
SO if you cross an auto with a photoperiod, then cross the offspring (F1), then cross the autos from the next generation (F2), you get 100% Auto from that in F3. For a more stable strain and higher odds of consistency you can save some F2 pollen with an F3 female to get more consistent traits across the board in F4. This is called "back crossing" and is a very powerful breeding technique to make truly stable strains.
Look up Mendelian genetics and punnet squares to see how I worked the math on this stuff, but once you learn how you can breed a bit more cleverly and fpget the traits you want, FYI Auto is a recessive trait, photo is dominant.
I hope that helps bud!
