I haven't been growing autos for very long, only about 3 years (and so far outdoors), but in the reading I've been doing it seems like one of the most common complaints is how long they take. Are they taking longer than they used to? Or is this more a reference to the breeder time claims being consistently shorter than the real finish times?
I'm seeing a few Dutch Passion strains (and one Mephisto so far) that they claim take 12 weeks to finish, which seems like a long time. I'm hoping that they are just getting more realistic about their claimed sprout to finish times, and that the reported 12 weeks is not as unrealistic as many of the shorter breeder time references are -- but that said I've seen a couple of grows on AFN go over 100 days. (I'm focused on the Sativa dominant hybrids, so that's no doubt contributing to what I'm reading more about.)
I'm just thinking out loud, but I wonder if in the early days of autos their claim to fame was that they finished quickly, so breeders were selecting for fast finishing strains, and as time went on they shifted their focus to more frost and THC, and speed became less important? On the surface it kind of looks like that's what's happening -- auto strains are trying to compete with photos on quality, and simultaneously they seem to be taking longer to finish.
however you want to put it...
