Well they could have called it hyper or mega or brutal, the name is irrelevant.
To see a real difference we need someone to grow it side by side and make a journal.
If we can see there that the moment of of switching to flower is delayed by an unusual time compared to "normal" auto's, then it should be considered as a different type of autoflowering. ( better get a mass study with 1k+ plants to see how often this happens )
If the delay of switching really increases potency, then it needs to be checked, but again if it has an unusual high potency it also needs to checked if this is a side-effect of that delayed switch or something else.
Even when it has a different reason why its potency is higher, then it doesnt make it a normal auto because of that delayed switch.
My definition says that an autoflower CAN handle 18+ hours for flower but doesnt have to. You can grow automatics also with swtiching to 12/12 for flower. The yield just wont be that good.
My definition says nothing about the produced yiled. If you got an autostrain that produces more yield with a 18/6 cycle and a different strain that produces more yield with a 12/12 cycle then both are automatics.
Thats not an opposite, thats just a case where the auto-strain is grown with a 12/12 cycle for the flower period and resulted in producing more yield when grown with a 12/12 cycle instead of 18/6.
For me it looks like this:
You got photo's. These once got devided into sativa and indica because they are different even tho both switch to flower with a 12/12 cycle.
You got auto's. Now these are going to get devided into normal, super and semi autoflowering because they all switch on their own into flower but are different to each other.
You dont need to push a semi-auto into flowering by changing the light cycle, it is just recommended to change the cycle once the plant has switched to flowering because that strain produces more yield with 12/12 than with 18/6.
Just because some normal autoflowering plants didnt switch to flower by theirselfes doesnt mean that this is because of beeing an unknown or unlabeled "semi-auto". It can have many reasons which sometimes cant be detected.
What about the energy costs? I could run a seed to harvest run with a semi-auto that takes all it needs for veg and switches on its own to flower and then produce as much yield as a normal auto with only 66% of the energy costs.
It is like a using clones from a motherplant that get straight into the flower room, but just with seeds, without the need of an extra room ( space, light, costs ) for the mother and with almost the same time needed and more yield. ( sure u dont got the same strain all over your growspace, but u can grow many different strains at once without the need of having a motherplant for that strain )
