I do like your answer. And I see the logic in it. And I like the discussion. But you're now actually starting a different discussion altogether. Now it's about if it's a lazy breeder or intentionally put to market. You think it's laziness.
Unfortunately, I can't refute this. I do not know anything about breeding. It seems to me that if a breeder reaches the state where a strain is stable (I agree on you there, it should be stable, which means what, exactly?) but discovers that it brings decent yields if you set the light cycle during flowering at 12/12, hè has a few choices:
1. Toss all his work and start again.
2. Try breeding on (but here I have no idea if this is a viable choice, because I know nothing about breeding)
3. Market it and inform us in all honesty about what it is.
I would choose 3. Why? I have put a lot of time and effort in breeding a perfectly stable strain.
It produces great yields. (If I have to guess, mine will yield me about 90 grams of dried bud under a 144w LED on 3.3ft²)
AND this yield can be (and this sound weird, but read my previous post) obtained with less light. Which is a great unique selling point.
The risk that are opposing these chances are that people won't understand and insist on keeping lights on for 24 hours and then complain that the yield sucks...
That risk can be managed by clearly staying that these seeds are semi-auto and explaining that to get the best yield 12/12 is recommended during flowering. Which this company does.
Is this laziness?
Maybe they should
Also you implicitly state that every autoflower should be able to handle 24/0 light. In other words: every autoflower should give the best yield when you give it 24/0 light.
If you define an autoflower by stating that it needs to have the DNA that provides the automatic switch AND the characteristic that it should ALWAYS give the best yield when kept on 24/0 during its entire life, you win. In that case, my semi-autofflowering plant is not worthy being called an autoflower.
It's just that...is that really the definition of an autoflower? I think not.
