I knew pot size affects size, didnt realize it can possibly speed the process.
Not buying..lol. ? Let me stir the pot and see if
@Waira will throw his 2c in.
...it's a solid trend for sure, other breeders often use this to speed repro' cycles up including FullDuplex/Gnome genetics...
As with most anything biological, it's not a Law of the Universe type thing, not all respond the same but it's consistent enough to call it a general rule. There's no locked-in bloom time reduction amount either...
Be careful about drawing conclusions off one plant, one run or whatever, especially with the pheno' thing in play. Several other factors affect bloom speed as well. Variety, numbers and permutation are what I'm going off of in observation and experience.
I can say from my years of growing in smaller pot volumes, in a tent and OD's, most every plant finishes sooner than typical. Auto's are in 9L pots usually, photos outside 7-10gal with some staged transplanting to cause some root cramping deliberately to slow them down/reduce size in veg' stage...
I'd say 1-2 weeks on photo's/Fast Version types, maybe a bit more with the same cultivar planted in ground vs. a small pot, apples-to-apples best as one can...
Longer cycle auto's reflect this to a proportionate degree; this year, Vidamints, What's My Name, Ogreberry, Passion Punch all done ahead of described times -
A great example for this would have been last year when I grew a C99a x Punto Rojo F3 (not auto yet) made by a mate, who was running his in big tubs multi-plant style, indoors. With time and space, they grew larger, bloomed like champs and finished blooming in about 8 weeks. Keep in mind the PR used is a 14 week bloomer, typical of genuine landrace NLD varieties... The whole idea is to get a PR dominant auto developed-
- but the infusion of auto genetics brought the bloom time waaaay down!
...My girls were started late, 3rd week of July I think? Veg'ed in the tent for a month, then booted OD's to finish, in 5gal pots. Bottom line, blooming took only 6 weeks with very PR dominant pheno's, done last week of Oct.!