Welp, let's do the math, lol. Let's say we start in January. First you have to grow out lets say 50 photoperiod plants to find one to use a mother. That takes about 4 months. And let's say you get super lucky and find a gem in those first 50.. Now you have to smoke the final product for testing, run the clone again (another 3 months) and pollinate it with pollen from an awesome auto.Those first f1 seeds are still photoperiod. So now you have to grow out those seeds and f2 them (another 4 months). Now that you have f2 seeds, only 25% of those will have the auto gene. So you have to grow those out and find the auto plants (another 3 months) and cross them together for f3s.. Those f3's will be 50% auto.. So guess what? You gotta grow out those f3 seeds and find the autos (another 3 months) and cross them. At f4, you should have a standard auto flower.. And this is a bare bones, super rushed, example. So it would take at least a year and a half just to get untested autoflower seeds, if you do four back to back runs with no issues and perfect plants. But this scenario doesn't include any time for any errors, stress testing, breeding out unwanted traits, breeding in wanted traits, final product testing, life, none of that. So yeah, it literally takes years to make an original autoflower. Its a major reason why Mephisto is so well respected. They take the time to create their own original autos, and they work them to f4-f5, test them, and release once they are happy with the results.
