I believe he's referring to the fact that once you introduce the autoflowering gene to a gene pool, you'll never get it back out.
Many of these autoflower only strains are taking the place of strains that arent "polluted" with auto flower genes. There are already several people who found out they had autoflowering plants though they wernt advertised as such. And vice versa. It's already happening. People buy seeds thinking they spec out nice, only to learn later they are automatic seeds.
I honestly dont think autos will pollute the gene pool that much. They are gimmicky, unstable and mostly only grown by newbies. As such are mostly a fad for newer growers who dont know any better, thinking they are getting the latest and greatest.
Then finding out autos are the absolute worst seeds for a beginner to start with. Hell even some skilled growers have problems with their shitty genetics.
All while not being as good an end product by any measure, as regular photoperiod cannabis. I believe it's more for these "breeders". So they can quickly toss out a crappy cross, charge 10$ or more a seed for them.
Meh, it's all moot to me. As I said, I'll never grow auto. I keep my own genetics, and IDGAF what other people do.
I'm just against them cause I can see it being used as a means to control genetics. All the government has to do is say "only automatic seeds are legal to sell". Then we are stuck with shit genetics, no way to legally clone or keep your own untainted genetics.
Forced to pay for shit genetics over and over again. And we pretty much handed them the means to do it.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. There is no situation that is not bad planning, poor effort or down right laziness, where an auto offers anything good to the prospect of growing cannabis.
As far as I can tell auto's only real use, is for people who cant plan a grow.
But as I said, its moot to me. Cause I'll never grow one.
I get it. I grew up with a few people who've been growing for 30+ years now, (all over the United States) and I've been seriously doing it for about 10+, so I still consider myself somewhat new to the game, but I also bring my college background in inorganic/organic/bio chemistry into the mix, also my microbiology background and lots of science. That said, there's a general order to things in the cannabis industry and people have been doing things for awhile now, so there understandably set in their ways.
You don't get good at doing this shit by constantly changing things that work for you, and cloning is one of those tenets, I fully get it.
Unscrupulous seed vendors are not going to go away either, the cannabis industry is filled with people who've worked, put themselves in harms way sometimes, and done all sorts of things to get were there at in the industry, and make something for themselves. (ie. labor of love for the plant) It's also filled with scam artist who want to make nothing more than a quick buck. It's not a forgiving environment, when you can lose everything, when things can and do go wrong, one only needs to look at someone like subcool how these things can play out, getting locked up for years, only to finally make it, and then having it all taken back again by a fire and a woman. The industry is set in its ways, and people are slow to change.
But it is ripe to be disrupted every now and again, and things like LED lighting and auto's have shook up the industry in ways that are controversial at best, but also groundbreaking in many ways. Opening up different ways of doing things, but also causing some mayhem in other parts of the industry. But yet, autos are sill in there infancy yet, not even scratching the surface of their full potential.
Yea, if you get some seed stock, and you don't know exactly were it came from, or trust who's sending it too you there's always room for problems there. (That's why I've got my photoperiod genetics from vastly different sources, some have panned out, others not so well) Most of the growers I've known in the early years only grew one specific strain for ever and ever, until they had an alternative that they actually had done there homework on, ie(growing it out at small scale, to see what they have) not just throwing some seeds in a hole and calling it a day, then blaming others for their misfortunes when things didn't turn out as they expected.
I seen this playing out with my vendor who sells much of my seeds. He was getting shit from other vendors who were unreliable and they were ruining his business, (some not bad genetics, just bad propagation rates, or unreliable results) I pulled him up and told him he's got to get some QA in place, because people won't come back after a bad experience, (he in return sent me all of their genetic seed lines, and told me to get to work) as repeat (customers) are the key to success. He's mostly taken that to heart and his business is booming. People want seeds that pop 9/10 times, big spouts, and strong genetics, it's that simple. They want and expect nothing less.
I've got genetics from reputable companies, and when I challenge them about puny results, they won't even return my emails, (after sending them several hundred dollars) so it's a really mixed bag out there right now. But one thing I know for sure, with each generation I grow, the weed keeps getting better/stronger/bigger, as I continue to cross more photoperiods genetics into a stable autoflower.
