I used to think it was how long flowering takes in weeks. Now after my first year outdoor, I think it's just when they start to flower. Some strains start flowering when the days are still longer and the nights not as short.
So lets say you make some seeds of a strain that did not finish properly outside, and grow out those seeds outdoor, and out of 30 females a few might start flowering earlier than the rest? and you select those for pollination, you should be able to breed for this trait, and take any hype indoor strain and climatize it to finish earlier?
My ideal timeframe of finishing would be middle of september. Any later than that and the days and nights get too cold (below optimum temp), and it also gets more wet, and the sun weaker, as well as less overall hours, and more cloudy weather so less intense.
Im in zone 7A, so its not that bad as others, but to me growing in october is far from ideal, even if it hasn't frosted yet. I don't think that weather is ideal for max trichome production and density.
And yes I could grow auto flowers in the middle of summer (june 15 - sep 15) - (90 days) and I am indeed pursuing that with mephisto cdlc. one just needs to make hundreds of seeds first, as you cant clone autos, which to me is a big drawback, and you cant grow trees, so one has to make it up by numbers.
you could have a inside dark room than only use 12 hours of the day before it turns cold and too wet. With autos you could have multiple harvest during the season. That just means you have to start early.
I used to think it was how long flowering takes in weeks. Now after my first year outdoor, I think it's just when they start to flower. Some strains start flowering when the days are still longer and the nights not as short.
it's pure genetics this one friend. It has to do with flowering precursors, proteins, chain reactions, etc. Some can flower faster, regardless if both plants started flowering the same day. With breeding you can change two settings in a plant...when they start to flower and/or how fast they flower/ripen.
Not easy to do but i hope that sheds some light on what ur really seeing and working with.
Yeah, even different phenotypes will show first signs of flowering at different times, in my experience. Also, If you use cytokinins during veg, it has been known to induce early flowering outdoors.