Lemon Auto

Days 1 to 14, seed to fourth node: Expect Lemon to crack in roughly 48 hours on damp paper towel and to break soil by day three. Growth is even and unhurried — four solid nodes by day 14, spaced somewhere between the two parent types. Damping off is rare if you hold near 70% humidity through this stage.

Weeks 3 to 6, building the frame: One top at node four and a light tie-down is all it asks for. Six leaders and an even canopy across roughly 70 x 70 cm, then it is ready to flip.

Bloom, weeks 1 to 8: The 57/43 character becomes obvious here. Caryophyllene usually shows in week three and strengthens from there, with trichome cover visible without a loupe from about week five. Indoor yield: 350-400 g/m2. Height: 100 cm. Tested at 18% THC. Difficulty: beginner.

Weeks 4 to 6. This is where the plant stops looking like a frame and starts looking like a crop. Development stays even across the bud sites, and the canopy work done in veg pays off now — eight comparable colas rather than one dominant top over a set of also-rans. Trichomes should be visible without magnification from about week four.

Weeks 6 to 8, ripening. Drop to plain water for the final ten days. The caryophyllene carry gets strong enough that carbon filtration stops being optional in a residential street. Trichomes run clear to milky across the last fortnight, amber showing on sugar leaves before it reaches the calyxes; around 15% amber on the calyxes themselves is a common place to cut.

Drying and curing. Whole-plant hang in the dark at 17°C and 58% humidity for roughly 12 days — when stems snap instead of bending, it is ready for glass. Burp twice daily for the first fortnight, then once daily through weeks three and four. Finished weight should land near the 350-400 g/m2 estimate. The limonene note comes through markedly stronger after curing than it did at harvest, which is the clearest evidence that a cure builds flavour rather than merely preserving it.

Difficulty: beginner. In flower for 7-8 weeks. Stands 100 cm. Indoors it returns 350-400 g/m2. Outdoors, 80-100 g/plant a plant. Regular seeds with autoflowering genetics.

The first thing Lemon does at 18% THC is settle a warm peppery spice at the back of the throat. The euphoric, creative, focused, calm effects follow within minutes, across head and body at once. Thinking stays clear while muscle tension drains off, which leaves the dose as the deciding factor — light for the afternoon, heavier and it moves into the evening without a jolt. Limonene sits underneath all of it, adding a brightness that offsets any heaviness.

Leading with Caryophyllene, then Limonene, and Myrcene underneath. How this combination survives the move from flower to vapour or smoke is not a given. Held low, at 180-188°C, the limonene and myrcene notes stay legible with caryophyllene underneath them. Run it hotter, or burn it, and the three collapse into one — still pleasant, but without the separation that makes this cultivar worth paying attention to.

Who does well with Lemon? People growing on flat balconies from Cape Town to Johannesburg. Smallholders after a fast outdoor crop. Indoor growers short on headroom. Autoflowering genetics run to their own clock, so there is no light schedule to hold, no worrying about light leaks, and harvest lands 10-12 weeks from germination whatever the season is doing. It is rated beginner, which in practice means a first-time grower with a basic setup and a feeding schedule they actually follow will get a decent result. Sent nationwide in plain, unbranded packaging, with sourced grow data on every strain page.