Sour Kush Auto

The way to plan Sour Kush is backwards from the day you intend to cut, with up to 450 g/m2 per square metre indoors and up to 550 g/plant per plant outdoors as the figures you are working toward, at 26% THC. Count 60-70 days back from that date and you have your flip date. Weight comes on evenly across 60-70 days, with a late surge that punishes impatience. The 50/50 balance gives you stacking density and broad trichome cover together. Outdoors, late March to late April is the sweet spot — after the summer humidity has broken, before the first Highveld frost.

Yield on Sour Kush — the up to 450 g/m2 indoors and up to 550 g/plant outdoors quoted above — is decided in three short stretches of the 60-70 days bloom rather than evenly across it.

The first ten days after the flip. Whatever stretch happens here sets your canopy, and an uneven canopy wastes light for the remainder of the grow. Stretch of 30-40% is normal. One round of low-stress training on the tallest shoots levels it out.

Weeks three to five. This is when caryophyllene production climbs, and it answers to the gap between day and night temperature rather than to either number on its own. Keep at least 6-8°C between them. Outdoor growers in the interior provinces get that swing free in March and April; indoors, aim for 25-26°C lights-on against 18-20°C lights-off, with potassium-led bloom feed at EC 1.6-1.8.

The last ten to fourteen days. Stop feeding, flush with pH-corrected water, and read trichomes daily under a 60x loupe. Cut at 10-15% amber to keep both sides of the hybrid in play. Outdoors that usually lands between late March and mid-April.

Difficulty: easy. In flower for 60-70 days. Stands Medium. Indoors it returns up to 450 g/m2. Outdoors, up to 550 g/plant a plant.

The first thing Sour Kush does at 26% THC is settle a warm peppery spice at the back of the throat. The relaxed, happy, euphoric 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 Sour Kush? 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 easy, which in practice means a moderate learning curve that rewards attention without needing laboratory conditions. Sent nationwide in plain, unbranded packaging, with sourced grow data on every strain page.