Top Tao Seeds: Regular Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds

Regular seed gets treated like the old, risky option, the thing growers put up with before feminized packs came along. That's the wrong way round. Regular simply means the seed hasn't been sexed for you, and it says nothing about how stable the line is. Big Auto Tao has been held steady over 11 consecutive generations, which is more generational work than plenty of newer feminized lines can claim.

Half Your Plants Could Be Male, And That's the Deal

With regular seed you sex the plants yourself. Watch the nodes once pre-flowers show, pull the males, and grow the females on. Sow six and plan for roughly half going on the compost heap, the honest downside here and the reason this shelf isn't for someone who wants bud from every seed. Open pollination and phenotype selection is what you get in exchange: pollen you can keep, sisters you can compare, and one keeper you take cuttings from. Pick regular if you want to make your own crosses or hold a mother. If none of that appeals, the feminized packs in the rest of our cannabis seeds range are the easier route.

TAO Is Our Way: The Breeder Behind These Packs

Top Tao Seeds is a small European auto breeder that works only in regular seed, and their own line on it is short: TAO is our way. Their catalogue is bigger than what we stock, so these six packs are a slice of it. Super Auto Tao has won at European cannabis cups in both the Auto and Outdoor categories, Early Top Tao took Bronze and Silver in the Outdoor category at the Prague Cannabis Cup, and Big Auto Tao is the one they built for indoors.

What's Actually Inside a Tao Mix Pack

A mix is a sampler, not one strain. Auto Tao Mix 2 gives you 15 seeds pulled from six lineages, Super Auto Tao, CBD Haze Auto, Early Top Tao, Big Auto Tao, Haze Auto Tao and Auto Tao Blueberry, plus seed from three Top Tao strains that haven't been released. Auto Tao Mix 1 works the same way with the older genetics. Semi Auto Mix is the smaller entry point: 6 seeds from three genetics, Big Auto Tao, Super Auto Tao and Haze Auto Tao. Semi-autoflowering is worth a sentence on its own. Super Auto Tao sits between photoperiod and autoflowering: a photoperiod plant needs the light cycle changed to flip it, an auto does not, and a semi-auto flowers fast without the squeezed veg window, so it takes topping and low-stress training better than a standard auto. If you want one strain instead of a lucky dip, look at Auto Tao Blueberry, a Blueberry x Ruderalis cross where the ruderalis carries the autoflowering trait and the Blueberry lineage brings the rest, DJ Short's Blueberry being the classic behind it. The smell off a ripe plant is close to a punnet of fresh berries, and the deep purple in the leaf makes it a standout.

Timing a Tao Auto Against a British Summer

Big Auto Tao runs 100-200cm and comes in roughly 3-4 months from germination, and Auto Tao Blueberry holds the same sort of height. Short-summer plots are exactly where that timing pays off: germinate in late spring and you're cutting before the damp autumn sets in. Botrytis and mould resistance matters as much as the calendar in a wet British September, and Super Auto Tao is the pick there, highly resistant to pests and moulds outdoors or in a greenhouse. Germination and paper-towel method is the simplest start, damp paper somewhere warm and dark until the taproot shows, then straight into the final pot. At 200cm you'll want to plan headroom early rather than tie the plant down in week six. Mixes finish in waves, so if this is your first Top Tao pack, start with Semi Auto Mix rather than the 15-seed mixes, and store what you don't sow cool, dark and dry.