English
Dutch Passion’s Auto Forbidden Cherry was grown indoors from January to March 2023 in a tent positioned inside a loft in the Netherlands. The grow came from ‘The Artist’, who specialises in growing high quality indoor buds with LEDs. He grew two Auto Forbidden Cherry seeds, one produced the trademark dark cherry-red buds. The second plant was a slightly heavier yielding specimen with lighter pink buds.
| Cannabis strain |
Auto Forbidden Cherry |
| Type of seeds |
Autoflower cannabis seeds |
| Grow Light | SANlight Q6W 215W LED |
| Light cycle | 20/4 (20 hours of daily light from autoflowering cannabis seed to harvest) |
| Grow techniques | None, other than defoliation and lower branch removal |
| Grow medium | 50/50 light-mix/coco-fibre |
| Nutrients | BioTabs slow release organics. Bio Rhizotonic root stimulator. BAC grow, bloom and PK booster. |
| Containers | 30-litre (6.6 gallon) airpot for the pink phenotype. 21-litre airpot (4.6 gallons) for the cherry red phenotype. |
| Yield | 70g (pink pheno), 60g (cherry red pheno) |
Two plants were grown. The video time-lapse was taken of the pink phenotype in the 30 litre airpot. The second Auto Forbidden Cherry (red pheno) was grown in a slightly smaller 22 litre pot. The temperature and humidity was kept high during the first 4 weeks by keeping the ventilation/fan off.
The Artist felt that there was enough fresh air in the room for the small plants even without air circulation. He also felt that it was important to keep the temperature high due to the cool ambient loft temperatures.
By keeping the extraction fan switched off for the first few weeks the grow tent temperature was maximised helping the seedlings cope with early life. The Artist gave a few comments throughout the 12-week grow cycle.
The Artist had his indoor grow tent positioned in the loft for the winter grow from January until March. Although temperatures were perhaps not optimised, Auto Forbidden Cherry is a particularly tough auto strain. “If Dutch Passion recommends her for guerrilla growers then I figured she would also be able to tolerate the initially cool loft conditions” noted The Artist.
In order to mitigate the cool ambient loft conditions, The Artist didn’t use his extraction-fan/carbon-filter for the first few weeks. Whilst not ideal, this allowed the limited heat output from the LED grow light to deliver some warmth to the grow area. With low odour levels, the carbon filters weren’t initially essential.
I didn’t use any special grow techniques. I enjoy natural, easy growing. The slow release BioTabs also helps keep nutrition easy and Dutch Passion cannabis seeds grow with great latitude and still give great results in my opinion…”
Apart from removing lower leaves and branches from the bottom of the plants I didn’t have much to do on this grow. I’ve grown autoflower seeds for quite a few years and I don’t hesitate to remove the lower foliage & branches which would only have produced popcorn buds.
Every day some water was given, based on the needs of the plant. Starting with just a bit, and of course more towards the end. The use of BioTabs slow release nutrients really simplified matters.
Apart from some additional BAC feed nutrients and root stimulator there was little complexity in this grow. In truth these autoflower seeds grew themselves, it gave me more time for the photography!”
Both seedlings developed without issues. It was cool to see the trichomes already visible on the macro photos of the 1 week old seedling. I have grown quite a few Dutch Passion autoflower seeds now and have always been impressed with good germination rates and the vigorous seedling growth. These genetics definitely come with their own mission and they do it so well.
After 2 weeks the first side branches were already visible and the stem was thickening. At this stage it looked like a typically robust Dutch Passion autoflower grow.
I think because of the colder temperatures, the soil and plants could not transpire a lot of water, so some slight overwatering signs occurred. You can see the leaves curl up a little. But overall, the plants remained healthy and grew well despite the conditions (cool & excessively wet soil) not being as good as I normally prefer. I felt a little disappointed at this stage, but I made a mental note to avoid these problems in future.
The first female pre-flowers were seen, always a positive part of an auto grow! The Auto Forbidden Cherry plants continue to show steady progress, the width of the plant leaves is now approaching the container width. At this stage I felt pleased that, despite the cool winter loft conditions and over-watering, the plants had pulled through and were looking good. The genetics were as tough as I had hoped. It made me think this would be a solid autoflower strain for outdoor growing later in the summer.
The first purple/red colourations are now visible on the foliage at the node points. Absolutely gorgeous and a real treat for the grower! Some of these are already covered in trichomes. This first plant to show colour will later be named the ‘fast purple’ phenotype. The other less colourful plant will be known as the pink pheno.
The left plant (purple pheno) looks to be much faster in development than the right pink one. It already has many white pistils and, more importantly for me, she shows great purple colours in almost all areas of the plant/foliage. While the larger ‘pink’ plant on the right seems to be completely green at this point. Though soon she too will show pink flecks of colour in the buds.
The leaves are still ‘clawing’, or curling downwards a little. I still think it’s because of the winter temperatures, the plants can’t get rid of (transpire) enough moisture causing a slight ‘overwatered’ appearance. I tried compensating by providing less water.
However, there was no quick, clear effect. Since both plants remained healthy and continued growing well, I felt I could live with the issue and was grateful for the resilient genetics on this winter loft grow.
While the fast purple pheno (left plant) was already clearly blooming, the slightly larger plant on the right only showed some early signs. But it was clearly outgrowing the other one in size and offered a later, perhaps larger, harvest.
You must zoom in and look very closely but the large plant on the right finally is showing colour! She might not have developed as quickly as the fast purple phenotype, but things are now looking good. The colour isn’t as intense. There is a good coverage of pistils and flowering is kicking in nicely. I was worried for a bit that this phenotype would not show any colour and would end up as a pure-green plant. I love the subtle pink colours and the way they evolve. This pheno I call the slower, pink phenotype and I admit that it caught my gaze increasingly as the grow continued.
The faster purple phenotype is turning dark purple fast, with a lot of white pistils, which makes for a truly amazing appearance. Also, many leaves which have turned dark purple as well, but also remain 50% green. She was a real beauty to look at, one of my grow buddies hadn’t seen anything quite like her.
The leaves of the larger pink phenotype are showing a stunning purple vein pattern. The veins with their dark purple appearance really do look spectacular against the light green leaf background. Beautiful contrasting shades of purple & green appear. The flowers are also swelling up and showing nice pinkish colours.
The fast purple phenotype seems to be lacking volume, but her appearance is stunning. It looks like she was dipped in a purple trichome bath. The leaves and pistils are covered completely with trichomes. The smell that comes off is also insane. Like a strong forest fruit and berry aroma, and occasionally you get a sniff of sweet bubble gum smell. I could easily lose myself in the aromas and colours, but I also wondered if the cold early conditions have cost me in terms of yield.
The large pink phenotype is swelling up nicely. And showing beautiful pink colours too. It seems the plants are taking a little longer than expected, I think because of the lower temperatures during this grow. ‘Lights-out’ temperatures went as low as 14 degrees Celsius. And ‘lights-on’ temperatures could only reach about 22 Celsius most of the time.
The main cola of the pink pheno is looking amazing! Thick and fat! Some beautiful photos were taken at this point. However, the pistils are still quite white, and I will let her flower for at least 1 week longer, for her to ripen completely. Resin development is good, so is the smell. Which in general I would describe as forest fruits. It reminds me of smelling a bag of forest fruit tea.
The fast purple pheno is completely covered in trichomes, it has less volume but twice the stench of the larger pink phenotype. Macro photos show an amazing landscape of purple / pink trichomes. The stems of the trichomes appear to be purple/pink. Super cool to see. Don’t go into your grow room too stoned when growing Auto Forbidden Cherry. If you do, there is a chance you will stay there for way too long admiring the visual treats!
After 12 weeks I was happy with the results and it was time to chop them down. The intensely pungent and penetrating dark-fruit aroma really came out during harvesting. But it was a very insanely pungent smell, so I inhaled deeply and enjoyed it. The grow room absolutely reeked like never before!
The faster purple pheno lacked a little bit of volume in my opinion, though some of that was probably down to the cool early grow conditions. Final yield was 60g dry. The quality of the buds made up for the average yield with a one-of-a-kind appearance.
Everyone loved these purple/cherry-red buds, both the flavour and the intense, stunning colours. The buds weren’t the firmest but since they were completely covered in resin they ground up into an exceptionally oily terpene-soup slurry and went a long way.
This plant needed very little/no trimming. I kept any spare leaves and waste material for cannabis concentrate production. We will do this later and I hope we can make some very sweet resin from this. Some of these trichomes were a wild red colour, maybe we can make some pink hash!
The larger ‘Pink’ pheno produced a more pleasing 70g of dried buds. These didn’t have the intense purple/red hues of the other plant. But the subtle purple flecks blended well with the orange hairs, green buds and white resin. It was a visual feast, not as intensely purple as the other plant but these buds were a kaleidoscope of colours with a similar dark fruit cocktail pungency.
A 130g harvest from 2 Auto Forbidden Cherries plants under a 200W LED was a pleasing result, especially with the high-end potency results. However, the Artist felt that perhaps he might have done slightly better with warmer conditions. That said, the potency and smoke/vape quality really hit the target with one of the most delicious smokes/vapes that this seasoned grower had ever experienced.
A typical strain often ends up with around 0.5-0.6% total terpenes in the cured buds. Auto Forbidden Cherry produced a total terpene content at a staggering 1.6%! That is amongst the very highest terpene loadings ever seen (and independently verified!) by the Dutch Passion team.
Connoisseur growers and professional flavour-chasers should note that the normally rare and elusive terpinolene is the dominant terpene, present at a no-less than 0.6%.
The result is a fruity terpy dankness of genuinely epic levels. Any cannabis concentrate producers that specialise in high-yield extracts rich in a tasty terpene sauce simply couldn’t pick a better strain. The Auto Forbidden Cherry genetics deliver on so many levels, this is one of the most important new autoflower seeds to be added to the collection in many years.
If you love powerful strains with genuinely exceptional aroma, mouth-watering taste and a terpene pungency overload that reeks into next week then Auto Forbidden Cherry seeds deserve a place in your cannabis seed collection.
1 Comment. Leave new
Your Auto Blueberry and Auto Cherry plants are absolutely beautiful!!!
Plus, I can almost smell their fruity aromas by the way you describe them!
Calling these beautiful plants “weed” would be a disservice to them because they’re so much more!! 😍
Thank you for sharing your experience and pictures with us!