White Widow strain: every version compared

Which White Widow should you grow?

The right one comes down to your space and your patience more than anything else, and the table above has the figures behind each call.

Photoperiod or autoflower? Photoperiods give you the full plant and the bigger yields, but you run the lights, 18/6 to grow, flipped to 12/12 to flower, and they take 49–63 days in bloom. Autoflowers run on their own clock from seed, with no light switch to time; the quickest here is listed at 50 days seed to harvest (Auto White Widow, Pyramid Seeds). Never timed a flip before? An auto takes that worry off the table.

Feminized or regular? Feminized seeds come all-female, so you are not pulling males out halfway through, which is what most beginners want. Four regular White Widows are here too, for breeding or taking cuttings. Either way the choice is about how the plant is grown, not what it finishes as.

White Widow photoperiod (feminized and regular)

The photoperiod versions are the classic White Widow: kept on 18/6 until you are ready, then switched to 12/12 to bloom, and they pay back the extra control with size and weight. Flowering runs 49–63 days, with listed THC up to 26%. Heights swing widely between breeders.

White Widow autoflower

White Widow in autoflower form finishes on age rather than on a change in the light, so there is no flip to time and no timing mistake to make. That makes an autoflowering White Widow one of the easier ways into the strain, and there are 16 autos on this page. Seed-to-harvest times run 50–78 days, so read that figure before you buy. Heights are listed at 50–180 cm, most sitting lower than the photoperiods at 75–300 cm. Top listed THC on the autos runs 12–26%, and 5 of the White Widow versions here are CBD-forward, bred gentler. Most list White Widow x Ruderalis; others cross in an auto line such as Critical+ Auto, Lowryder or Northern Lights Automatic. For a first grower who is short on space or time, this is the section to read first.

CBD White Widow

5 White Widow versions are bred the other way: THC eased back, CBD brought up to sit closer to it. On this page they land around 5 to 10% CBD against roughly 5 to 15% THC, so they keep the White Widow character while the effect stays gentle rather than heavy. They suit someone who wants that character with less of the hit: the aroma and the plant without the full strength. That is what growers report, not a promise from us. Flowering sits in the same range as the rest; the difference is in the chemistry, not the grow.

How White Widow grows

White Widow is forgiving enough for a first grow, and the breeders say so in their own words. Pyramid describe theirs as well-mannered with no awkward habits; Fast Buds say the ruderalis in their auto keeps its composure through the odd lapse in care. If you want a plant that tolerates a learner's mistakes, she is a sound place to start.

Height is the one thing that genuinely varies, and training is the answer. The span across the family runs 50–300 cm, from a 50 cm Vision auto that suits a discreet, low tent to photoperiods that reach for the ceiling, so read the height column first. Herbies' auto is listed at 110 cm, and they say a little training pays off. Pyramid say to give her headroom in case she reaches for the taller end. Royal Queen call theirs a stealthier, faster shape with a single dominant main cola, and Sumo describe their auto the same way: everything into one crystal-coated cola rather than side branches.

A couple of version-specific notes worth having. Green House say their auto's buds come in varying colours under a heavy resin coat, but only if you keep the temperature above 10°C, so that one is worth a thermometer in a cold room. Herbies describe their CBD photoperiod, listed at 610 g/m², as a stable, predictable grow that gives back dense, resinous flower. That is the White Widow pattern across thirty years: pick your height, train the tall ones, mind the cold on the colourful cut, and she is a forgiving grow.

Where White Widow comes from

There is plenty of folklore here, and the catalogue does not fully settle it. Green House Seeds' Arjan traces his White Widow to 1992, received directly from Ingemar, the Dutch breeder credited with founding her in the late 1980s, and she has been a fixture of the Dutch coffee shops since the nineties. Herbies Seeds, meanwhile, date the genetics to 1994. As Green House Seeds put it, with a legend this old the full story rather depends on who you ask.

The parentage is quoted differently too. Most breeders point to a Brazilian sativa crossed over a South Indian indica, landrace roots on two continents, though some list it the other way round, as Indian over Brazilian, and a few name their own stabilised White Widow (an S1, or an ‘Original’) as the parent instead. Nirvana list Kerala x Manga Rose. With this many tellings, each version's page sticks to its own breeder's.