I ran Serious Seeds Chronic about 15 years or so ago.. maybe more. I ran four or five packs and found a nice keeper for production standards. Chronic worked very well for the setup I was running (very dense SOG) and I ran in for 2 or 3 years. The structure and yield was what I was after. I rooted around 100 clones in the cloners and picked the 72 best/most even, trimmed the roots and off they went into two aeroflo 36. They went directly to flowering cycle from the cloner, no veg time. Any lower branches that tried coming out were cut and the plants were "Lolli popped". Chronic's columnar growth suited this style well. About 3 weeks into flower some of the leaf was thinned to allow for light penetration through canopy. If memory serves me right, it flowered in 50-60 days, but don't quote me. I remember doing a lot of experimenting with lighting schedules before getting this dialed in, 13on/11off to 11on/13 off (both increasing and decreasing), trying to figure out what yielded best in terms of potency and grams per day. With this dense of a setup, mold is an issue with many strains. Chronic showed pretty good resistance to mold, although the pheno I chose had a more sativa bud structure and air circulation was a priority in this room, so overall not too bad with mold. The giant buds were sweet smelling, very floral, a touch of pineapple, with a hint of citrus, lemon perhaps? but very mild. I remember many reports unsatisfied with the fragrance. Many complained of hay smell at the time, so be careful with curing. As for the effect the high was a relaxing body, not racey at all. This is all going back sometime, and my memory is not great, and I don't have my notes in front of me, so dont quote me on any of this.
Overall I enjoyed Chronic, as I ran it for years, but there are many strains out there now that are the total package. Chronic was a great commercial strain back then, but would leave much desired for the connoisseur and even the casual smoker with today's market variety and availability. So do I still hold a clone? No. Basically for the reasons I already stated, there are other strains that are the whole package now. As it were, I was on the hunt for another strain to run in this room and Chronic was on its way out when one day I noticed one of my mother plant started to flower on me. I panicked thinking there was a light issue in the mother/clone area but no other male or female showed in the coming days, so it wasn't that. I checked the roots to see if they had become bound etc. and there was no stress or otherwise that would make it feel like the life cycle was coming to an end. I've heard of this type of thing happening to very old plants, but not a few years old. I asked around and searched some forums and apparently this was a common thing at that time from Serious Seeds with Chronic and even another variety that I can't quite remember? I remember writing Claude and Simon about this and sending them pictures. They offered to send me a replacement pack, which I accepted. I still haven't opened them and really don't have any ambition to. Some day. When I had that plant dialed in, it was certainly putting out for me. That is what Chronic is for IMO. But like I said, there is much better available now. Look at Critical Mass by MNS. It is leaps and bounds better than Chronic with many of the same qualities I was searching for back then (structure and yield for dense SOG).
I don't know if Serious Seeds hashed out the autoflowering problems or not. But I will add that I've heard some not so great things from friends about their seed lines lately. I can only tell you what I experienced first hand.