Skywalker OG Runtz XL Auto organic grow diary.

[Eledin]

Currently trying this mix of what I think are 2 great strains, seeds purchased from Sweet Seeds, so far Im very happy with this bank, lets see how it goes! So far they look good, tomorrow they will be 1 month old. Sorry for the quality of the camera. The tall one is gonna make me put the other 3 on top of something but overall theyre quite similar in size. No training intended, I have a SCROG net in case I need it to optimize space and light exposure.

Root boosters: Rootfast from ATAMI, DIY lentil root booster for auxins.
Feeding: 1 light feeding with Iguana Juice Grow and Ancient Earth (Humic acids derived from leonardite and potassium sulfate) from AN. 1ml/L of Bud Candy from AN and a bit of molasses (carbs for the microbes)
Light: x2 75W LED bulbs plus LED sidebars for late flowering (50W total)
Pots: 5 gallons textile pots. Germinated seed goes in, no transplant (I dont know because Ive been messing with different strains but seems like they grow bigger this way with the help of root boosters)
Soil: 20% perlite, 15% expanded clay and clay colloids (microscopic size clay), 45% peat, 20% coco.
Ammendments mixed in the soil: Worm castings, bat guano, feather meal, bone meal, volcanic ash, kelp meal, neem meal, dolomite lime.
Microorganisms:
1. Piranha from AN:
Glomus aggregatum
Glomus mosseae
Pseudomonas chlororaphis
Glomus intraradices
Pseudomonas putida
Rhizopogon amylopogon
Rhizopogon fulvigleba
Rhizopogon villosulus
Trichoderma viride
Trichoderma harzianum
Trichoderma kongii
2. Tarantula from AN:
Arthrobacter globiformis
Bacillus megaterium
Bacillus brevis
Bacillus licheniformis
Bacillus coagulans
Bacillus polymyxa
Bacillus pumilus
Bacillus subtilis
Bacillus thuringiensis canadiensis (Kills insects and larvae that try to feed on the roots, a good alternative to nematodes which have a shorter lifespan in the soil)
Paenibacillus polymyxa

 

[hzydze]

I haven’t seen a skywalker x runtz cross. Sounds like something I’d like! Ill be watching this one.

 

[Eledin]

I haven’t seen a skywalker x runtz cross. Sounds like something I’d like! Ill be watching this one.

I actually wanted to go back to photos after 2 runs of autos but I saw this strain and I couldnt resist. Couldnt find a photoperiod Skywalker Runtz, at least not where I live, so I went with this one. After this is back to photos.

 

[hzydze]

I’m on my first grow and I’m currently growing some photos. Auto’s sound interesting but not sure if I’ll try them yet.

 

[memnoch]

Tarantula from AN: is this an actual Tarantula it seems like it from what you say in your post? That's a new one, never hear of that before. Don't think I will try it though lol.
Also, you dead on about the light feeding. I fed mine the other day 4 tsp each of flora micro, bloom, and grow mixed with two gallons of water. Split if up between them. They all had signs of deficiency in their leave pattern. They went from that to burns on the edges from me doing it. :( You can't feed autos much at all. Live and learn, I guess. Think they going to be ok just hope it doesn't get worse. Can't afford for them to have any real problems. Have too much invested in this. It has to work out.

 

[Eledin]

Tarantula from AN: is this an actual Tarantula it seems like it from what you say in your post? That's a new one, never hear of that before. Don't think I will try it though lol.
Also, you dead on about the light feeding. I fed mine the other day 4 tsp each of flora micro, bloom, and grow mixed with two gallons of water. Split if up between them. They all had signs of deficiency in their leave pattern. They went from that to burns on the edges from me doing it. :( You can't feed autos much at all. Live and learn, I guess. Think they going to be ok just hope it doesn't get worse. Can't afford for them to have any real problems. Have too much invested in this. It has to work out.

I found that weird too about Tarantula because in AN webpage they dont mention the Bacillus thuringiensis canadiensis and a couple others but in several grow shops they do (Grows can ask for the info of the liquids "secret formula", I found it easier to find the ingredients of some liquids in a grow shop rather than in the official webpage) and it seemed to protect my plants from a gnat infestation I had a few grows ago so Im not sure if its these grows are getting it wrong but I like to think that indeed those are there and maybe not in the guaranteed analysis because they might actually die inside the bottle before you buy them or they just wanted to keep it "secret". The light feeding is mostly because I use my own super soil recipe which comes with nutrients already but yes, you gotta be careful with autos, always start with a low dose and work your way up, but now you know. I totally feel you when you say you have too much invested and cant afford a failure. Dont worry I had some damaged plants before giving decent yield, hopefully yours will give you enough until you can harvest again, this time with more experience in your back!

 

[Eledin]

Here is the analysis in different grows in contrast with the one in AN webpage:
AN

Different grows

I could keep going but for the sake of putting a few examples thats enough.

 

[Eledin]

I’m on my first grow and I’m currently growing some photos. Auto’s sound interesting but not sure if I’ll try them yet.

Found your post! Very nice looking plants dude, gratz!

 

[Eledin]

Day 38, growing fast and healthy so far. Showing the first pistils.
Last feeding: Rhino Skin, Top Barrier, Molasses and Bud Candy (Mostly for my microbial friends), B-52, 1:1 Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, Ancient Earth, Rootfast, Special Roots, Special Enzymes.

 

[memnoch]

Day 38, growing fast and healthy so far. Showing the first pistils.
Last feeding: Rhino Skin, Top Barrier, Molasses and Bud Candy (Mostly for my microbial friends), B-52, 1:1 Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom, Ancient Earth, Rootfast, Special Roots, Special Enzymes.
View attachment 1986748

Do you prune your auto at all? If so how do they take to it? I'm thinking of doing it but I'm a little afraid to. They are flowering now I might be too late for me to even try it.

 

[Eledin]

^Day 34 sorry, couldnt edit when I realized.

Do you prune your auto at all? If so how do they take to it? I'm thinking of doing it but I'm a little afraid to. They are flowering now I might be too late for me to even try it.

Depends, the average time for thisr strain from seed to harvest is 2 months, so I dont wanna put any stress on them. That said, the one on the back left side was growing very small side branches in the first node so I removed them, I dont want tiny branches with tiny buds taking resources from the other ones. The rest are growing upwards so nothing done to them. In longer time autos I might defoliate if I get a real small pheno anticipating that the leaves and the buds are all gonna be touching each other and I dont want botritys. I might also trimm a leaf if its shading an entire branch and I cannot tuck it below it, but I try to keep defoliating to a minium. Yellowing leaves I dont remove until theyre almost dead, sometimes you touch them and they fall on their own, unless theyre yellow because they have an infection in that case I remove them asap. I had problems with too much defoliation but Ive never had any problem or less harvest for not defoliating a plant (except for the cases I mentioned). My experience is that the more leaves that are not causing you trouble the better, cutting solar panels from your plant just because is counterproductive despite some people saying that fan leaves are disposable. Fan leaves do a much better job photosyntetizing than suggar leaves and if you remove one too many your yield is gonna suffer.

 

[Eledin]

Oh sorry were you talking about toping? English is not my first language so I dont know if you mean to cut the leaves or the top of the plant.
EDIT: Also what I said above changes with photoperiodic plants. Controled defoliation can be beneficial but autos are not known for handling stress well and you cant give them more veg time.

 

[memnoch]

Oh sorry were you talking about toping? English is not my first language so I dont know if you mean to cut the leaves or the top of the plant.
EDIT: Also what I said above changes with photoperiodic plants. Controled defoliation can be beneficial but autos are not known for handling stress well and you cant give them more veg time.

defoliation you got it correct.

 

[memnoch]

defoliation you got it correct.

i just defoliated two of mine while after i posted that that i put through lst. there was no room for the buds anymore. i don't think i did the lst correctly. they are so bushy, and the bud sites are all covered up halfway to the bottom of the plant. well i guess we will see what happens. also noticed the one plant stemm that has a bud site on it is bent all to heck in two places the tie down i had on it looked like it was to tight and messed it up. i'm not going to lst next time. the one i didn't do it to looks much healthier and the sites are more spaced out and receiving the light better.

 

[Eledin]

i just defoliated two of mine while after i posted that that i put through lst. there was no room for the buds anymore. i don't think i did the lst correctly. they are so bushy, and the bud sites are all covered up halfway to the bottom of the plant. well i guess we will see what happens. also noticed the one plant stemm that has a bud site on it is bent all to heck in two places the tie down i had on it looked like it was to tight and messed it up. i'm not going to lst next time. the one i didn't do it to looks much healthier and the sites are more spaced out and receiving the light better.

I revisited your post for a refresher. Critical kush is a long seed to harvest strain but is small, so it focuses its energy on growing bushy. I dont think you created a disaster while defoliating, it had plenty of leaves, and I think the problem with your LST is that the plant was suposed to keep growing and point upwards again but it never did well... because its a short height strain so it was done growing before it could correct its position. When training autos its important to know their traits and how resistant to stress they are. You can also get what I call dwarf auto phenotype, those are the ones I defoliate a bit sometimes because all their energy concentrates in growing bushy aswell but are even smaller than yours. Here is an example of a recent harvest, same strain matanuska, one reached the average height and the other one was a dwarf auto, I did toping on both and a minor defoliation to the dwarf one to allow better airflow:
Dwarf

Regular size (missing 1 cola, didnt have anything to smoke so I fast dried it)

Its a good strain for LST and toping due to its longevity and size, but if you get a dwarf pheno its better not to LST it in my opinion. You learn to identify them because the nodes are very close together.

 

[Eledin]

Day 44. The average strain height according to sweet seeds is 60-120cm and I have two close to 1,70 already. Seedlings were not leggy, I have no idea why they are so big but Im running out of vertical space, maybe I boosted the roots a bit too much hahaha, they didnt grow in a small container I plant directly in 5 gallon pots after the seed has germinated and use homemade and bottled root boosters. I noticed they always pass the average height. After making this post Im gonna try to pull the lights higher. They had 1 top dress with diatomaceous earth to eliminate gnats, gnats are gone, skyping the silica feeding since they already have plenty with the top dress.
Current feeding: Iguana juice bloom, ancient earth, big bud, nirvana, bud candy, b-52, special enzymes.

If this strain wasnt only 2 months I would have toped them to limit vertical grow and maximize yield but I didnt wanna risk it, takes around 2 weeks for the plant to recover after toping so I would have messed with their flowering timing.

 

[Eledin]

Day 45. Im very happy with the speed of these girls, even tho Im having problems with the height. One of them passed 1,75m today. Luckily theyre about to stop growing. The tops look like this:

 

[Eledin]

Day 49. Turned off the pink light to take a video because it messes with it.

Looks promissing, if only they were shorter... now I know that my indoors cant handle XL strains, or at least not this particular one. 2 of them are not below the bulbs cause I cant pull them any higher but I have a LED bar on top of them and they get plenty of light. Just turned the LEDs on the sides aswell (Not in this vid, for the same reason I had to unplug the pink one). Even the small ones in the back have their leaves praying because theyre too close to the lights. The ones in the front are 1,80m or so, they grew taller than me. Im guessing thats the reason theyre praying cause theyre not praying when the lights go on and I can start to see yellow tips on the top leaves only. Should be okay though, I cant do more to get them away from the light.

 

[Eledin]

Day 51, its getting speedy. Borrowed a better camera for this video, my phone must have some kind of problem with the camera, its awful.

And a pic from how the buds are looking already

 

[Eledin]

Forgot to mention the feeding
Now feeding: Iguana bloom, ancient earth, bud candy, molasses, big bud, nirvana. special enzymes, epsom salts + homemade fast absorption calcium (Iguana has cal and mag and I use dolomite lime in the soil but I like giving a boost in mid-late flower). Soon Ill be swaping big bud pk 1-3 with a pk booster with more of an equal ratio, delta 10 pk 13-14 from cannabiogen, also organic, for the last two or three weeks. Using full doses rn despite having super soil, these girls are HUNGRY, my god, no wonder they can go from start to finish in 2 months with decent yields.