Bud density, typical for Autos?

kenk1960 · Jan 6, 2025

Growing autoflowers in Coco Loco with Nature's Living Soil, and use the Bud Booster when flowering. Only water, no other nutrients. This is only my second harvest but on both it seems my buds are light and fluffy. Averaging a little an ounce per plant yield in a 3 gallon pot. 4 X 4 grow tent with 2 Vivosun Aerolight 100 watt grow lights. Temperature and humidity control have been excellent entire growing cycle. Just curious is this the nature of growing organic, typical for autoflower, or I am just simply missing something else.

Any sharing of knowledge is appreciated.

Eledin · Jan 6, 2025

When autos give fluffy buds its because they had a problem or not enough food or light, 2x100W in a 4x4 you should be able to get fairly tight nugs. Were they healthy looking? What Bud Booster are you using? Doest it have suggars for fattening the buds?

Gmix · Jan 6, 2025

Not all strains produce tight dence nugs.
Sativa doms can be airy
It could be not enough light or simply the genetics

I would listen to @Eledin he knows his stuff

Eledin · Jan 6, 2025

Its true, maybe the strain is like that or the seeds didnt have much potential even if the strain was suposed to be better. The yield per plant is not bad but I think he had big but fluffy buds (correct me if Im wrong). I dont expect all strains to give super tight nugs but I expect a minium of tightness even with old school sativas if theyre bred properly. I think the problem he had is one I faced many times in the past while working with autos and the reason I quited growing autos, you never know what to expect of them unless you work with the same strains and same breeder once you find a couple of good strains (there's a lot of shit autos out there, there's also a few really good ones that can handle HST but I wouldnt be able to tell you which ones since I dont grow them anymore). Look at this one, looks like a monster but the buds were pure fluff because I toped it, and even though the breeder said it was okay it wasnt at all, I chose a 3 month auto that was suposed to be able to handle toping, not even with the extra time:

No signs of them being unhealthy or anything, it was looking promissing but when the buds ended developing I was very dissapointed. It was a nice smoke, not very strong but pleasant but it was gone quick. Matanuska auto.

kenk1960 · Jan 6, 2025

Eledin said:
When autos give fluffy buds its because they had a problem or not enough food or light, 2x100W in a 4x4 you should be able to get fairly tight nugs. Were they healthy looking? What Bud Booster are you using? Doest it have suggars for fattening the buds?

Thank you, I am using the Nature's Living Soil Girl Flower Power Bud Booster. 3 of the 4 plants were very healthy. 1 got stressed and lost it's color but recovered fairly well.

Eledin said:
Its true, maybe the strain is like that or the seeds didnt have much potential even if the strain was suposed to be better. The yield per plant is not bad but I think he had big but fluffy buds (correct me if Im wrong). I dont expect all strains to give super tight nugs but I expect a minium of tightness even with old school sativas if theyre bred properly. I think the problem he had is one I faced many times in the past while working with autos and the reason I quited growing autos, you never know what to expect of them unless you work with the same strains and same breeder onceyou find a couple of good strains (there's a lot of shit autos out there). Look at this one, looks like a monster but the buds were pure fluff because I toped it, and even though the breeder said it was okay it wasnt at all, I chose a 3 month auto that was suposed to be able to handle toping, not even with the extra time:
View attachment 2353159
View attachment 2353161
No signs of them being unhealthy or anything, it was looking promissing but when the buds ended developing I was very dissapointed. It was a nice smoke, not very strong but pleasant but it was gone quick. Matanuska auto.

kenk1960 · Jan 6, 2025

3 of the plants at harvest. Thanks for the help!

Eledin · Jan 6, 2025

What strain/s? Even though the second and third one look okay the first one and even the other 2 have something with the buds going on. They are a bit deformed arent they? One calyx over here the other one way over there and nothing in between. Let me check what your bud booster has, they dont seem hungry so it might be a lack of suggars.

Gmix · Jan 6, 2025

if you’ve got some spare flat white paint use it on the walls it will help reflect the light better

Eledin · Jan 6, 2025

According to their webpage this is what your bud booster contains:
"Girl Flower Power is an all-in-one bud enhancer designed to elevate the flowering stage of your plants. Crafted with all-natural ingredients, including the heart of hemp seed, coconut water powder, pumpkin seed meal, bat guano, fish bone meal, alfalfa meal, and a blend of essential vitamins, amino acids, and minerals, Girl Flower Power is specifically formulated to meet the unique nutritional needs of flowering plants."

Girl Flower Power — Nature's Living Soil

www.natureslivingsoil.com

Nowhere it mentions carbohydrates/suggars. I suggest that for your next grow you get some, it greatly helps bud fattening and trichome production, they eat suggars like a pig. I would recommend you to buy a cheap one for your microorganisms and give it at recommended dosage or half until flower and then use a more well crafted selection of suggars like Bud Candy, Bud Candy is much better than for example molasses or sweet beetroot juice based liquids for bud fattening and trichome production. (In my experience, Im willing to pay the extra price, specially considering I only use it during the fatening phase and not during all the grow)

Eledin · Jan 6, 2025

Gmix said:
if you’ve got some spare flat white paint use it on the walls it will help reflect the light better

Great idea!

Eledin · Jan 6, 2025

So yes, the microorganisms also eat suggars, theyre better off decomposing the organic matter of those ammendments but it helps keep a healthy population and the plants still use suggars to move their leaves every day. They create enough by themselves with nutes but a little extra doesnt hurt them, means they can focus those nutes in growing bigger instead thats why many charts have suggars during all the grow despite being mostly for bud development, usually the dose at flower is twice the dose you were using on veg also for that reason.

Eledin · Jan 6, 2025

What else could it be? Do you know at how many inches do you keep those lights from the canopy? Getting some reflectivity out of the walls with white paint as suggested by @Gmix is a great idea. If you dont wanna paint you could also buy mylar and put it on the walls. 2x100W for 3 plants is not bad but they can certainly benefit from more light, specially coming from the sides to help the secondary branches.

Eledin · Jan 6, 2025

Also the bud booster seems mighty fine, good ingredients and probably made to work very well with their living soil, its just that it lacks carbohydrates, you should keep using it and just add the suggars at recommended dosage or half (I recommend full dosage after 3rd week of flower though).
What light schedule are you using for them?

kenk1960 · Jan 6, 2025

Eledin said:
What strain/s? Even though the second and third one look okay the first one and even the other 2 have something with the buds going on. They are a bit deformed arent they? One calyx over here the other one way over there and nothing in between. Let me check what your bud booster has, they dont seem hungry so it might be a lack of suggars.

2 of them are Gelato ,and the other Papaya Cookies from Fast Buds. I do use Bud clips and did some LST, is that the deformity your talking about?

kenk1960 · Jan 6, 2025

Eledin said:
Also the bud booster seems mighty fine, good ingredients and probably made to work very well with their living soil, its just that it lacks carbohydrates, you should keep using it and just add the suggars at recommended dosage or half (I recommend full dosage after 3rd week of flower though).
What light schedule are you using for them?

18/6 when flowering. I think it's 18/6 all the time but the light intensity is different for flowering.

Phyto · Jan 6, 2025

You’ve got 16 sq feet of grow space and 200 watts of light, not nearly enough. That’s 12.5 watts per sq ft., the sweet spot for LED’s is around 32-35 watts per sq ft. Even at 25 watts sq ft (which is bare minimum) you need at least 400 watts, 550-600 would be optimum. You can dump all the nutes you want on them, but lack of light is your issue.

Phreakshow · Jan 6, 2025

@Eledin when does fattening phase start if i may ask.

Phyto · Jan 6, 2025

Not @Eledin, but the swell begins a couple weeks before they’re done, after most of the pistils have turned red-brown and receded back into the calyxes. It’s noticeable. The calyxes will fatten up, sometime they almost look like they’re seeded!

Captspaulding · Jan 6, 2025

Yep, not enough of the goods will get you that sparse growth,
@Eledin
@Gmix
Dropping knowledge bombs!!!

Blastfact · Jan 6, 2025

This a GG4 auto harvest I'm going to clean up a bit more and put into a Grove Bag tonight. She was suppose to be a photo then showed auto so she never got a chance. Had a major PH issue. So it was doomed from the start. She smokes good and smooth, typical GG4 and fufu weed high. Taken care of properly and no PH issues she would have produced twice as much and a bit denser buds. Is what it is...

Bud density, typical for Autos?

Bud density, typical for Autos?

kenk1960

Eledin

Gmix

Eledin

kenk1960

Attachments

kenk1960

Eledin

Gmix

Eledin

Girl Flower Power — Nature's Living Soil

Eledin

Eledin

Eledin

Eledin

kenk1960

kenk1960

Phyto

Phreakshow

Phyto

Captspaulding

What’s the matter? Don’t like clowns? 🤡

Blastfact

Bud density, typical for Autos?

Bud density, typical for Autos?

kenk1960

Eledin

Gmix

Eledin

kenk1960

Attachments

kenk1960

Eledin

Gmix

Eledin

Girl Flower Power — Nature's Living Soil

Eledin

Eledin

Eledin

Eledin

kenk1960

kenk1960

Phyto

Phreakshow

Phyto

Captspaulding

What’s the matter? Don’t like clowns? 🤡

Blastfact

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