Killing Autoflowers and Learning to Grow Organically :p

[ajgrows]

Chester Day 50
74° | 48% RH | 520 µmols | 30-34 DLI

Top dressed 1/4C castings, 1/8C BAS craft blend, 3 Tbsp DTE flower blend, which is on the lighter end of the recommended feed for each amendment. Watered around 1/3-1/2 gal water until there was a small amount of runoff. I added a 1/2 Tbsp of organic soap to see if that helps with the dry pocket area and saturation. Seems to have helped me pack in a bit more liquid at this watering. Trimmed a couple thumbnail size buds off the very bottom that will never see the light of day.

I see everything from 8-14 week cycle time for Blueberry Autos. The bud development seems to be about 3 weeks behind Lloyd around the same number of days, so I'm guessing she'll keep going for another 7-8 weeks.

 

[ComfortablyNumb]

I swear Ive never had an issue with root rot and have almost exclusively bottom fed via float valve(Autopots) for the last 3 years in Coco, it's a simple system but the plants love it once fully developed into the pot and can drink 7+ liters a day(5L pot)

I'm actually going to try a flood tray maintained by the Autopot smartvalve so it will flood to 3-4mm and let them drink drain to empty before refilling instead of individual units and see if I can get away with ditching the irrigation spiderweb.

Coco is different. You water far more often in coco.

 

[AceIsWin]

Coco is different. You water far more often in coco.

Ahh right, I always consider Coco the default medium and forget that there is even anything else. Wouldn't mind knocking up an organic Coco mix tho Ive heard peat moss is a better base

 

[ComfortablyNumb]

Ahh right, I always consider Coco the default medium and forget that there is even anything else. Wouldn't mind knocking up an organic Coco mix tho Ive heard peat moss is a better base

Organics and coco do not mix. Coco absorbs magnesium and that will mess up an organic grow.

 

[AceIsWin]

Organics and coco do not mix. Coco absorbs magnesium and that will mess up an organic grow.

That's why all soil mixture use moss as a base I guess, I'm sure there is a way around it but cost is always deciding factor. Btw while I'm here I found some Great White myco that apparently expired in 2017 would it hurt to try using it?

 

[ajgrows]

I noticed what looks like the start of PM on a few leaves this morning . Checked my exhaust and there was barely any air moving again. Diagnosis: the knockoff carbon filter sucks ass and went in the garbage. Ordered a reputable replacement on Amazon and repositioned the oscillating fan above the canopy blowing down on it. Snipped off the infected leaves and gave her a 5% ACV foliar spray to help knock out any remaining spores.

 

[ajgrows]

Chester Day 55
75° | 48% RH | 670 µmols | 43 DLI

Turned the lighs up to about 75%. It's only been a handful of days since the last photos and the Blueberry Auto is chugging right along in flower. I ran the fan without a carbon filter for the last 4 days and I was surprised that just this one plant stinks enough to smell on the landing outside the basement door. Hooked up the filter today and the airflow is still really good with the T6 on 7 and pulling from the dry tent. I gave her another ACV spray yesterday and a couple spots look like it might have burned her, but I think she's good to go now. No signs of PM since removing the last filter. A little purple is starting to come through in the fan leaves so I'm excited to see that spread through the canopy. I'm finding myself getting antsy with this one since it's been pretty hands off. Looking forward to having 4-5 plants running in the spring when this one is done.

 

[ajgrows]

Lloyd Day 88

Lloyd dried out a bit quicker than I had hoped with the dry tent being so warm, but 9 days was all she wrote. Dry weight is ~0.6 oz, which is about what I expected. Far from a large yield but we made it across the finish line. I'm definitely not happy with the density, looks very airy and crappy. Still going to sweat and cure it even though I'm tempted to toss it. The trichomes are where I wanted so I'm happy for that. Got a tiny bit of kief to use as a bowl topper. If it's worth smoking at least it will have saved me a couple hundred bucks vs buying from a dispensary.

Chester Day 59
74° | 50% RH | 760 µmols | 49 DLI

I'm convinced this is going to be another small yield. Not looking like she will get much bigger than some golf ball size nugs, and nowhere near the size I've seen some Blueberry plants get. Might end up being a tosser. If these are better density than Lloyd's I'll call it an improvement.

 

[ajgrows]

Chester Day 65
75° | 44% RH | 850 µmols | 55 DLI

I'm driving the light pretty hard and starting to see some really nice purple coming in this week. She's stripping the leaves of nutrients so I gave her a heavy watering with compost tea, some BuildABloom, BAS Big 6 micros and a little craft blend on Wednesday. I think the buds are swelling a bit since last weekend and the trichomes are looking good (albeit a bit blurry and overexposed from my cheap microscope). Hoping to keep her going for a cuppa few mo' weeks.

 

[Greenyos]

Wow. What a wild ride that read through was.
Glad to see you were able to get something to smoke. Looks like your getting this grow thing down abit as it seems like your current one is in much better shape. Just one tip...
You really should only have one plant per pot. There is limited space and resources in the pot, and you don't want anything stealing from your precious ladies. Keep up the good fight!!

 

[ajgrows]

Wow. What a wild ride that read through was.
Glad to see you were able to get something to smoke. Looks like your getting this grow thing down abit as it seems like your current one is in much better shape. Just one tip...
You really should only have one plant per pot. There is limited space and resources in the pot, and you don't want anything stealing from your precious ladies. Keep up the good fight!!

Haha yeah, it's a doozie. I agree, I actually decided earlier today that there won't be any cover crop in the next run.

 

[ajgrows]

Chester Day 70
74° | 43% RH | 980 µmols | 63 DLI

Chester's pot was dry enough to water today. Only 5 days but that seemed like a long time for some reason. Watered about a half gallon w/ a dose of BuildaBloom. And as I write this I'm realizing I just fed her Saturday. OOF Most of the fan leaves have pulled off the stem with very little effort in the past couple days. Not sure if that's a sign of something but they don't seem to be completely dead yet. Probably best not to overthink it. I am seeing some deeper purples on more of the sugar leaves, and thinking how good she would look if the buds were a bit bigger. Dialed the lights up some more to see what happens

 

[ajgrows]

Chester Day 72
74° | 39% RH | 980 µmols | 63 DLI

Few pics, just testing iOS update.

 

[Edinburgh]

It came out nice, it looks like it wanted to grow out not up is all and you have flower, I'm running a strawberry mango crumble and at last min stretched lowerd light but it did not care, it then started making trichome so plant has lots of flower low but did not get a chance to completely fill in higher up, it's still young but seems like not to much longer, autos are unpredictable and 2 beans of same strain will be 2 different plants, but your far from killing them.

 

[ComfortablyNumb]

That's why all soil mixture use moss as a base I guess, I'm sure there is a way around it but cost is always deciding factor. Btw while I'm here I found some Great White myco that apparently expired in 2017 would it hurt to try using it?

Can't hurt.

 

[ajgrows]

It came out nice, it looks like it wanted to grow out not up is all and you have flower, I'm running a strawberry mango crumble and at last min stretched lowerd light but it did not care, it then started making trichome so plant has lots of flower low but did not get a chance to completely fill in higher up, it's still young but seems like not to much longer, autos are unpredictable and 2 beans of same strain will be 2 different plants, but your far from killing them.

Thanks! Yes I definitely feel like I'm on the path to better cultivation and not killing any more of them I did a few things that I believe stunted her early on, so I have some adjustments to make in future runs to hopefully increase yield.

Chester Day 73
74° | 40% RH | 980 µmols | 63 DLI

Trichomes still not quite there. Going to keep driving her until until there's a fair bit more amber. Looking back two weeks, there's a considerable difference in bud size. Hopefully another 10-14 days will keep fattening them up.

 

[ajgrows]

Chester Day 78
65° | 61% RH | 0 µmols | 0 DLI

I didn't see much change in the buds over the last couple days so it was time for the chop yesterday. Another small yield, only 3.2oz wet. With some luck maybe they'll get close to an oz dry. The buds feel much denser than Lloyd's were so I'm hoping for some nice nugs when they're trimmed up. I've got a mesh drying rack to test out so these buds will be the guinea pigs.

I also started a 10 gallon pot (i know right ) that I want to cook for a bit, so having that in the dry tent is really helping keep my humidity around 60% right now. The 4x8 was relatively easy to set up by myself and is quite spacious. I don't want to try a large run over the winter months so I thought I'd try experimenting with this big pot and see what kind of results I get with the next auto.

 

[ajgrows]

After removing the larfy bits, the Blueberry ended up only yielding about a half oz. Dried for 16 days, trimmed today and into a Grove bag to cure. Very loud diesel on this one, hardly any kief from the trim. Zero bag appeal, but looking forward to the smoke in a few weeks

 

[ajgrows]

Round....13 | Sour Apple & Show Me OG II Autos
Day - | 0.9 VPD | 100 µmols

Andddd it's time for another round of 'which auto will survive', coming to you from the new 4x8 tent. I've got one 10 gallon and three 5 gallons started for this round. Yep, proper watering will be a learning curve for me in the bigger pots. The Sour Apple will be a transplant. Since I botched Lloyd's results so bad, it's my guinea pig now to get rid of the last seed. I stunted and stressed the last two runs, I'm hoping to be more objective in my process this round to get some more size out of these girls in veg.

It's pretty dry here in the winter, around 35% rh in the house. I've been testing humidifiers and heaters over the holidays to try and get the environment dialed in. Surprisingly my little 500w Amazon heater keeps the tent around 72° without working too hard and this Vornado evap humidifier gets the tent up to 70% rh with zero calcium dust destoying my carbon filter . I set the exhaust fan to trigger at 68% rh so it draws fresh air from the lung room every 6-8 minutes. I have one tent fan running right now and will add a second when the girls get going. I am liking the extra equipment space by only using half of the tent.

I've also amassed a crap ton of grow supplies and whatnot over the last 4-5 months and it needed some serious organization. A modified lightweight shoe rack now holds most of it.

Cheers to the next journey to yield

 

[Panhead59]

Which vornado humidifier do u have ? I need a bigger/better one. I guess having the ex. Fan on a controller helps also. Anyone have recommendations ? I have a 4×4 tent in a 12x16 basement room. Tks.