Autoflowering plants refuse to gain in size

[Michintosh]

Hey there! My first grow is not going according to plan, the girls are growing very slowly and started showing sex around day 23 at just 7cm tall (2"3/4 for you american friends). I'm really worried because other grows of the same strain were at least triple in size at this time. Pics below (what the F is up with URLs?) remove the blank spaces:

What Strain is it? Sensi Skunk Automatic, purchased in Amsterdam in-store this August at Sensi Seeds

Is it Indica, Sativa or Hybrid? What percentages? Hybrid, 20/80 S/I

How Many Plants? Two

Is it in Vegetative or Flowering Stage? Should have just reached the AF pre-flower stage, first pistils grew a couple of days ago

Indoor or Outdoor? Indoors, in a cardboard box i lined with aluminum foil on the inside

Soil or Hydro? Soil

If Soil... What is in your Mix? You cannot buy those fancy mixes like FFOF etc. where I live, at least without a small risk of authorities interfering. I picked up a generic light mix low on nutrients, having a pretty neutral pH (6-6.5)

If Soil... What Size Pot? 25cm (10") pot, holds roughly 1 1/2 gallons by eye

Size (Wattage) of Light? How Many? 5 CFL bulbs, around 27W and emitting 1400 lumen each

Is it Air Cooled? No fans, but i got plenty of holes for passive circulation

Temperature of Room/Cabinet? 25°C (77°F) throughout the grow, although I had to leave a couple of weekends and the temperature rose to 30°C then and instantly got back to 25 as I aired the whole apartment as I got back

RH of Room/Cabinet? 40%

PH of Medium or Reservoir? 6.5-7

Any Pests? The little occasional fly, otherwise nothing

How Often are you Watering? Every 3-5 days, when the top 5cm of dirt are dry

Type and Strength of Fertilizers used? Again, I cannot buy the fancy fertilizers here, picked up an organic one that hat 2% of each N-P-K distributed equally, started feeding 2 days ago at 1/4 of the recommended concentration

Size or Square Footage of Room? 0.5 square meters (5,4 sqft roughly) 1m/3ft in height

This information is necessary for accurate support to be given.

 

[go4snypr]

first off, dont use links to other sites for pictures. Use the gallery tab at the top to upload your photos, and the My Photos tab at the bottom to add them to the thread. As for the grow. It is hard to tell by the pictures but I think you can get your lights a bit closer and cut it down to 1 bulb per plant for now as the rest are not doing much, once they get bigger start adding more bulbs. The tin foil can go. It can cause hot spots and burn the plant. (not so sure it will with cfl lighting though). When you water are you watering until you have runoff?? I would only be watering to get the top 5 cm of dirt wet at this point. If you are watering until you have run off, I would use the "heft" method to determine when to water again. Heft the pot dry and heft the pot when it is full of water. you will feel the difference. Then only water when dry. i want to lean towards an over water issue due to the way the leaves look in your pictures. But I am not 100% on that.

 

[Faic]

For your first grow, you need to understand a few things. First is, you won't grow what you've seen others grow, unless they tend your grow for you, and use what they use, how they use it. I almost killed my plants in the begining, I probably had every newbie issue you could think of and a few more.

Yep, get a handle on watering. Get aquainted with ph and test for it, at least in your water. Soil ph is hard to read vs hydro, but if you need your harvest, it's important to get some handle on it. I don't quite understand why you can't get 'fancy fertilizer' but can get seeds. I switched from my general nutes to General hydroponics line. It's affordable, easy to get from amazn and it worked. However, I must add that after a lot of reading I also bought hydrogauard and silicablast to help keep my roots healthy. Swtiching to good nutes and the additives I got saved the plants, cleared the rot I had, and gave me the time to get a grip on ph and watering.

I also rigged up 6x cfls per plant for over 10000lumens when I wanted them to grow (vs keeping 1-2 lights on them to acclimate them in the begining). I won't get into the lumens/watts/par/blah per plant debate other than I chose 10k lumens as a place to start. But for cfls, the actual area of useable light for the bulb is a 2-4inch tubular envelope. You need to keep them close, and more of them as you want the plant to grow. Since they're autos you can go with 2700k bulbs the whole time, or toss in some5000-6500 bulbs to keep the gowth a bit tighter. But you have to keep them really close.

 

[Michintosh]

first off, dont use links to other sites for pictures. Use the gallery tab at the top to upload your photos, and the My Photos tab at the bottom to add them to the thread. As for the grow. It is hard to tell by the pictures but I think you can get your lights a bit closer and cut it down to 1 bulb per plant for now as the rest are not doing much, once they get bigger start adding more bulbs. The tin foil can go. It can cause hot spots and burn the plant. (not so sure it will with cfl lighting though). When you water are you watering until you have runoff?? I would only be watering to get the top 5 cm of dirt wet at this point. If you are watering until you have run off, I would use the "heft" method to determine when to water again. Heft the pot dry and heft the pot when it is full of water. you will feel the difference. Then only water when dry. i want to lean towards an over water issue due to the way the leaves look in your pictures. But I am not 100% on that.

Thank you for the quick answers y'all. Was a bit confused for the picture situation, gonna keep that in mind.

As for your question:

I always watered until runoff yes, going to try the heft method then!

 

[Michintosh]

Well I got seeds because i was in the Netherlands this summer, and bringing a whole set of fertilizers (especially designed for MJ) on an airplane does not sound like a good idea to me.

However, I had some pH testing strips lying around at home, the ones you dip in a liquid and read the color accordingly. My tap water at home is fine ph-wise anyway (ranges 6-6.5). Is testing the runoff water from watering a reliable method for measuring the soil pH or should i get dedicated tests?

On the lights, I got both the 2700k CFLs and some 5-6000k LEDs for the later stages, should I change all lights then or keep a couple of the blue ones?

Thank you again for the quick answer!

 

[Faic]

Ah I see. Well then, for the nutes just hit up amazn and get some proper ones, it will make life much easier.

First lesson for the new grower, your PH is never fine, until you can explain fully why it is fine.

Supergroomer had this from a different thread, it's what I use:

Your nutes will alter your 6-6.5 ph water, and you have lockout of some nutrients if not changed. Sometime later, you'll be chasing deficiencies and pulling your hair out. When I switched nutes et all, I also began mixing low around 6.2-6.3, since the ph runoff was higher. Once things stabalized, I could go in at 6.4-6.5 and have happy girls. The thing is, a ph pen and testing run off is simple, quick, and less hassle than mixing dirt, but either is preferable to color swatches. My 'expensive' cheap ph pen broke, it measured in hundreds, my cheaper but more relilable one only measures in tenths, but that's sufficient. You need to know ph to the tenths at the minimum unless you're good with leaving some things to mother nature ;3

As far as lights, since it's auto, ultimately it doesn't matter what you use, they will flower regardless. I personally like the idea of giving the plants a bit of everything so during veg there was one 2700 bulb in there, and flower, one or two 5000-6500 since I was running out of head room I was trying to keep the stretch short as I could.. Much like, cannabis is better taken 'whole' as opposed to only one of the compounds. Call it karma ;3

Oh you have cfls' and some LED lights? I'd really suggest sticking with cfl's and not trying to switch to or add LEDs. The cfls' are the right color for flowering, the LEDs are a veg spectrum. But for your first grow, you want to stay simple, and consistant. More for your sake than the plants'. The more you learn from your methodical first grow, you can exponentially apply that to future grows. If you're chasing down one thing after another, you're learning the hard, expensive way. Once you get your girls stable, you have plenty of time to read up on all the various things that go into growing. But, yes you can add the LEDs to broaden the spectrum a bit. But they need to go much higher than your cfl's because they're different light. And the whole question of what kind of leds' they are, well, 'nother can of worms best left to another grow ^^v.

 

[iwltfum]

I think your lights could be positined so they are pointing more light at the plants (those bulbs point most of the light out to the sides instead of down).

Testing the pH of the run off is really revealing because soil pH can change widely a couple days after watering. What your putting in might not be the same as what's coming out.

In terms of pH testing, I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with Faic on that. I use pH test drops (measures 4.0,5.0,6.0,6.5,7,and8) and have been for about 5 years now with both hydro and organic soil. I know alot of old school growers that don't mess with the test pens because they have to be calibrated constantly. After about a week of not calibrating the one that I had, it was reading 6.0 when the water was at 4.0 when compared to the drops. I was storing it properly and everything. I don't trust those pens one bit.

 

[Faic]

iwltfum. I do believe there are people out there that can use strips effectively, and grow things when others cannot. There is nothing to disagree on there. I say those types have green thumbs (mine are both red) , and they do have more experience than a new grower.

But a new grower needs education and experience, preferably without many unnessary costly mistakes. Loosing a crop while learning to read strips may be educational. But 10$ for a pen to see what you've been reading about first hand.... I will always advise a new grower to get a testing pen. Technology can substitute effectively for experience if used properly. And you're right, the chinese pens are junk and can loose calibration if you look at them wrong (but laying them down is deadly cause the water will wick into the circuitry). So additional calibration solution should be on anyone's shelf that uses a pen.

@Michintosh

Nice pics up. Yea, you should re-orient your lights, the envelope is a tube shape along the length of the bulb, and the sweet spot for intensisity is only about 1-4 inches from the sides of the light. If the lights are up high like that, the plant will grow slower (it doesn't have as much light as it wants) and it will try to correct that by stretching toward the light, which just makes it harder to manage. I went round,but you can do rectangular and alternate the bulbs.

Here's a pic of my macgyver light, you can find other prettier builds in the light threads, lots of great designs in there. I went for round since I was hoping to have round canopies (I will on my next grow, unless I make a square scrog). But with any array you make, you want to be sure to allow the heat that will build up below the cosmetic reflector to escape and not create a warm layer below them. I say the reflector on cfl lights is cosmetic because the unrestricted light falls off very quickly (remember within 4 inches or less) so any reflected light from a less than 100% reflective surface (which isn't possible on any individual budget) is going to be even less.

For better growth keep the lights just a few inches above the plants to give them enough light and space to grow into the sweet spot. Don't have the bulbs half a inch from the tops. This could slow growth some, but worse, they could grow and touch the lights overnight and burn. Of course if you can't lower your light, raise the plants till you can move the light easily.

 

[desiBud420]

What's your light cycle btw? 24/0, 20/4, 18/6, or something lower? You mentioned that your plant is showing sex already. I thought that only happens when you keep the plants under a 12/12 light cycle to stimulate flowering/budding for plants. ANy chance youre under the 12/12 cycle? I cant tell the sex features from these images, it may be my inexperience, but I just cant tell if you have pistils or ball sacs at the node points.

I second Faic about the position of the lights rings sending light outwards rather than downwards to the plants similar to the pic hes posted, as well as using 1 light per plant.

That pH chart is exactly what I've got on hand as well. Currently Ive been struggling with pH strips, which is balls, but I am waiting on a pH pen that will give us newbs a better edge with technology since our thumbs arent properly green as yet.

Also, whats the plastic bottle between the plants, a new seedling ? Just curious I thought you might have something in there to keep your surrounding RH environment on the high side for the little ladies.


btw, faic my soil is housing mini shrooms hidden 1/2 inch below soil. Some have said might have psychoactive properties (yaY!) with the cold, damp and dark setting for spores to grow from dry cow manure . I sure as hell dont want to experiment with them, but I'll be keeping a close eye on them for more!

I just chucked 3 worms per plant to loosen the soil naturally until I transplant into 5 gallons. Even then I'l probably have a few in there as well for good measure.

 

[go4snypr]

he is running auto flowering plants. they will start to bud based on time not lighting.

 

[Michintosh]

Little update on the situation for y'all: still no noticeable growth since I posted. I tilted all the bulbs more or less by 90° and switched to the heft method for watering, but I think that at this point the grow is quite fucked up, it's been exactly 1 month since the seedlings sprouted, they're still at 7cm of height and flowering should be about done in 2 to 3 weeks, maybe add 1 more 'cause of the CFLs.

I still have 3 seeds of this strain fortunately, (@Faic) I just found out that amazon delivers General Hydroponics products here in Switzerland (it's actually a nightmare shopping on amazon as like the majority of products can't be shipped here because of EU regulations. I also know that authorities make some surveillance on the physical dedicated grow-shops, even on the customers, that's why I had difficulties buying those), a proper soil mix and either a pH pen or drop test, pH up/down and a fan or two, should be set for a good grow with that equipment I suppose!

Anyway, will such a tiny plant produce a large (relative to it's size) cola? It would be nice to get 1-2 joints out of those to at least get a little taste of it

@desiDud420

Lights are running 24/0 for the entire grow, as go4snypr mentioned they're autos and need ALL THE LIGHT.

That plastic bottle contains a seedling which my mate found in some bud, so it does not interfere with the RH of the box.

Thanks y'all for the tips, together with the first grow it's all experience for the future!

 

[Faic]

Uh Dude, I've never heard of an autoflower that goes seed to harvest in 7 weeks. 10 weeks yes. But 7? You have another month to go I'd say. I've never grown an auto, but I'd guess you'd be thinking of switching to bloom nutes around now? Great you can get the nutes, they seem to work just fine to me, but I've not experieemnted with nutes either so... heh.

Also, again without ever grown an auto, I'm not sure if they'll stretch at all, but I would anticipate it stretching when it goes to flowering mode (which it may be doing right now). It could double or triple in size. Verify that though for sure.

I would dare say, that the answer to your question is yes. If it was not fimm'd or topped. The main coala would be the largest, and would probably be large relative to it's size.... A 7cm plant, well, you'd get some tiny buds, but they'd still be 'large'... lol But I'm pretty certain she's taking a breath before the stretch, stopping her veg growth and getting her hormones all wound up to get pretty.

The good thing about haivng extra seeds is that you'll be able to grow a bigger plant much easier next go.