Cree 3590 - Should I grow in soil or hydro?

[LiftedMind]

I'm new to indoor growing. I've grown before but still not a pro.
I was wondering which setup is best to get the most out of my lights. Soil or Hydro?

Tent Size: 3x3x6
Lights: 4x Cree 3590 (Don't know which specific driver. It's a MeanWell HLG series. It wasn't built by me. 225watts advertised.)

 

[Papageno]

I would recommend being new that you grow in soil for a few grows as there is a lot to learn. That said growing weed is rather easy. If you want to do a supper small micro grow like that in hydro I would go 2 plant DWC with a SCROG. Just like this guy...

ClosetCase420's - RDWC - 600W MH/HPS - Wonder Woman - Grow Journal - 2015

Your light situation has nothing to do with the answer. The size of the tent may dictate that you should use fewer plants and SCROG it even in soil.

You may not want to SCROG your first grow as there is so much to learn about the physiology of the plant and stick to topping and super cropping.

And he is absolutely correct the broken one will completely heal.

 

[LiftedMind]

Growing 4 autos first to get the hang of it. I was thinking maybe with less heat produced by the Crees it would be better to utilize hydro. Hydro doesn't scare me. Might do 2 soil, 2hydro to experiment.

 

[Papageno]

Autos are much more difficult to grow correctly. Those should be grown only by experienced growers. They are easy to mess up and you will fail to learn a lot of very basic important things. I have only seen one company attempt to make a proper Auto fertilizer product line. So you will need to make up a special one on your own. There is a guy on here very famous for dialing a decent auto process so I would look for is recipe in the FAQ.

You do what you want but Autos are not for beginners.

For autos you should do either Hydro or soil-less.

It isn't about being scared...it is about being successful. With Hydro or soil-less there is a lot more to learn. If you are growing for you first time you are just making things much more difficult on yourself.

Now growing weed is very easy but the facts are you are stacking the cards against yourself by not having any experience and trying to grow the most difficult way with the most difficult seeds.

It can be done.

Good luck my friend you are in for a ride.

 

[Papageno]

And do not supper crop or top those plants. There are a lot of standard practices you will not want to follow to get autos to work right.

 

[PurpleGunRack]

Hi Lifted

Soil (especially organic) is said to give the highest quality and best taste.
Hydro is said to give the fastest growth and the best yields.

But there are so many other factors that can overrule this.

Hydro has to be monitored more closely than soil. you can easily water your plants and leave the grow for 3 days without problems, in hydro you might come home to messed up plants, but it depends on the grower either way.

With soil there's the hassle of carrying and maybe mixing soil, not really a problem in small grows but if you grow many plants and live in a small appartment on the 10th floor it could become very laboursome.

I think it's a good idea to try both and choose the style that works best for you

 

[LiftedMind]

I've been reading journals from this forum and several others on auto grows. I can see the potential for nutrient fuck-ups but I'm going to prepare myself as best I can. You're making soil sound very appealing though. How bad do organic grows with nutes smell? I'd be sleeping very close to them.

 

[Papageno]

PGC is 100% correct. The problem is the nutrient requirements for Autos is very different. You need to be able to flip the ratios instantly and without notice. You are not in control of the grow. In soil it takes a while to get the nutes changed over but since you are in control it is easy. with autos you can turn around and not have been giving it the right stuff and you have reduced yields taking the time it takes to get the right ratios in there.


In hydro or soilless you can change the ratios in a matter of hours and the plant stays happy.

If running soil you will want to dilute it way down and run it very light and basically run it close to soil-less in order to prevent early bloom and get decent yields.


I definitely suggest trying both eventually. I do both. But not until you are ready to grow real plants. The knowledge needed to run autos is marginally transferable and you wont want to take that bias into the soil vs. hydro comparison you do when you get around to growing regular seeds.

 

[Papageno]

They don't smell at all.

I run organic and have worms in my pots to keep them alive and there is not noticeable smell.

 

[Papageno]

But I will never run autos again in a standard soil mix or an organic soil mix. It will cause them to flower early and reduce yield. They can't handle that kind of soil if done the way you do it for regular seeds.

 

[PurpleGunRack]

I've been reading journals from this forum and several others on auto grows. I can see the potential for nutrient fuck-ups but I'm going to prepare myself as best I can. You're making soil sound very appealing though. How bad do organic grows with nutes smell? I'd be sleeping very close to them.

I use the Biobizz line of soil and nutes and it doesn't smell at all, only their Fish-Mix smells bad so I only use that outdoors and their Bio-Grow pretty much does the same.

Check this out if you haven't already Life cycle of autoflowering cannabis

 

[Emilya]

smell...

if smell is going to be an issue...

houston, I think we have a problem.

 

[LiftedMind]

The reason I want to run autos first is because I'm trying to save money. I don't want to give any more money to the dispensary if I don't have to. Don't want to wait for normal flowering plants. I plan however to grow normal flowering plants right after the autos. I love organic. Nothing compares.

I'm going to do both. Take your advice of all hydro for the autos. The regulars(premium seed) will get organic.

 

[LiftedMind]

smell...

if smell is going to be an issue...

houston, I think we have a problem.

I can live with smell of weed. Maybe you misunderstood. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your post. But whatever. I don't want to smell decaying ferts in my room. I know there's going to be some smell, but I guess I'm looking for something not overwhelming.

 

[Emilya]

I can live with smell of weed. Maybe you misunderstood. Or maybe I'm misunderstanding your post. But whatever. I don't want to smell decaying ferts in my room. I know there's going to be some smell, but I guess I'm looking for something not overwhelming.

The smell of our plants growing can easily take over an entire house, starting about the 4th week of veg. All of a sudden, everyone in the house and anyone visiting will know that there is a grow op in that house. This smell has stopped more apartment, bedroom and dorm room grows than anything else, even overwatering.

And that is just veg... wait till they start flowering! The smell can be overwhelming at that point. It can not be contained and still get fresh air into the grow unless you filter it. You are going to need a good fan and filter along with your other equipment, and at that point your tent is going to be a wonderful thing.

Regarding soil or hydro... Everyone has an opinion... here is mine. Soil is much more forgiving. People grow autos all the time in soil, it works just fine. Figure out what the plant does in soil first, and then with some experience and ability to read the plants a bit... then try hydro or something fancy.

 

[PurpleGunRack]

The reason I want to run autos first is because I'm trying to save money. I don't want to give any more money to the dispensary if I don't have to. Don't want to wait for normal flowering plants. I plan however to grow normal flowering plants right after the autos. I love organic. Nothing compares.

I'm going to do both. Take your advice of all hydro for the autos. The regulars(premium seed) will get organic.

If you're up for it make a grow journal, you might get hooked on autos they're pretty sweet

I do both photos and autos indoors, but because I live in a northern climate I run all autos outdoors and they out perform all the local and other northern european outdoor photoperiod strains.

 

[Fuzzy Duck]

The reason I want to run autos first is because I'm trying to save money. I don't want to give any more money to the dispensary if I don't have to. Don't want to wait for normal flowering plants. I plan however to grow normal flowering plants right after the autos. I love organic. Nothing compares.

I'm going to do both. Take your advice of all hydro for the autos. The regulars(premium seed) will get organic.

Ye i understand but auto's are a tad funny to grow at times & just done an auto grow for the experience to which i'm more likely not going to revist !

How ever most indica dominate strains which can grow & flower can nearly equal plus a few weeks of an auto.


But grow style is essential to provide meds for your conditions to how much you may consume during the course of growing, but may suggest a perpetual type of grow.

But ye i will comment on regular seed as it is a role of the dice to what you get female to male ratio & could be a waste of space / resources !

When feminized seed will produce all girls for yield which is more likely a better option.



Hay if ya worried about fem seeds going hermie it is really not much of an issue in less ya growing conditions are way out... ye grown em many times by now with out problems.

 

[flexy123]

The question whether you want to grow in soil or hydro is not really depending on the type of light you use, IMHO.
By the way I am also using 4x CXB3590 right now.

I grew in soil last summer and I just got SOO tired of the many issues I think I had with soil, starting with bugs, the potential to choke your roots from over-watering (peat based soil holds water A VERY long time etc..) so I now choose to go Hydro simply because I heard so many good things about Hydro.

I chose Hempy buckets for various reasons, it's brain dead simple. No worrying about a tank or anything. To me it "feels" not much different than with soil, eg. watering so I think that Hempies would be good for someone who wants to make the switch. (Right now I am growing 3:1 Perlite/Vermiculite mix). (Still a bunch of plants in soil in my greenhouse but I will move them up on the roof, probably today even seeing that weather currently finally seems to get warmer). Goal is to make my entire greenhouse soil free

Still have a bigass bag of 125L Coco as well, but I think I wasted my money since overall there seems issues with Coco, in particular that it needs additional CalMag when you feed. I don't like the idea, I don't like to start out with something which needs to be tweaked first to have it right. Itself not a problem, but right now I don't see a reason not to use 3:1 perlite/Vermi, seems to work well.

 

[Mcjoint]

If you plan to grow hydro dwc, use beach coolers / Gatorade coolers instead of buckets. Hydro water temps have to be kept cold under 68 degrees, this is much easier to do when you have insulation.

 

[newtoitall]

My first two grows were soil and I found it to be much more time consuming and had poor (compared to hydro) results in a longer amount of time. I built my hydro system for about $150 total that can hold up to 14 plants in a 4'x4' area. I put a horizontal float in my reservoir attached to a water line to maintain my water level and have a fish tank heater to control temperature during the colder months. I added an air pump and two 5" round air stones recently which seems to have really helped. The system is a flood and drain using 5" vinyl fence posts with 3.75" net pots and a pump in the reservoir to fill the posts until overflow. The system is simple to build and maintain. I know there are many that love growing in soil but it didn't work for me nearly as well. I have also found feeding and flushing to go much smoother than I found in the soil grows. People talk about how much labor intensive hydro is but I found it to be just the opposite in my system, I do adjust the pH from time to time but that is usually only when I first switch over to flower and that may be just me being a little anal about the range I want to maintain. The yields I have got since I switched to hydro exceeded my expectations. I am sure you will receive as many stories like this for soil as well so it may be something you have to try both ways and see what works best for you. Good luck