Does anyone use organic fertilizer with autopots? How do you top dress it?

[The123321]

I am looking at growing auto plants in coco coir with perlite in 3 gallon fabric pots in autopots with 2 plants in veg and 2 plants in flowering in the tent that I want to have all on one reservoir so I want mostly only water in the reservoir. I am looking at the dr earth dry amendments with the dr earth veg/tomato and flower girl 2-9-4 then have calmag with silicon liquid nutrients and drip clean in the reservoir to bottom feed the plants with the autopots on there.

The plan is to do like 70% of the 4-6-3 to 30% of the 2-9-4 in the pot to start the grow then in 3 weeks top dress with 50-50 of the 4-6-3 and 2-9-4 then in 3 weeks top dress with 30-70 of the 4-6-3 and 2-9-4 on there.

Can you top dress in autopots? Would that work when I need to put more nutrients into the pots with the plants? Would using a tea work instead on there for it?

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Coco retains no nutritional value in it

Why time release and powders or top dressed dosent work for the average and new growers

But go for it...but realize not many will be able to help you when it goes bad...you'll be pretty much on yer own

 

[BedroomFarmer]

I'm with chris man, I did 3 grows trying to make amendments work in coco and it just didnt. They clogged the coco up and it was a huge waste of time and money.

I do see some people have figured out how to make it some what work but if your set on using dr earth then on the back is instructions for making a nutrient tea. You may have better results with that.

Aside from that, pretty much no one here grows that way and you would need to ask the person that is getting decent results using the system you are trying to use. I think you said "mr. Canuk" is getting good results, you'd have to ask him or someone that is growing in this way. From my experience coco is best with salts

 

[The123321]

Thanks. I have read that many people use biotabs with coco in autopots though it takes a few weeks to get those here. I may try soil instead of coco if it does not work. In the 32x32 tent I likely only have room for 1 reservoir in there and with 2 plants in veg and 2 plants in flowering I need a way to do that on there.

 

[SmokingWings]

I have been interested in this sort of grow but not interested enough to try it.

Asking around I have talked to people who claim successful grows with a mix of coco and peat moss. Not sure how many, if any, did it in an auto-pot system. For the most part it seems that they put the coco/peat mix into a pot, put in the plant and then top dress. The idea becomes that when watered the nutrients slowly dissolve and a lot of them are held by the peat moss instead of draining out. That is there where the roots can get at them.

It sounded like this growing style can be done but is still in the trial and error stage.

 

[The123321]

Thanks. Then the main problem with the coco and perlite is that it would not hold in the nutrients the dry amendments let out with watering? What if I mix in something with the coco? Is there anything non soil that you can mix in to help the coco hold on to some of those nutrients for the plants? Would biochar work for that on there?

 

[BedroomFarmer]

Promix peatmoss or sunshine mix may be better for your purposes. Promix has no nutrients sunshine might have a little and it's the base for some organic soils. May work out better for your needs. Good luck

 

[BooMtoLate]

Auto pots are a bottom feed system. Add nutes to the res and off to the races.

 

[BedroomFarmer]

Yeah if you wanna amend you'll want to feed from the top.. you could always just set up a drain to waste system if your set on amending. Like boom says just get some nutes and be done.

 

[The123321]

Thanks. I have a few extra jiffy pellets that I may expand and mix into the pots with the coco. I think I may have figured out the top dressing thing. I have done some reading online and it looks like you can turn off the reservoir the night before you plan to top dress then top dress then turn the reservoir back on the next day. I may try that on there.

 

[The123321]

What do you think about adding biochar to the coco to help it retain nutrients to help it work with dry amendments on there?

 

[Chris Scorpio]

Lol

 

[BooMtoLate]

 

[SmokingWings]

What do you think about adding biochar to the coco to help it retain nutrients to help it work with dry amendments on there?

The biochar becomes a haven or a living area for soil organisms. It is not added to hold the nutrients though it might help, very, very minimally. Certainly not enough to justify the costs in both money and time unless you are just experimenting.

There are a couple of really useful articles available which were published by universities and researchers which will explain how biochar works and why it would be of minimal help in this situation.

I still like the idea of the coco base and organic additives or fertilizer. I know how I would start off if I had to experiment but I am happy working out my soil/small pots/low lights system.Seems to me that there have to others on here who have successfully grown with the method you are thinking of.

 

[The123321]

Thanks for the information. That is interesting. I would likely not use the biochar then. You mentioned you know how you would do it if you were going to try organic nutrients in coco. How would you do it?

 

[BooMtoLate]

Your thinking about it too much, add coco to your auto pots and add plants and grow.

 

[SmokingWings]

Thanks for the information. That is interesting. I would likely not use the biochar then. You mentioned you know how you would do it if you were going to try organic nutrients in coco. How would you do it?

OK. Give me a day or so.

 

[The123321]

Thanks. I would be very interested to hear it as most people have told me on forums that it would likely not work.

 

[SmokingWings]

Thanks. I would be very interested to hear it as most people have told me on forums that it would likely not work.

It will be hard to get it to work and it would not surprise me at all if the first couple of attempts do not work at all. I am trying to think through how I would do it, and most importantly why I would do each step.

 

[HaremMasterOG]

I am looking at growing auto plants in coco coir with perlite in 3 gallon fabric pots in autopots with 2 plants in veg and 2 plants in flowering in the tent that I want to have all on one reservoir so I want mostly only water in the reservoir. I am looking at the dr earth dry amendments with the dr earth veg/tomato and flower girl 2-9-4 then have calmag with silicon liquid nutrients and drip clean in the reservoir to bottom feed the plants with the autopots on there.

The plan is to do like 70% of the 4-6-3 to 30% of the 2-9-4 in the pot to start the grow then in 3 weeks top dress with 50-50 of the 4-6-3 and 2-9-4 then in 3 weeks top dress with 30-70 of the 4-6-3 and 2-9-4 on there.

Can you top dress in autopots? Would that work when I need to put more nutrients into the pots with the plants? Would using a tea work instead on there for it?

I recently helped my son set up a grow just like that with an autopot system he scored off another guy who was upgrading his setup.. it's a 4 pot autopot system.. following the instructions of mr. Canucks Grow, using dry amendment organic fertilizer in the coco mix.. it's important to get the water wicking and the drainage optimized.. go with 50% coco and 50% perlite in your media mix, then mix in thoroughly your dry fertilizers, starting off with the all-purpose,ñ balanced veg blend (4-4-4 in the Gaia Green) , initially at four tablespoons per gallon of media.. start your plants as you normally would and then transplant them into the coco/perlite mix in those 4 gallon autopot buckets, initially leaving the buckets off of the autopot pot water trays.. the idea is to use top watering at first, to get your plants to at least 21 days veg age.. longer if you want but at least 21 days.. 5th or 6th node.. so that you can go through the watering/dry down cycles during veg, to build a really good size root ball first before putting the plants on to the autopot trays. Always water slowly, off the trays, to avoid run-off.. you want to keep the nutrients in the media in order to last three to four weeks before needing to recharge them. Once you're ready to flip them to flower, top-dress at 2 tbsps dry ferts 50% all-purpose (e.g. 4-4-4 veg) and 50% bloom (e.g. 2-8-4 bloom).. slowly and thoroughly watered in (off the trays.. with no runoff.. so not to contaminate your autopot watering system components).. you don't want to be washing your nutrients out of your Coco and so once you've got your media fully wetted then put your pots onto their watering trays.. and that will ensure you get good wicking up into the media right from the start. Following Mr. Canuck's recommendations on top dressing every 3 to 4 weeks depending on how hungry your strain is or your particular plants.. certainly no longer than 4 weeks or you'll be running out of nutrients in your media. So, to summarize, the first top dress *after 21-28 days vegging, would be just before you flip to flower and that would be 50:50 Veg:Bloom. Last top dress, afain at 50:50 ratio, at week three or four of flowering and at that point, you're done feeding. All along, just keep your water Reservoir at pH 6.0-6.5.. you can deliberately move it around from 6.0 all the way to 6.5, but no higher.. whatever you're comfortable with, whatever works best for the strains you are growing. Typically, the pH in your Reservoir will climb very slightly over time so you may have to add a couple of drops of pH Down on a daily basis. Anyway, my son is into his fourth week of flowering (just after the final top dress) and he's got four different strains in there and they're going absolutely gangbusters with the flowering .. super healthy plants.. ya, so no worries about the growth in veg and the flowering and it's certainly an easy, uncomplicated way to grow.. dry amendments and water only.. he's done a minimal amount of training just topped each plant once.. didn't even bother tipping them, and he's got 15 to 20 bud sites on each plant, so it's tracking to a really good harvest.