First time grower needs advice on hempy bucket grow

M

Mtnberner

New Member
Hello everyone,
I've been growing two auto flowers now for about 4 weeks now. I'm using 3.5 gallon buckets (with a 1gallon reservoir), a 3 to 1 mix of perlite to vermiculite and General Hydroponics nutrients. I started nutrients the second week using 1/4 strength nutrients and now I have moved up to the light feeding schedule on GH's website (not what the bottle says on back). Anyway all is going good, I don't have any deficiencies or toxicity and I'm wondering if I should flush my reservoir with ph'ed R.O. Water to avoid salt build up, if so how often should I flush and after I flush how soon do I return to a nutrient rich reservoir. I read somewhere that since i'm using an inert growing media I should always feed with nutrient, I'm not sure if that's true or not. Thanks!
 
What's up man. I grow in hempy, so i think i can help. I never flush until the last week of harvest. As long as you are getting runoff, you don't have to worry about toxic salt buildup. By now with an auto you should be on flower nutes too, and full strength. Swing by my 2015 kickoff grow or the playground if you have any questions or wanna show your grow
 
The life cycle of auto flowering cannabis.

Another common question I see is when to switch autos from veg to bloom. Many people are under the impression that as soon as they see the first flowers it's time to switch. Perhaps a little explanation of the life cycle of autos will help to clarify this.

Weeks 1 - 3. Once you've started your seeds and they break the surface of the soil, they are in their seedling stage. The first set of leaves to appear will usually single fingered, followed by a second set that may still be single fingered or perhaps 3 fingered. Once that second set appears growth will start to accelerate as the new leaves provide more photosynthesis. This process will continue, more new leaves, faster growth. Depending on the type of soil in use, mild vegetative nutes can be introduced at week 2. By week 3 most plants will start to show their sex. Males will start to produce pollen sacks and females will display pistols.-

Weeks 4 - 6. The plants are now entering a pre flowering stage. During this time the plants should exhibit explosive growth, often as much as a new set of nodes and 1" vertical growth a day. This is the time when they will gain most of their vertical height. Many people make the mistake of switching from vegetative to flowering nutrients at this point, assuming that since they see flowers it must be the proper time. This is incorrect. If the switch to flowering nutes is made at this time the vertical growth will stop and the plant will put it's energy into producing buds. If you need to keep your plants small, or want them to finish earlier, they by all means switch nutes at this point. But if you want to get the most out of your plants continue feeding vegetative nutes until you see the vertical growth slow and stop. Depending on the strain that will usually be sometime during week 5 or 6.-

Weeks 7 - 9. By now vertical growth has stopped and the switch to flowering nutrients has been made. The buds will start to fill out and put on weight, becoming hard and tight. Pistols will start to change from white to brown, orange, red, etc. By now the plants will also have developed a strong smell. Toward the end of this phase the large primary and smaller secondary fan leaves will begin to turn yellow. This is an indication that the plant is moving toward the end of it's life.

Weeks 10 - 11. At this time flowering nutes should be discontinued and only plain pHed water fed to flush the remaining nutrients from the soil and improve the taste. Yellowing of the fan leaves will continue as the plant draws the stored energy from them. Eventually they will die and fall off. By the time that the smaller leaves that come from out of the buds will also start to turn yellow. Then it's time to harvest.-

I know that many of you are thinking that the seed bank said the plants will finish in 8-9 weeks, so why are you saying they take 10-11? The claims made by the seed banks are somewhat deceptive. If you switch to flowering nutes at week 3 or 4 the plants can finish in the times the seed banks say but they will remain small and not reach their full potential yield. Years of growing by myself and others has shown that autos do best if you follow this time line.

Of course, there will always be variations depending on the strain, the environment, nutrients, etc. This information is meant to only serve as a general guideline.
 
Thanks for the responses everyone, I have been following the life cycle that atrain has posted above. I plan on flowering nutes week 6 probably, my plants are really short and bushy they need to grow in height before I switch, technically they are a few days short of a full 4 weeks old, and I feel like they got off to a little bit slower start from some beginner mistakes.

On a side note I was leaf tucking last night and I tried to do some mild branch training, and I broke a branch 90% off!! Doh! I should not have messed with it! I tied it up with string, but I'm worried it might be to far gone especially since it's an auto and I don't have much more veg time to recover. The branch was a prominent one with prime budding sites, I'm so sad, I didn't sleep well last night. Oh well live and learn I guess. Anyone think everything will be ok? Maybe I ll try and post some pics later, I'm not really ambitious enough to do a full blown journal yet.
 
Oh thought I would mention I'm growing cropical fruit auto from cream of the crop seeds, and a sour diesel auto from dinafem. I broke the branch on the cropical fruit, I also slightly broke a branch on the sour diesel, but not worried about it as much. My sour diesel is about a week ahead of the cropical fruit, the sour diesel is starting to stretch now.
 
I am impressed with the dinafem! As you can see by the side by side, but in all fairness I screwed up the cropical fruit when it was a seedling. Here's some pics, the sour diesel is on the left and cropical on the right.

image22702.jpg


This is a close up of the diesel,
image22704.jpg


Here's a close up of the broken branch on cropical fruit,
image22705.jpg


You can see from this pic they are only 12" tall or so,
image22699.jpg


This is the cabinet I'm growing in, that's a platinum p300 LED light, it has a roof intake to keep it looking stealth on all three sides (the big pipe inside is blowing fresh air into the bottom portion of the cabinet).
image22707.jpg

image22706.jpg
 
Thanks atrain, I'm constantly tinkering with my setup. Today I added an option to intake fresh colder air from outside the garage when needed through a soffit vent I installed just for this. I'm also adding wifi outlets and wifi camera to monitor things and adjust fans or heater/humidifier when I'm away from home. Whoever built my garage didn't vent it so I get pretty bad temp swings in there when the outside weather changes. I plan to fully vent my garage by summer time, but for now I'm running a 4" dryer ducting directly to a 4" round soffit vent with heavy screening for bugs.
 
Ok, I feel like I should have done a journal now, since I'm asking another question off subject. This one is for those who know about autoflowering life cycle. My dinafem sour d is exploding in growth (height) it's doing very well, preflowers are showing its about 5.5 weeks and I am going to be switching to flowering nutes next feeding or two probably. My problem/question is my other plant the cropical fruit has had a stunted vegetative growth, it's about half as tall as my sour d and not very bushy, but it is showing its preflowers. Should I keep feeding it veg nutes until it gets bigger, or is that even possible? In a perfect world I feel like it needs at least 2.5 more weeks of veg to get the yields I'd like in the end(it's 5 weeks old right now). I almost want to take the cropical fruit out because the sour d is doing so well it might just fill up the cabinet on its own and I don't want the sick plant stealing any light and space from it.
 
I would not take it out..... and I would wait just a bit before switching to full flowering nutes on the diesel as well bud.... just my opinion. Be patient with the autos... give the diesel two weeks then swicth... I promise she WILL pack on weight quickly once the verticle growth stops completely.. and the other I would def leave in I thought about taking my haze out of the closet when my cheese looked so good I didnt want to crowd her but in the end when the cheese was harvested the haze blew up and yielded bout 40g more....

Look through my journal a bit... you will see my documenting the same struggle in my mind as you are now..... but just be patient treat them well and harvest when ready
 
Thanks for the response atrain, I was hoping you'd see this, I checked out your journal about a week ago, and was blown away by your plants, I have much respect for your growing talents and advice. I read over the life cycle of autos again that you posted and l do seem to have about two weeks left of veg nutes. Do you think I could go longer then that on the slow plant? I mean is there a limit of how long you can feed autos vegging nutes? I'm not worried about my turnover time at all, I just want decent yields seeing as I only have two plants, next time I think I will do one plant and have it be a photo strain and veg the heck out of it until I run out of room. If need be I could maybe post a pic of the slower plant tonight, but it is super dwarf next to my diesel.
 
No need to post pics unless you want to... dont go by the life cycle chart to a T just use it as a general guide line. Watch your plants and act accordingly. They are two dif strains from 2 dif breeders. They will not finish at the same time. I would watch the plant growth. Im pretty sure right now you can see the explosive growth daily. Wait until the plant slows way down.... then start your bloom nutes. Each one will probably be dif. You do not have to wait til verticle growth stops completely but you will def notice it start to tail off. There is no limit to how long to feed veg, just feed them veg as long as there vegging. Im subbed to your thread if you have any more wuestions just ask. I am no pro but I will sgare any knowledge I have and have a pretty vast amount of resources to get any answer you need
 
Thanks atrain, it's nice to know I have someone out there that will look after me, even if I don't have a journal. What was the foot print of your grow area with those three plants on your first journal? Sorry if I missed it in your journal, I didn't read every post. My footprint is 3 ft wide by 2 ft deep, and my 2 plants are smashing into the wall is that ok? I see moisture on the leaves that smash against the wall I worry about mold, maybe I should add an oscillating fan? On a positive note my cropical fruit looks like it's speeding up and getting a little height to her, she's still way behind the diesel, but that might be a good thing because the diesel is going nuts, I keep finding more budding sights everyday. I'll have pictures up tomorrow for sure.
 
I'm not sure rotating my plants will help much, they touch the walls not matter which way they sit, or is just to give the branches a break for awhile while other ones are touching?? Unfortunately I think I'm going to have to retire my cabinet into a seedling starter cabinet and get a 3'x3' or 4'x4' tent for adult plants. I won't be able to do that for about a week and a half, I'm going out of town this weekend for three days and don't have time to deal with it until I get back. As you can see from the picture below I have to carefully shut the door on the branches.
image23256.jpg
image23254.jpg


This picture is a little deceptive, it looks like I have more room then I actually do, the straight down pics above portray my issues better, but I wanted to show you this picture so you can see the size difference. (They are much perkier with the lights on).
image23255.jpg
 

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