Green Knight - Hydro CFL - Auto Bomb - First Grow Journal

[ajagunle]

I also read a really useful piece of advice in teSmps' journal, which now I think about it seems obvious but it was really helpful reading it and having it pointed out:

If the ppm/EC is dropping plant is using nutes faster than water, so add nutes
If the ppm/EC is rising the plant is using more water than nutes, so lower the nutes
If the ppm/EC stays the same it's at equilibrium and using water and nutes at the same rate

So since lowering the nutes back to EC 1.1 after the nute burn incident the EC is very slowly dropping so it looks like where things are currently is slightly less than she could take, but I'm happy to keep it here for the moment until the nute burn is a memory.

Tremendous easy explanation!

Are you usingyour flowering nutes to raise/lower ppm or using proportional amounts of all nutes?

Thanking you in anticipation

 

[donpaul.p]

subd mate, ive only read page 1 so im just getting caught up, i grew and auto bomb and it was some of the best bud i smoked, its not a huge yield but no autos are from what i can tell, big bang auto is suppose to yield over 4oz per auto and 2 growers on here hit them targets, i grew my auto bomb in soil, it was dodgy from day 1, deformed and not like normal plant, i got about 20g dry off it, but i did harvest it 3 times, i harvested the top and put it back under the lights, i then harvested it again and again, each time it went back under the lights as it had loads of small buds that was to small but putting it under the lights again got it growing bigger buds, it was a real nice smoke and i wished i had more, but its all gone, im sure you will enjoy the taste and smell once its grown.
now i just got to read page 2 and 3

 

[donpaul.p]

just had a look at the latest pics and its growing exactly the same as mine was, seems a bit deformed and mine started flowering around week 2 then carried on flowering after that, so dont expect a huge yield, you might get more doing a hydro grow like you are, but you cant veg autos so they flower when they flower, but i can see them been something good once they get the strain more stable, the yields will increase im sure, ill keep trying them though, i got 2 growing now i got auto blueberry and bluematic, both started flowering under 24-0 at around 2 weeks, i dont even think ill hit 14g per auto with these unless they grow like crazy before they finish

 

[Green Knight]

Tremendous easy explanation!

Are you usingyour flowering nutes to raise/lower ppm or using proportional amounts of all nutes?

Thanking you in anticipation

Hey ajagunle; I'm using Canna Hydro Vega at the moment, a 2-part nutrient solution, so to lower the EC I'm just reducing the amount of nutrients I add to the water, or adding more pH balanced water to the solution if the EC goes up. I'll start the Canna Hydro Flores once she starts flowering - the plan is to keep with the Vega while she stretches and once pistils start to appear I'll switch to the Flores and add Canna Boost

 

[Green Knight]

Hi donpaul - great to have you aboard. Yeah, I'm not expecting a huge yield but it will hopefully give me some nice smoke whilst I germinate the Berry Bomb, and in a shorter time than if I started immediately with the Berry Bomb. It also gives me a bit of a practice run. Because I'm using a cfl I'm expecting any lower buds to be a bit ropey, and because it's an auto there's not a lot I can do in the way of super cropping or scrog etc to increase yield so I like your idea of harvesting in stages.

I think the deformity is pushing her too much on the nutes to be honest. I think the 1.3 EC was a bit too much and the brown spots may have been her starting to show some burn, rather than a deficiency, and the 1.5 EC was definitely far more than she could handle. Unfortunately I'm away at the moment so can't check on her until tomorrow but reports are she's doing fine. I'll do a proper update over the weekend, but I'm looking forward to seeing her and how much she's (hopefully) grown when I get back tomorrow evening.

I'm looking forward to the Berry Bomb though and playing round with some techniques to try and push the yield as far as possible, but from the auto if I got an oz I'd be pretty happy based on what I've read, and anything above that would be a bonus.

 

[donpaul.p]

im not growing hydro yet but about to give it a try when these plants have finished that i got growing now, but i know most autos struggle with nutes, so its best to use 1/4 strength and slowly up the dose, i cant help you with the EC or ppm as i need to read up on this before i sort my hydro grow out, i need to get an ec tester as well, but from what i have read and learned myself with the autos i have grown, they prefer weak nutes and prefer the soil to be more wet than dry, they seem to grow better if the soil is wet all the time instead of letting it dry out, i know normal plants dont like this but it seems most autos do, but with hydro i cant really help you mate,

 

[Green Knight]

It's funny how autos seem to prefer such weaker nutes. I can understand that if you do something that sets them back you don't have any recovery time and yield will be reduced, but the overall sensitivity of autos to nutes vs photoperiods confuses me a bit. I assume it's just related to the Ruderalis genes. Have to admit that I'm not sold on them yet based on what I've read about yield and others' experiences, but it's early days and they're still fun to grow. Can't wait till the next one though and baing able to get into scrog etc.

 

[Green Knight]

just had a look at the latest pics and its growing exactly the same as mine was, seems a bit deformed and mine started flowering around week 2 then carried on flowering after that, so dont expect a huge yield

Spot on donpaul; just got home and checked and she's started flowering; a few white pistils and she's starting to smell nice and skunky.

I've just changed the nutes to the Canna Flores and added some Canna Boost. I'll post some pictures tomorrow.

 

[donpaul.p]

you will probably find it will slow down for a week or so now, then it will start flowering properly, this is what i found with mine, but they usually grow more towards the end of flowering, ive had autos look like they wont produce much at all only to find they grow more in the last week or 2 of flower, so you might get a whole lot more, just takes a while thats all, as we cant control when they start flowering its difficult to get a big yield, ive tried constant light from day 1 and they still flower, i was told they would not flower under 24-0, but ive tried this and they still do.

now i had a power cut a while back and all my none auto plants grew more during the 24 hours of dark then they did in a whole week, so clearly regular plants grow more in the dark and this is why the gas lantern routine works so well for vegging plants, as you give them 12-12 from seed, but in the 12 hours of dark you give them 1 hour of light in the middle of the 12 hours of dark and this stops them flowering and keeps them in rapid growth, so glr works wonders for regular plants,

now as autos flower due to age and not light then we have little control over how long they veg for, but im wondering if they would grow more if they had more night hours, i just dont know enough to say whats best, it would take some testing to work it out,, now im told 20-4 is the best to use or even 24-0, but i know that my regular plants grow more under glr than they do under constant light, so the night plays a huge roll, but does it with autos,
now as autos are regular cannabis crossed with ruderalis then im wondering if they would benefit from having some night time as a regular plant would, to find out for sure id need to buy a load of seeds from the same strain and try the different lighting schedules, so ill be giving this a try when i get chance to get some seeds

 

[Green Knight]

I'm on 20/4 at the moment. I think I'm going to leave it on that as I think a bit of a dark period is good for them; they haven't evolved in 24h light so they'll do stuff in the dark- different genes will have a part to play when it's dark, and various hormones etc will be also come into effect when there's no light so I think it's good to give them a bit of a rest each day. The importance darkness plays is obvious with photoperiods to initiate flowering, but they'll be 1000s of other processes and internal chemical reactions going on in the plant. Even though autos flower without needing 12/12 there will be other things happening when theres no light that I think will be important to the plant's general development. It would be interesting though to compare a few different autos of the same strain with exactly the same nutes and environmental conditions etc, but with different lighting schedules, to see what happened in terms of growth / yield. Unfortunately because you can't clone autos it would never be a totally fair experiment but you could get a reasonable idea as to the difference it makes.

 

[Green Knight]

So she's now 20 days old and having been away for 5 days I get back to find everything's good (the wife did well) and she's grown quite a bit and started to flower. I got a nice surprise when I opened the cupboard and was hit by the smell; she's started giving off a really nice aroma, and the pistils have started developing.

I emptied the res and changed the nutes; she's now getting the Flores nutes, along with Canna Boost and the DM Zone, to an EC of 1.3 (it was 1.1 all last week after I upped them to 1.5 which was too much, but now she's quite a bit bigger I thought an increase to 1.3 would be ok). pH has been holding nicely at 5.8/5.9.

She's put on quite a bit of root mass:

And she's got quite a bit more bushy:

Some of the pistils:

The new growth is still quite pale between the leaf veins and with the lights off it does look like there's some nute deficiency (I'm still thinking magnesium). The leaves do darken and even out with time so it may just be taking a few days for the newer growth to build up its chlorophyll. The pH seems fine so there shouldn't be any lockout issues (I have ordered some calibration fluid to double check the pH meter though) and she seems happy and is growing well so I don't think I need to be too concerned, but I would prefer a more even, healthy green!

I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing for the moment and when the solution arrives calibrate the meter to check the pH readings are correct (I'm pretty sure they are though as it gives the right pH for our tap water). Other than that, if it is a nute deficiency, I'm a bit stumped because everything seems to be exactly as it should be? Any ideas or suggestions would be welcome!

 

[grogreen]

Hello; is there a reason you're just copying and pasting the first part of my journal with a link to some restaurants? If it's just blatant advertising could you not do this please - I live nowhere near Ahmedabad so it's possibly the least helpful thing in the world to me and about as useful as a bag of sand in the desert.

Hey GK,
Looking good brother, I wouldn't stress too much about what you assume might be a deficiency, just keep doing what you're doing, it will work itself out, your flowering nutes will make up for any deficiencies , whatever it is it isn't bad, and as the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it

PS- I also reported that person who copy and pasted your stuff, he shouldn't bother you anymore

 

[Green Knight]

Cheers mate; you're definitely right - there's not a lot I can do anyway as everything is theoretically where it should be - there aren't really any variables I can change without going off piste so I agree with you; keep things as are. Thanks for the reassurance though - always nice to get a second opinion.

And cheers for reporting that guy. I did as well so hopefully the mods will get on the case - I noticed he's done the same on a few other journals too. No real harm but it's taking the piss a bit; I wouldn't mind if it was a decent restaurant I had any chance of visiting. I had to Google map Ahmedabad and its very unlikely I'll be passing through the area in the near future!!

 

[donpaul.p]

hi mate, i have been averaging around 20g per auto, and the most i got was around 35gdry, but this was grown in soil, the 2 i got growing now are auto blueberry and a bluematic, these are also in flower and will be done in a couple of weeks, these have both had constant light from start to finish so they have had no dark period what so ever and they still flowered,

now the reason i went with 24-0 from seed is because i was told they wont flower unless they get some dark period, so my plan was to veg them under 24-0 till they where the size i want them then give them some dark to start flowering, but as usual around week 2 they showed sex and started flowering, now all the autos i have bought are regular none fem autos, and so far i have been lucky enough to have everyone turn out female, touch wood that is.

so as they clearly flower under constant light then this means their is no way of making them veg longer, and these autos are growing the same as the last autos that had night periods as they was under 20-4, and these started flowering at the same time and the exact same height, all the autos ive grown all grew the same and ended up at the same height so even giving them 24-0 has not slowed or sped them up, now ive been thinking about trying something with autos and i came across it due to this,
i started a dwc 2ltr hempie and went 12-12 from seed and the plant grew over 4ft from, so it did this from seed under 12-12, now when i took a clone from this and placed it in a pot with soil and not in dwc set up it grew slower and did not have the rapid growth the dwc set up did, even though it was a clone from the rapid growing hempie, in fact i took 2 clones from each hempie and the clones grown in soil are not as fast growing as the mother plant,

so my plan is this, once these autos have finished ill order some more and this time ill try them in a dwc set up, this time my hempis have had nothing done to them and all ready i can tell ill hit over an oz per hempie 12-12 from seed, this is an 8 week turn around, which is not far from an auto time period, so ill get some auto seeds and grow them in a dwc hempie and see if i can then get the same rapid growth with them, if i do then this would be a way to increase yield,
the only other option to get a big yield from an autos is to buy the big bang auto, 2 growers on this site grew more than one of these big bang autos and both hit over 4oz per auto, so clearly their are bit hitting autos out their, i dont think they are stable enough yet to make them 100% worth while, but autos give you something to harvest while your waiting for the other plants to grow plus autos can be grown and flowered under any light schedule, so thats my plan after these 2 autos have finished, ill try the autos in a dwc set up and see how that affects growth,

 

[donpaul.p]

but i got to admit, the best auto i have smoked by far is the auto bomb, i got mine from herbies and it was green house seeds auto bomb, thats the auto i got 35g dry off, and it was some of the best bud i have ever smoked, really tangy, so if its the same auto bomb your in for some very nice bud indeed, mine had weird shaped leaves but it sorted itself out,

but mine did grow different to yours mine wasnt as bushy, it had the main stem them 5 or 6 side branches, now as these branches where growing upwards close to the stem it meant they was not getting much light, so i used some pipe cleaners and pulled these branches to the sides of the pot, this gave the plant a boost and then the branches grew as tall as the main stem, but my auto bomb was grown in soil using bpn, so next time i order my autos ill try the dwc set up and see if that changes anything at all

 

[Green Knight]

Mine was from Bomb Seeds so I think it may be different to the one you had. It is very bushy- very indica dominant I reckon. I'll be interested to see how much it stretches, but as I'm using a cfl I'd be quite happy if she stays pretty compact; I reckon I can get away with some LST but not much else so the more bushy and short she stays the better

 

[donpaul.p]

you will get no stretch mate, i dont think so anyway, none of my autos stretched at all, they seemed to grow at a constant steady rate, as we dont need to alter the lights to make them flower i think they dont have a stretch as such, they flower due to age so i think its a constant growth rather than a stretch when they start flowering,
and looking at the size of yours id say its not far off about to start flowering,
does it look that yellow when you look at it or is it just the camera making it looks that yellow on top, im only asking as it looks to me like you have got some sort of problem, when my plants look like that they are over watered or to much nutes, but i just dont know enough about your growing method to say if its one or the other, but to me it looks like some sort of problem,

try asking a question in my journal or put a picture up of your plant in my journal and see if anyone comments or offers some advice, i just dont know enough about ppm to tell you thats the problem or not, im only saying this as it dont look the healthy green it should be looking, the top of the plant either looks like its to much nutes or its some kind of nutrient lock out, but i just dont have enough experience with your growing method to say if it is or isnt

 

[Green Knight]

Yeah; it looks that yellow on the new growth. I've been thinking Mg deficiency, but everything's as it should be as far as pH etc is concerned. I don't think it's too much nutes - I could be wrong but it doesn't seem to be burning.
I'm holding the pH at 5.8 as Mg gets locked out below 5.7 but it doesn't seem to be making much difference. I'm scratching my head a bit to be honest, but she's growing well. I've got some calibration fluid on order to check my pH meter's accurate and I'm not locking anything out, but it's confusing me a bit - id rather a healthy uniform green!

 

[grogreen]

My new growth is always a bit lighter than the rest of my plant, I'm no expert but I assume it takes some time for the leaves to mature and adequately transfer and produce chlorophyll. But what do I know I'm just a professional amateur just keep what your doing your plant is looking strong and healthy

 

[Green Knight]

Quick update, but no photos I'm sorry (I'll upload some more in a few days when I've got a bit more time)

Calibration solution arrived a few days ago and my pH meter was 0.3 higher than it should be, so it appears that she probably was suffering from a Mg deficiency - even when set to 5.8/5.9 it was actually 5.5/5.6 so never quite getting to the stage where Mg was being taken up properly. Since recalibrating she's greening up nicely and looking a much more even colour on her new growth - no longer the yellow leaves and green veins.

So my schoolboy error and advice to others as a result - don't rely on factory calibration! Always check and calibrate the meter yourself as it doesn't take much to be slightly out and lock out key nutes.

Starting to feel I'm beginning to get things more dialled in. She's starting to get through a lot more nute solution (about 1-2 litres a day), but the EC is holding nice and steady. Growth is accelerating, a small amount of stretch and a lot more pistils appearing.

Photos to follow soon