Xarg's 1st Grow - Auto Duck & Critical Orange Punch - 2023

[Xarg]

Welcome to my first grow journal!

For several years now, towards the end of summer, I've wished I planted a few seeds earlier on in the year. This year I remembered to.

My main aims in doing this grow are to start to experience and learn about 420 cultivation, the plant and its growth etc.
With a bit of luck, I'll get some bud too.
Other than the seeds, I plan to use readily available gardening products and see what happens.

Location: Outdoors, in the sheltered parts of a garden in the south-west of the UK

Strains (both from Dutch Passion Seeds):
Auto Duck - hybrid of Fresian Duck and an Auto White Widow - a camouflaged plant, with fan leaves that look a bit like a duck's webbed foot. Up to 13 week life cycle outdoors. A hardy plant which has a chance with the challenges of a northern European summer.
Auto Critical Orange Punch - hybrid of Orange Punch and an Auto Kritical Bilbo - 85-90 days from seed outdoors. As I don't have access to a greenhouse, this is a bit of a gamble on a dry August. Nothing ventured, nothing gained...

Containers: 8 litre plant pots
Medium - Coco Coir Lightweight Container and Basket Compost (Doff). The main reason for choosing this was the weight of the medium (I don't have a car).

Nutrients: Miracle-Gro All Purpose Water Soluble Plant (the blue powdered stuff, 24-8-16). The main reason for choosing Miracle-Gro was to avoid becoming paralysed-by-analysis - there is sooo much choice in sytems / methods / media / nutrients etc. - can always change later (?).

The grow was started seven weeks ago, so the first few entries in the journal will be playing catch up.

 

[Xarg]

The seedlings after nine, eight and six days. Each seems to have a different approach to life...

noob #1

• Xarg
• Jul 14, 2023

Auto critical orange punch seedling, 9 days old

noob #2

• Xarg
• Jul 14, 2023

Auto critical orange punch seedling, 8 days old

noob praying

• Xarg
• Jul 14, 2023

Just like me, a noob, praying for success...
Auto duck seedling, 6 days old

 

[Roy Growin]

Off to a good start - I'd be very careful with the blue powder tho, esp seedlings
Your basket compost should be good for at least a month or so, probably has Phostrogen or Bio3 mixed in

 

[Xarg]

@Roy Growin - interesting info - neither the bag nor manufacturer's website provided any details.

The blue powder instructions recommend dosages ranging from 1.25 to 3.33 ml / litre. I started at less than the weakest dose - a flat 1.25 ml scoop of powder to 1.5 litres of water. Started to dribble this around the seedlings after a few days. The first day or so the sprouts were protected by clear plastic bottles with the bottoms cut off.
The dosage was doubled after a few days of no adverse reactions. Then doubled again (to two 1.25 ml scoops per litre) on day nine, I thought they looked a bit pale.
For the next few weeks the seedlings lived on a south facing window ledge. With the benefit of hindsight, I'd now use an east facing window ledge in the mornings, then south in the afternoon. By day 20 two of the plants were look a bit leggy, the extra light may have helped prevent this.
At 20, 19 and 17 days old the plant were put outside. I loosely tied each to a wooden scewer to support the lower stems, which were looking decidedly fragile.

Bill 20 days

• Xarg
• Jul 14, 2023

Auto critical orange punch

Ben 19 days

• Xarg
• Jul 14, 2023

Auto critical orange punch

Auto Duck 17 days

• Xarg
• Jul 14, 2023

Was a bit nervous about leaving them out all night!

 

[Greenvein]

Looking good bro. I grew in b&q compost before and it came out alright in the end. Are you watering with plain tap water and what are you setting the pH to?

 

[Roy Growin]

Looking good bro. I grew in b&q compost before and it came out alright in the end. Are you watering with plain tap water and what are you setting the pH to?

Haha - nowt wrong with gen purpose compost, who hasn't?
Last compost grow I did was New Horizon for Veg; fantastic plants but FM they grow slow compared to coco

 

[Greenvein]

Haha - nowt wrong with gen purpose compost, who hasn't?
Last compost grow I did was New Horizon for Veg; fantastic plants but FM they grow slow compared to coco

100% can't beat Coco

 

[Xarg]

Looking good bro. I grew in b&q compost before and it came out alright in the end. Are you watering with plain tap water and what are you setting the pH to?

Plain tap water.
Not currently setting the pH, and don't have a means of measuring.

 

[Xarg]

My plan was to plant two auto duck and one critical orange punch. This is not what happened. Learnt a valuable lesson about identifying containers, labelling etc.
I'll call the auto critical orange punches Bill and Ben. Bill is taller and lankier. Ben is shorter and bushier (and drinks more).
Over the next few days the plants suffer a bit of damage. One fan leaf got 20% eaten by something. Something else is eating tiny bits of the surface of other leaves. Nothing seems too bad, hoping the plants can cope with this level of damage. I also caused damage to the first set of leaves on the duck by foliar feeding - thankfully no other damage - won't be doing that again.
By the eldest plant's day 30, all plants have their first pistils.
In this group shot Bill is at the back, Ben front right, the Duck front left.

Group shot day 30

• Xarg
• Jul 14, 2023

 

[Roy Growin]

Plain tap water.
Not currently setting the pH, and don't have a means of measuring.

You don't need to in soil, though using previously boiled water and a drop of lemon juice is good

 

[Xarg]

Thanks for reminding me about pH @Greenvein ! Hopefully this explains an issue the plants have had recently.

This is a coco grow so I guess it's pretty important.

A friend had an unused pH and EC meter, not particularly impressed by the performance, but can't complain for the price.
Measurements of pH / EC of what I've been using are:
Tap water: pH 7.3 EC 186 ppm
1 scoop per litre: pH 6.3, EC 634 ppm
2 scoop per litre: pH 5.6, EC 820 ppm
3 scoop per litre: pH 5.0, EC 1102 ppm
4 scoop per litre: pH 4.1, EC 1564 ppm
Not at all convinced by the pH values here, and the EC values are uncalibrated, but the maximum dose of 4 scoops of blue powder per litre of tap water would seem to be too hot for the plants to handle.

 

[Greenvein]

No worries bro, I saw a few of the leaves twisting a bit and thought it could be due to a pH imbalance..
Yeah like you said in veg I don't really go over 1000ppm so if they cant access it you may just be building up salts in the medium.
What brand are your pens? 186ppm is decent for tap water.
Coco is always easy to correct so you can be on top of your game next watering lol that's what I love about it
That 2 scoop per litre looks pretty bang on I'd stick with that and water to runoff every time maybe a bit extra run off for the first (next) watering.

 

[Xarg]

No worries bro, I saw a few of the leaves twisting a bit and thought it could be due to a pH imbalance..
Yeah like you said in veg I don't really go over 1000ppm so if they cant access it you may just be building up salts in the medium.
What brand are your pens? 186ppm is decent for tap water.
Coco is always easy to correct so you can be on top of your game next watering lol that's what I love about it
That 2 scoop per litre looks pretty bang on I'd stick with that and water to runoff every time maybe a bit extra run off for the first (next) watering.

Yes, they seemed to thrive on three scoops for a few weeks, but when I upped it to four one plant in particular showed real distress. Have since leached (flushed?) the media and gone back to 2 scoops per litre.
The pens themselves are not branded, the leaflet is branded "Eletorot". They'd been in a drawer for a year. EC measurements seemed more reliable and repeatable, but were uncalibrated. pH measurements very slow to converge on final value - measurement of calibration solutions within ~0.2 though.
It's a soft water area here, so was expecting the EC to be a less than 186ppm.

 

[Xarg]

Support Bill and Ben with bamboo canes. Here they are on day 33:

Group shot day 33

• Xarg
• Jul 16, 2023

Bill, Ben & the Duck

 

[Xarg]

On day 35 the weather turned. Gone were the continuously sunny days, replaced by the standard cloud, showers, grey...

Auto Duck 39 days

• Xarg
• Jul 16, 2023

The white marks on the leaves in the photo above seem to be caused by this little critter:

Critter

• Xarg
• Jul 16, 2023

Not worrying about it though, not a lot I can do...

 

[Xarg]

Day 45, things seem to be going well:

Group shot day 45

• Xarg
• Jul 16, 2023

Bill at the back, then Ben, with Duck at the front

Bill day 45

• Xarg
• Jul 16, 2023

Auto critical orange punch main flower day 45

The bushier of the two auto critical orange punches continues to drink more than her sister:

Ben day 45

• Xarg
• Jul 16, 2023

Auto critical orange punch main flower day 45

The auto duck:

Duck day 45

• Xarg
• Jul 16, 2023

Auto duck main flower day 45

 

[Azimuth]

Pretty happy looking plants. We'll done!

If your pH meter was sitting dry in a drawer for a year, it may need to be recalibrated. You can get packs of powder for small money on the Jungle Store.

 

[Xarg]

Pretty happy looking plants. We'll done!

If your pH meter was sitting dry in a drawer for a year, it may need to be recalibrated. You can get packs of powder for small money on the Jungle Store.

Thanks
The kit came with three sachets of the powder - performance improved after calibration, but it took time to settle on a reading. Occasionally spurious values too...

 

[Xarg]

Day 49 and I'm hoping the yellowing of the bottom fan leaves is natural senescence:

Bill day 49

• Xarg
• Jul 16, 2023

 

[Xarg]

Ben doesn't look so healthy:

Ben day 49

• Xarg
• Jul 16, 2023

Something wrong here...

Things got worse:

Ben day 52

• Xarg
• Jul 16, 2023

Things are getting worse

I've since flushed the media, and resumed feeding at a lower rate. Things seem to be getting better (or at least they've stopped getting worse). This is her earlier today:

Ben day 54

• Xarg
• Jul 16, 2023