Help? Big Bang Auto 20 Days Old

[oliver1]

Hi there,

I'm looking for some advice regarding all aspects of my grow.

Tthis is my first grow and i'm growing a Big Band Auto feminized. She's now 20 days old, do u think she looks alright? I'm a complete novice so any advice would be appreciated. i'm growing in soil and only using miracle-grow all purpose plant food, they're under one 125w dual cfl because i can't afford to use any more electricity because its a secret grow. Do u think that will work? also, what happens if you use a small pot? i only have a 1 gallon pot.

Another worry is that my plant is extremely short, she's very bushy and has lots of nodes and leaves but is barely 9 inches high. the nodes are very close together. any thoughts as to why she's so short and weather or not that is a problem? all other autos I've looked at have looked a lot taller after 20 days but no where near as bushy or dense. Any advice would be welcomed, check out the photos too.

Also are those tiny pre flowers on the nodes or just new baby leaves/branches?

many thanks

oliver

 

[smeghead]

Hi oliver..
Firstly she's looking great.good job . She's not to small for 20 days. Looks right on track, nice growth and good colour.
There's a general consensus on this site that the bigger the pot, the bigger the auto plant will grow . saying that I've seen many growers on here with 1 gallon pots getting great results. I've even seen them grown in little plastic cups :O .
As for the light.for the first stage of the plants life a 125w cfl is adequate, but when it goes into flower any extra watts u can throw at her will make a difference. I and many others here can understand being on a electicity budget so if you can't up the power maybe switching to l.e.d for flower could help you...obviously if you have the $$. Some really good and cheap l.e.d's get great results on as little as 150 actual watts..I believe mars hydro a sponsor on here are having a sale at moment. Growant, a new sponsor on here ,have some amazing new lights that only draw 80 watts from the wall. .if you cant afford new lights (like me), then we gotta go with what we got.like I said 125 cfl good for now, but in flowering any extra watt gonna help.
The plant food you are using, I haven't got a clue about.what ever your doing, its doing the job.she looks healthy and a good colour. When the plant starts to flower they need a different ratio ( n-p-k ) of nutrients, so u might want to look into that then.you asked if she had pre-flowers, my eyes are old but to me I doesn't look like it yet. The spot that you were looking at you will see1 or 2 little white hairs ( pistels ) in about a weeks time.then you will see those same pistels on the tops.around this time she will stretch taller.
You may want to think about topping her, she's at the perfect opportunity. There's plenty of information on the process in this site, or just ask.
So oliver, relax , everything looks fine.get the cfl bulb nice and close.if you can get a little fan blowing beside her, electric permitted then that would b good.carry on doing what your doing, try not to over feed or over water and enjoy your grow. Hi oliver..
Firstly she's looking great.good job . She's not to small for 20 days. Looks right on track, nice growth and good colour.
There's a general consensus on this site that the bigger the pot, the bigger the auto plant will grow . saying that I've seen many growers on here with 1 gallon pots getting great results. I've even seen them grown in little plastic cups :O .
As for the light.for the first stage of the plants life a 125w cfl is adequate, but when it goes into flower any extra watts u can throw at her will make a difference. I and many others here can understand being on a electicity budget so if you can't up the power maybe switching to l.e.d for flower could help you...obviously if you have the $$. Some really good and cheap l.e.d's get great results on as little as 150 actual watts..I believe mars hydro a sponsor on here are having a sale at moment. Growant, a new sponsor on here ,have some amazing new lights that only draw 80 watts from the wall. .if you cant afford new lights (like me), then we gotta go with what we got.like I said 125 cfl good for now, but in flowering any extra watt gonna help.
The plant food you are using, I haven't got a clue about.what ever your doing, its doing the job.she looks healthy and a good colour. When the plant starts to flower they need a different ratio ( n-p-k ) of nutrients, so u might want to look into that then.you asked if she had pre-flowers, my eyes are old but to me I doesn't look like it yet. The spot that you were looking at you will see1 or 2 little white hairs ( pistels ) in about a weeks time.then you will see those same pistels on the tops.around this time she will stretch taller.
You may want to think about topping her, she's at the perfect opportunity. There's plenty of information on the process in this site, or just ask.
So oliver, relax , everything looks fine.get the cfl bulb nice and close.if you can get a little fan blowing beside her, electric permitted then that would b good.carry on doing what your doing, try not to over feed or over water and enjoy your grow. .

 

[smeghead]

If once wasn't good enough, then write it twice..
Dont know what happened there, first post . I'll sort it eventually. Lol. This pineapple chunk making everthing fun..

 

[Mag7]

Just as he said, she looks great. I don't grow autos so I don't have much advise on how they grow. Miracle grow can be quite harsh so go light if that's all you have but look into other nutes if possible. LEDs do great, even the Lower priced ones as stated above. MH has done me well. That's what I have. Keep it up, looking good bud!!

 

[oliver1]

Thank You!
I will not be able to upgrade lights unfortuenlty so I will have to go all the way through flower with only a 125w cfl bulb, why do the plants need more light when flowering? I will however turn the bulb around so that the plant is recieving a more orange/red light spectrum.

At the moment I’ve got an NPK fertiliser with a high nitrogen content but I’ve heard forwards flowering it’s best to have more phosphorus or potassium?


I have heard about topping but many say it’s not the best for autos as they don’t have a long enough life span, what’s your opinion on topping autos?


I’ve already got a small battery powered fan which is doing a great job! I don’t want to use any more electrify because as I said this is a 100% secret grow in my attic and I won’t get away with using much more than 125w.


She’s on a 18/6 light cycle at the moment but I think I will change to 12/12 once flowering really starts. Do u think this is a good idea or not? Plus it will use less electricity.

Thanks for your response and advice, it really helps Oliver

 

[smeghead]

Thank You!
I will not be able to upgrade lights
unfortuenlty so I will have to go all the way through flower with only a 125w cfl bulb, why do the plants need more light when flowering? I will however turn the bulb around so that the plant is recieving a more orange/red light spectrum.
Hi oliver
Sounds like you got your reasons to keep it stealthy, this site can help you with that..there's some ingenious growers on here that also have to stay hidden..there is lots of cheap ways to improve without losing stealth.if you can't improve lights due to cost, I get that I'm in the same boat..the reason for more light is, bigger the light, bigger and denser the bud.


At the moment I’ve got an NPK fertiliser with a high nitrogen content but I’ve heard forwards flowering it’s best to have more phosphorus or potassium?
Thats exactly right, sounds like you got a good handle on this, try and find a specific flower nute, plenty of sponsors on here or general information from other growers...if u cant get one specific for cannabis, then I'm sure there is some general purpose food with lower N and higher P-K.

I have heard about topping but many say it’s not the best for autos as they don’t have a long enough life span, what’s your opinion on topping autos?
That was at the beginning of auto flowering. Now days growers are cutting, tying and generally abusing autos now days.at least 90% or more of autos can b topped once.your plant is at the perfect time to b topped and stretch into a big plant, but this is a personal dessicion. I recommend that you do, if your up gor it.

I’ve already got a small battery powered fan which is doing a great job! I don’t want to use any more electrify because as I said this is a 100% secret grow in my attic and I won’t get away with using much more than 125w.
Like I said oliver, you gotta do what you gotta do. Any amount of weed you grow yourself is a win.

She’s on a 18/6 light cycle at the moment but I think I will change to 12/12 once flowering really starts. Do u think this is a good idea or not? Plus it will use less electricity.
I understand your want to save every watt u can, but autos work better with more light hours...I myself use 18/6 because I veg photo priod plants next to autos...alot of consensus points to either 20/4 or straight 24 hour light, for flowering autos.
Thanks for your response and advice, it really helps Oliver

Happy growing

 

[smeghead]

Oliver,please fogive how im responding. .just getting used to posting, but I think the information is mixed in with your post.

I have remembered some members names, of which thier journals may b of some use. Try entering FIVE TO MIDNIGHT in the search bar at top.that member has a lot of information about autos, or subsequent members visiting his journal.

Also member MR AMAZING he has a great journal in which he gets great results with limited watts and space.
He may give you some hints just reading through he's thread.
happy growing

 

[Autoflower420]

Thank You!
I will not be able to upgrade lights unfortuenlty so I will have to go all the way through flower with only a 125w cfl bulb, why do the plants need more light when flowering? I will however turn the bulb around so that the plant is recieving a more orange/red light spectrum.

At the moment I've got an NPK fertiliser with a high nitrogen content but I've heard forwards flowering it's best to have more phosphorus or potassium?


I have heard about topping but many say it's not the best for autos as they don't have a long enough life span, what's your opinion on topping autos?


I've already got a small battery powered fan which is doing a great job! I don't want to use any more electrify because as I said this is a 100% secret grow in my attic and I won't get away with using much more than 125w.


She's on a 18/6 light cycle at the moment but I think I will change to 12/12 once flowering really starts. Do u think this is a good idea or not? Plus it will use less electricity.

Thanks for your response and advice, it really helps Oliver

Autos work best on 20.4 u don't need to drop to 12.12 for autos

 

[oliver1]

Hi all, grow is going great but I am wondering if you can help me with the following...

The buds on this blue mammoth auto are starting to develop very nicely however, they are still very small (haven't even formed a proper cola bud yet, only little separate ones) they have already started to frost up as you can see in the images. Now I'm unsure if this either means i'm doing a great job and am going to get some quality bud or that the buds will not increase much in size before harvest as they have already started to frost up. They seem to be developing very slowly on all my autos and am wondering if this will mean i'll get a small yield or will just have to wait for longer.

the plant is under only one dual spectrum 125w cfl and are being fed with tomato feed and molasses, that's all. Perhaps this is why the main colas are so small or is this not a problem?

thanks in advance,

Oliver

 

[TheFertilizer]

Looks pretty early on still, probably 4 or 5 weeks since it started flowering, meaning you could have twice that much left. The buds will start growing into each other and form a big cola. Looks like you might be watering it a little too frequently though; the roots need a chance to breathe.

**Ramble time***

One thing that would really benefit is to learn a bit about plant life and in particular photosynthesis. Most people look at light as the number one component for photosynthesis because they usually have the other key components in copious quantities, but in your growing scenario you've got the reverse situation going on. In fact, you probably have very adequate lighting ( especially considering what size space you may be in ) and I'm saying this by looking at your plant. There is no signs to me that it is having problems growing at all, but its limited size is due to a bottle-neck in photosynthesis even though you have enough light.

The bottle-neck is water uptake. It's one of the major components of photosynthesis, and so the plant will only really grow to the limits dictated by its ability to photosynthesize. With a 1 gallon pot, you're essentially only ever giving this plant a water capacity of maybe half a gallon, and possible even less considering its root mass will not permeate through all the structures of the soil. If you could increase the root mass, therefore increasing the water-capacity the plant has access to, then it would be able to use more of that light in photosynthesis to grow larger.

You either have to increase your pot size, or switch your medium that will give your plant more access to water. Now you can't actually water your plant more frequently and get the same effect because your roots need oxygen and if you keep it water-logged all the time it will stress the plant out, but that's where something like a DWC hydro setup might be the answer for you. That's essentially where you grow the plant into a bucket of water that has an air-stone and a small aquarium pump ( very small, a few watts of additional power ) to bubble oxygen up through it. In this scenario, the medium is water so the roots will have that much more access to water in the same size pot, and the air bubbles will give it the oxygen it needs. You can also meet somewhere in the middle and try something like a "hempy" bucket, which basically creates a "reservoir" in the bottom of your pot where the water pools instead of relying on water-holding capacity of soils. But you have to use a sterile medium like perlite or else the stagnant water will grow fungi and bacterial that will rot your root. In fact those kinds of setups are a little more difficult to maintain that just soil, so that's why many people just prefer big pots full of soil. It's simple and effective.

Now if you're not already bored of reading my babble, you asked why the plants need more light in flower... Basically because flowers are much more complex biochemically. So going back to the photosynthesis thing, when the plant is just growing leaves and stems, it's producing plant material that is giving energy back to the plant because the leaves are basically big "solar panels" and so it creates a kind of "balance" with how much energy it uses to make one leaf, versus how much energy that leaf gives back. Let's just pretend that it's a 1:1 ratio, just to give it a number. Well, when it hits flowering, it's not only going to have to make that leafy material, but also reproductive organs (calyxes and pistils that cluster and make what we call the flower) and also all kinds of "secondary compounds" which are basically everything that we like about the flowers--the tastes, smells, the high it gives us, all come from the production of secondary compounds, but they don't do any of their own photosynthesize. So in veg if you could consider it a 1:1 return on energy on how much a leaf gave back versus how much it took to grow it, then a flower would be more like a 2:1 ratio on how much energy it takes to grow versus how much it gives back through photosynthesis.

So anyway that's probably a lot to take in but what I'm getting at is that most conventional wisdom applies to conventional scenarios, and growing in such a small pot and with such a small light isn't conventional. One thing I'd urge you not to concern yourself with is mineral uptake, i.e. "nutrients". Your soil alone probably has plenty, and the tomato fertilizer is probably good for it--the molasses is more for your soil's microbial life to eat, they love sugar. From what I see, you've got light covered too, and I hope with all the rest of that in mind you'll believe us when we say that you need a bigger pot if you want to see bigger plants.

***Ramble over***

Good job so far though! That's a nice thick stem. Most people probably don't know a 125W CFL can do that. If you wanna see some micro-plants, check out my 12/12 from seed journal ( first link in my signature ). You'll get nice frosty colas, all dense and everything, but they'll just be small until you either up that pot size, or try some sativas. A lot of sativas will get real big even in a 1 gallon pot.

 

[Cultivator]

The plant looks healthy now but you are wasting your time running a 125w cfl. That is a starting bulb for seedlings and will get plants going but thats it. Also being a 6400k bulb its the wrong spectrum of light for flowering, you need red spectrum light. I would say growing weed under anything less than 400w of actual draw is a waste really. You need light, its the first most important thing of growing, followed by your environment such as airflow, humidity, co2 in canopy, o2 in rootzone, day and night temps. Then your medium and feed are important but the least important consideratio when setting up a grow.

Thr miracle grow will also likely give you problems. Its not great for growing weed in and as time goes and the slow release nutes are released you will start to see your plant get marks and crispy leaves and wont produce much bud. Its very N heavy which is fine in tbe initial growth phase but will be a problem later on.

Sorry i dont mean to put a downer on your grow bit you should really consider a different approach. You will learn from this grow and you might get a gram or 2 bit i wouldnt expect much.

If you want to learn more check my journals out. My current journal shows everything from germinating seeds through to harvest and also how to clone and train mother plants.

I wish you all the best, good luck.

Cultivator's Return - Multiple Grows

 

[oliver1]

Here’s a nicer photo. How is she looking for 60 days from seed? She’s a blue mammoth auto and has been growing under only a 125w dual spectrum cfl which many people said wouldn’t be enough light. Any thoughts on how she looks? And how much longer do you think before harvest, she seems to be maturing very slowing now?

Many thanks

 

[Autoflower420]

Here's a nicer photo. How is she looking for 60 days from seed? She's a blue mammoth auto and has been growing under only a 125w dual spectrum cfl which many people said wouldn't be enough light. Any thoughts on how she looks? And how much longer do you think before harvest, she seems to be maturing very slowing now?

Many thanks

Sorry but to me she don't look good like why's so so droopy and leaves so thin ?

 

[oliver1]

Sorry but to me she don't look good like why's so so droopy and leaves so thin ?

Why do you think this could be? It's my first grow so have practically no experience. Droopiness might be due to overwatering I guess which I have managed to avoid for the most part. But I don't see what's the problem with the leaves? Isn't that just the genetics of the plant? They look healthy all over, perhaps a little too dark green but other than that they look good to me. Feedback would be much appreciated, I'm always looking to learn

 

[Autoflower420]

Why do you think this could be? It's my first grow so have practically no experience. Droopiness might be due to overwatering I guess which I have managed to avoid for the most part. But I don't see what's the problem with the leaves? Isn't that just the genetics of the plant? They look healthy all over, perhaps a little too dark green but other than that they look good to me. Feedback would be much appreciated, I'm always looking to learn

Reading up it's probs just ur light dude don't give up

 

[oliver1]

Reading up it's probs just ur light dude don't give up

Hmm ok. But why would that make the leaves thin? And is that a problem? I'm obviously not gunna be getting great results with only 125w

 

[TheFertilizer]

Why do you think this could be? It's my first grow so have practically no experience. Droopiness might be due to overwatering I guess which I have managed to avoid for the most part. But I don't see what's the problem with the leaves? Isn't that just the genetics of the plant? They look healthy all over, perhaps a little too dark green but other than that they look good to me. Feedback would be much appreciated, I'm always looking to learn

Looks more like over watering to me.

You need to take these statements about your light with a grain of salt. It's a little plant, it doesn't need that much light. Now in the future if you ever wanted to yield anything significant you'd need to grow a bigger plant which means you would need more light, but for that little plant, a 125 watt CFL is fine. I have seen people grow whole plants with less, they're just tiny like the one you have.

Check that out. Those are each only 100 W CFL in a HUGE space. All of those plants finished with nice dank buds. Just not a lot.

It's not your light. I'd bet money it's over watered.

 

[Cultivator]

You dont have enough light mate. Dont expect anytbing to change unfortunately. Even if you added adequate light now nothing would happen as its too late. Dont give up, next round try adding a better light source. I recommend a 600w hps but minimum requirement would be a 400w hps

 

[TheFertilizer]

You dont have enough light mate. Dont expect anytbing to change unfortunately. Even if you added adequate light now nothing would happen as its too late. Dont give up, next round try adding a better light source. I recommend a 600w hps but minimum requirement would be a 400w hps

Dude it's a ten inch high plant, in what looks like a cubic foot of space, with maybe 8 grams of bud on it in the end. He has plenty of light for it. His problems now are from something else, and addressing that will give him more knowledge for when he's growing bigger plants later on with more light. If he just continues over-watering it with more light that's not going to be much better. It's by no means "too late". The plant doesn't have a single sign of trouble photosynthesizing, and is just showing signs of over-watering. You know, the thing 99% of new growers do and we both know it. So he might as well learn about it now rather than later.

But oliver I will tell you that you would be better off taking Cultivator's advice and getting a bigger light and starting up some new plants now rather than wait for this one to finish out. You're gonna end up with maybe a 1/4 ounce of smoke ( hard to tell how big your plant is ), so though it's not a lost cause to keep this one alive, you're not going to be working toward a very big payoff. What you're growing now is purely academic, it's just not practical at all.

But I remembered you saying you were restricted on light because it's a stealth grow, so if you look at my last post I tried to give you some tips on how to maximize this size of grow. Even then, you'd have to work really hard to even hope to grow 1/2 an ounce with that light, that size of pot, etc. It's just not really practical. You'd be better off hiding a plant in a corn field somewhere.

 

[Cultivator]

A 125w of blue cfl isnt going to produce anything. Not anything wortb growing for 3 months or so. Even with a red cfl which he should be using it wont do much. You will get a few tiny buds.

The problem with waterjng is that the plant will have such small demands you dont need to water much at all. In that set up you really need to do almost nothing. A little water when the pot is dry and not watering to run off as it will take too long to dry out.

I understand the need for stealth and small grows but for sure min requirement for producing anything worth taking 10weeks+ of time to complete would be to use a 400w draw hps or LED, tjen you would get 3 or 4 oz and its worth doing.

Its been so long since ive done anything witth less than 6 600w lights that i find it hard to get my head around grows this size and i appreciate the fact not everyone can grow what they like but a 400w minimum requirement would be what id tell anyone whonwas starting out.

One thing oliver could do would be to switch the 6400k spectrum light to red spectrum 2700k. That would have a better spectrum for flower or if possible add a 2700k alongside what is there.