Diary Complete First Grow Diary, May 2023

[AK-47 Gold Arabesque]

Introduction

I decided to keep a grow diary as way to track my progress, and of course gain knowledge and insight from all you experienced bois who will hopefully be checking out the progress. I figured I would put everything I have so far in one initial post, and then keep updating as I go along.

Setup

Tent: Infinity 1.2 x 1.2 x 2m Grow Tent

Lights: Green Houston 250W Quantum Board (Dimmable) x 2

Fans: RAM Inline and Outline Fan, with Carbon Filter.

Pots: Garden HighPro Larger Propots - 20lt x 6

Growing Medium: Freedom Farms Coco-Perlite Growing Medium 70/30

Humidity: Mini 850ml Dehumidifier for Home

Environment Monitor: Standard DIGITAL HYGROMETER

Nutrients: Terra Aquatica GHE FloraMicro, GHE FloraBloom, Terra Aquatica CalMag

Genetics

Simba Seeds Critical Auto Fem x 3

Simba Seeds Amnesia Haze Auto Fem x 3

 

Decided to make the commitment into a hobby I’ve always wanted to do. Found a guy on Gumtree selling a whole setup that had been used once, before he upgraded. For R7200, figured it was a good deal.

Decided to go with Autos, due to loadshedding, and leave the lights on 24/7. Ordered 6 seeds in total (Two separate orders) for 6 pots.  Also got a Seedling Heat Mat, figuring if I’m spending money on seeds I may as well make sure they pop.  

April 25, - April 28, Of the first Critical Auto Fems, one misgermed as can be seen in the top right: Was yellowed, and didn’t rise through the soil like the others after being planted. Contacted the supplier and got a refund.  2 x Critical planted on 28 April 2023.

May 1 

My two Critical seedlings, still in the square plastic pots from the original setup, before I decided to swap over to Fabric Pots.

May 5,- May 7

Ordered my next seeds, the Amnesia Haze. This time I also decided to germinate an auto seed a friend gave me (“Fruit Salad” – Strawberry Vostok x Pineapple Express.), just in case. Lo and behold, one Amnesia Haze didn’t pop at all, so I also got a refund for that one. 2 x Amnesia Haze and 1 x “Fruit Salad” planted 7 May 2023.

May 14

Progress photo, had swapped to fabric pots by this point.

May 22

Slight Magnesium Deficiency

May 24

Looking better after increasing CalMag slightly. Pistils also showing on Criticals. As they are at the start of pre-flower I added my CO2 Bag into the tent.

May 25

Started low stress training the Criticals. The other 4 are still too small to train.

May 28

Criticals are responding well to LST. Other 4 catching up nicely.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 30, 2023 by AK-47 Gold Arabesque

[Ill_Evan]

Great start, good equipment, solid method. You should have a really good run with this. 

[AK-47 Gold Arabesque]

May 29

The two Criticals were becoming bushy, and responded well to their LST. Adjusted the tie-downs today, 4 days after the initial training. Incorporated more tie-downs for each bud site, to ensure maximum light coverage and penetration. Fan leaves were tucked instead of pruned, as I am told is policy with autos, as they don't respond well to stress. They look a little mangled now but will be way happier in a day or two  

Before and After

Edited May 29, 2023 by AK-47 Gold Arabesque

[ORGANinc.]

I love it, taking the initiative. Nice start bud... and welcome 

[Pants]

Looking good. Looking forward to your fruit salad, it’s the seeds I made from @Bay Seeds Vostok and Fastbuds Pineapple Express. Grown a couple myself and seen quite the variety of phenos. Current one seems to have missed the autoflower gene


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AK-47 Gold Arabesque]

20 hours ago, Pants said:

Looking good. Looking forward to your fruit salad, it’s the seeds I made from @Bay Seeds Vostok and Fastbuds Pineapple Express. Grown a couple myself and seen quite the variety of phenos. Current one seems to have missed the autoflower gene


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Small world that I somehow end up with seeds you made  I stay Cape Town side, so could be through a mutual friend depending on where you're based. The Fruit Salad is definitely looking strong 

[Pants]

Just a note. The fruit salads are regular so could be male. Keep an eye out


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[AK-47 Gold Arabesque]

June 5

Tent is starting to have that flowering smell. Two oldest (38 days old, [5 Weeks 3 Days]) are now in full pre-flower. Plenty of pistils and some frostiness starting to develop on the leaves.

[AK-47 Gold Arabesque]

June 12

Felt a bit anxious to update, as the grow has been having some complications. However, teaching myself to learn to accept error and being okay with mistakes is part of the reason I got into this . Wrote this update while quite cheesed btw, so apologies for sentence structure. 

Reflection/Things I will do differently next time. 

1.) Train completely differently.. My lawd. You'll see what I mean by my photos at the bottom. I started by following guides and examples. These are EXAMPLES (Not my plants) I was aiming to follow, in order of growth:

Instead, I was very overzealous (First time excitement) and ended up keeping the plants very low constantly to try and achieve the most "even" canopy  Ending up with a plant very low and close to the grow medium, little to no stretch. An extreme version of this: 

In hindsight this has made watering a nightmare, as its difficult to get the water under the canopy without it touching the leaves. Have had many leaves get nute burn on them via being touched by the feed. This makes diagnosing possible nutrient issues more difficult, as it could be either from feed touching the leaf, or something else. 

2.) Use gardening rubber soft ties for LST. Every guide does this, everyone uses it. So why didn't I? Idk. I used galvanized steel binding wire from a hardware store, which I snipped and bent to create little tie downs I push into the soil. If they get wet, I'm not sure if they will oxidize/corrode and this leeches into soil or onto plants.

3.) Water More..  As you can see at the top of this diary, my setup actually came with a big black catching tray for all the runoff. I thought to myself "How tf am I going to take out all the pots, carry this thing outside and empty it. That's dumb". So I watered less, to avoid all this crazy runoff, aiming to get little to no runoff, as I thought that made sense.    Then I saw @The Grass Baas mentioned vacuuming the runoff in his set-up where he uses the same runoff catcher. I literally have a workshop vac that can vacuum liquid. I'm dumb. As of now I have put the big runoff tray back in my tent, and watered properly. Then, I simply vacuum all the runoff. Thank you @The Grass Baas, you helped me there tremendously.  I feel that this lack of proper watering is what has caused my younger plants to be so small in Week 5. (You'll see what I mean)

4.) Measure my EC/PPM , I didn't realize it was important. I don't have a pen, so as of now I haven't done this once in my first grow. tsk tsk..

5.) pH check my runoff, I couldn't do this as I didn't have any runoff to pH >.< But as per point 3, that will now change. Will start to check.

6.) Feed based on the bottle instructions, Instead of just reading the bottles, and halving the amount per litre for my autos, I followed a US YouTuber's feed guide. Using a gallon measurement and converting everything back and forth is an absolute ball-ache. Been way easier working with litres instead.

If any of you read through these reflections, I would love your feedback and input! 

Moving onto the actual update (no judge plz ty)

Plant #1 - Critical Auto - 45 Days Old

 

Plant #2 - Critical Auto - 45 Days Old

Plant #3 - Fruit Salad Auto - 36 Days Old (Regular, idk if female, see this thread)

Plant #4 - Amnesia Haze Auto - 36 Days Old (Also check this weird ass leaf. Never seen a leaf split like that at the bottom.)

Plant #5 - Critical Auto - 36 Days Old

Plant #6 - Amnesia Haze Auto - 36 Days Old (Probably the best of all the younger ones)

Honestly I am enjoying the whole process, even though it was waaaaay more complicated that I expected xD But that is what makes it exciting and fun  Special shoutout to @Ill_Evan for being a certified ganja guide and taking the time to answer my constant questions through Steam. Legend, thank you! 

Even if my yields are sub-par, I've never grown indoor and will be happy that I managed without a complete disaster. 

If you made your way to the bottom of the thread, congrats! And thank you!  

Edited June 12, 2023 by AK-47 Gold Arabesque
grammar, spelling etc

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

What's goooood bud, hope and trust all is well on your side  

For autos going through the HST you threw at them you got great results! Generally the rule of thumb with autos is "just add water" and it's not too literal, I mean they do need nutes, but the notion goes - you want to cause them as little stress as absolute possible. in most cases even LST will be too much for an auto to handle, things like topping and training is considered fringe practice when talking about autos. for the most part, you don't wana touch them. you don't wana defoliate them, you don't wana top them. you don't even wana repot them, that can also be too much stress for them. so going by the "just add water" thing, it's best to never have fluctuations in the soil, this will happen much easier when you're relying on yourself to understand how synthetic nutrients work. there is a point of growing you reach where you understand soil so well that you really do only have to add water, those will be your best growing conditions (talking rhizosphere) and it will be the safest bet for growing autos as everything is "pre-balanced" you literally just give clean water. 

don't get me wrong, some dudes achieve MAGIC results with synthetic bottled nutes, they have their place, but seeing as you starting out you in a very good position to decide to "go with" one thing or "go with" the other thing. in the long run, it's just a matter of time before synthetic nutes will dwindle and become obsolete, some huge movements being made in the world of organic growing. the misconception based around plants growing faster with synthetic nutes is based on the fact that people actually follow recommendations on the bottles instead, the marketing sector has mislead the masses into synthetics, cause there's a higher profit margin on these products than with organics, organics when done right will keep you away from the grow shops. and trust me, the grow shop is the very last place you wana go for growing guidance, those guys are there to sell a product and up their KPA within the company, they don't give a hoot about you aslong as you come back to buy more products.  

Anyway, as I was saying, you did great here brother. Probably got better results from that auto than I would have. I've never tried autos, cause of the -no time to forgive mistakes- characteristic all autos come with. I still run into hickups with each grow I do. Learning every day still. 

Just another note, those plants got stunted at some point right, and a stunted plant will obviously not be taking up nutrients the same way as a raging prolific plant. so maybe rethink the way you're cross referencing and approaching the next grow. the leaf necrosis you see there might be from root stress. nutrient lock out from not being able to use the nutes you gave it, cause it was spending time standing still from the HST you put it through. 

What may have saved you is that you planted directly into your final pots, so root space was more than abundant, but as the knife cuts both ways, it's also very easy to get the watering wrong when dealing with any small plant and big pot. even with photoperiods, most new growers over water their plants when starting out. the moisture levels and the watering technique for organic growers and synthetic growers also differ a bunch, but in both situations it becomes harder when it's a bigger pot and smaller plant. so with autos it becomes that much harder as they don't allow any slip ups. so yeah bud, pat yourself on the back, you did great here!

If you going same route next grow one thing I would suggest is leave the training completely. those photos of Mr.Canuk training, not sure if it's autos, but if it was he probably mentioned that autos shouldn't be trained but he is taking chances, I would argue that it's based on his skill and experience level. that man knows exactly what's going on in his soil, I've probably watched all his videos and he also knows exactly what to do and when and if he runs into problems it's a matter of hours before it's resolved. If you're at the level of being one step ahead of the plants then you can take the chance to train an auto, but I wouldn't recommend it for beginners. Honestly I wouldn't recommend autos at all for beginners, you can't clone them either. so it's a one and done, what's the fun in that? also a bit counter-intuitive if LST/HST is meant to increase yield, but try it on an auto it'll cut your already smaller yield into half or even worse you only yield like 20g best way to get the most out of an auto is no training, no stress at all and then still you wont be able to achieve the yield of a photoperiod. one should never expect photoperiod results from an auto not even if everythings 100% 

[LitItGrown]

Nice looking setup. I don't have as much exp as these guys however I am om day 73 of my 1st auto-run as well. Just a mention on the wire you are using, I did the same, the wire got hot under the lights, and the ladies didn't like that. (I could see some slight brown impressions where they were in contact with the stem and branches, so I replaced them with the green wire ties. 

RE: LST, you want gradually guide the plant. I found that simply adjusting the training wires/hooks/bends works well for the autos. I started doing this because I broke the main cola on 2 of the 3, one by being a complete bull in a China shop and turning with the main behind me and snap. The other one I truly believe I LST that one too late, so it got stronger than the rest and so less bendable compared to the other 2 and I over pushed my luck.

Good news is that the is still 1 with it's main cola and I think I cocked up early enough that the plants was still able to divert the energy to the rest of the buds and I consider myself lucky in the sense that the genetics of the plants were of a strong so it could recover and I think I should be getting a decent result, however I share the same goal as you and that is to just get through it best way I can and enjoy the journey. I mentioned before that growing cannabis is just as addictive as using it.

You will be surprised at their stretch phase, followed by the fattening of the buds phase. (I was, especially what most people had to say about autos and how finicky they are. (I guess good genetics would be a factor, because I fckd up a couple of times, with different small things that my ladies didn't like and they still forgave me. I suppose I will have to wait until after dry and cure to see how much she penalised for my mistakes. But "there is much more learned in defeat than in victory" as the Japanese saying goes. (I will make a post of all my mistakes when the run is done, a blooper post so to speak. )

The whole point is to get all the buds exposure to the light and that you will best see from the top view. (Added some pics to show you what I mean, although there might be better ways in achieving that goal, I did what I thought would work best) 

My Northern Lights Auto I took a different approach, also guiding them piece by piece and I will see how that turns out. I am pretty optimistic, since you can see 4 nodes coming up from the stem while the others now do almost a fishbone kind off effect.

It looks like you're off to a way better start than I was so I am sure your autos will treat you well. Happy Growing

 

Edited June 13, 2023 by LitItGrown

[AK-47 Gold Arabesque]

Thank you for your responses and feedback! 

@Naughty.Psychonaut Your insight is always great to read! My choice to use synthetic nutes stemmed from two things. 1.) I got them for free with my setup 2.) My entire plan was to follow along the week by week guide from SeedToStoned he has here, and that is what he used. If you have time, check it out. His run seemed to go incredibly well, but he is far more experienced. He grew Amnesia Haze and Critical Plus 2.0 Autos in this run, which is pretty much identical to what I have (Copied him for a reason). He also skips the TriPart Grow in this run. I think that may have saved me because I have no idea what the PPM of my tap water is, and adding grow may have caused it to be too high and cause lockout. Coincidentally, the guy I got my setup from followed the exact same guide, from the exact same YouTuber xD Hence only the CalMag, Micro and Bloom coming for free with the setup. Had I not gotten the nutes for free I honestly may have gone soil/organic, instead of coco/synthetic  But that is to be experimented with further down the line.

With regards to stunted growth, before this week I was only feeding the plants 2.5ℓ each, to avoid runoff and mess. In hindsight, that is probably way too little. Since I now learnt have my runoff tray and use a vacuum, I give each plant a whole 5ℓ as I'm not scared of the runoff.  It's only been a few days since the larger watering and the little stunted ones seem to be way happier already. All the plants seem way happier in general. Keen to see how they will respond and look a week from now.

The reason I chose autos was also because I was going to follow the guide step by step, and to avoid having to stress about load shedding and light schedules. My next grow, I doubt I will do autos. I'll probably do photos or even clones.  Thanks again for taking the time to respond!

@LitItGrown Your plants look great man!  Appreciate the response and sharing your personal experience. The "fishbone" style of training you referenced, is literally what I did with my older plants. I started LST on all my plants at Week 3 or 4, very eagerly. In my case the main stem is bent like 80 degrees lmao, and then the fishbone. All the other main stems coming off were then also kept low, and I tried to keep everything growing in a sort of "circular" fashion around the pot as best I could. Although the plants are low to the medium, I feel I did a decent job at least keeping all bud sites even, and maintaining even light to every site.  I hope my plants stretch up more and get some fat buds, just like yours are!  I'm a few weeks behind you, and will be keen to see how they look when they reach the same age yours are in these photos. 

Definitely going to swap to the green rubber coated soft ties when I can, glad you could share your experience with the metal stuff. I've also had some slight brown impressions in some places using the DIY metal ties. Thank you again for taking the time to respond! 

Much love to all of you following and helping! 

 

Edited June 13, 2023 by AK-47 Gold Arabesque

[LitItGrown]

"Although the plants are low to the medium"  same happened to me, but as long as you got decent airflow through there you should be fine. The importance of airflow hit me in the middle of veg, along with some fungus gnats, so I switched to bottom feeding and watering to keep the topsoil dry, and doing this to the older plants, I also applied it to the Northern Lights and the leaves touching the soil (if you can see in the image they are fine.)  The bottom watering is now my preference, I feel like I have a much better idea of how much water my plants get and use. It's quite fun watching them levels go down at different speed and stop unexpectedly.

For example, the Sour Diesel drinks fast but less, the GSC drinks slow but I have to fill her twice. Really interesting stuff for me who likes to make observations. I am also of the opinion that everybody should find the way that works and is also enjoyable for them. This way the industry as a whole grows and expands more. Hopefully one day in the future our legislation will allow us to not only grow for ourselves but allow growers to supply legal dispensaries, almost like the system they got going in California. That's a dream that we might actually experience or the next gen growers. As I understand it, and this is pure hearsay, there are already 3 Canadian companies active in SA regarding the development for medicinal hemp and cannabis cultivation and in the case of those companies, the ability to do cheaper research at this point, even with power outages etc.

Either way the future might be bleak ITO our government however there are still things we can be hopeful for. I mean, once the government realise they can tax a further 40% and hand out more spiked tenders, we should be there.  

No probs! happy growing fellow mystic 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Just note - the most important roots sit right under the surface of the topsoil, the "feeder roots" as they are called do most of the nutrient uptake and should be more active in a cultivation setup for production purposes, roots that go downward are "drinker roots", plants will still grow but nutrient uptake is less.

for synthetic growers it's advised to keep the whole soil media moist at all times, it dries much much faster than soil and if you got an active plant you'll have to water a lot more frequent than organic growers, but to avoid salt build up from residual unused nutrients drying up and turning back to salt around the roots. (salt build up = root burn) you need runoff to flow away when feeding synthetics cause everytime you feed the old nutrients should be flushed out and replaced with new. not sure how the bottom feeding works with this, cause it's kinda how the ebb n flow setups work, flood and drain.... but the thing there is that it drains, the plants soak up what they can and the rest gets drained, it doesn't stand in it. if you look at the professionals who grow with salt in rockwool cubes you'll see they cover that cube as much as possible to keep it from drying out at all. only the bottoms of the cubes are exposed to do the soaking up and then the rest drains away. 

I know mr.Third Evan the master grows with salt, maybe he can confirm this or tell me how far off I am. 

either way I know that a big factor to using synthetics is auto drip and watering systems that'll go rancid with organics, but auto watering system will make it that much easier to avhieve perfect moisture levels. 

organic media dries out slower than hydro media, but for organic growers it's a must to not let the topsoil dry out at all, so we mulch and cover crop and what not, cause the most important part of the plants rhizosphere is the finer feeder roots. that's where all the action is, we topdress and most living organisms thrive there cause of all the organic material and the desired balance between oxygen and moisture, and because oxygen is just as important to the roots as water we can't saturate the media each time or it'll sit in stagnant water, suffocate and cause other root problems. so what we do it water juuust enough to actually keep just the top soil moist, (almost the same way a drip irrigation system works for synthetic setups) what amount of water goes to the bottom of the pot is enough for the drinker roots. and this way we don't flush any life out of the soil.

[Ill_Evan]

2 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

I know mr.Third Evan the master grows with salt, maybe he can confirm this or tell me how far off I am.

You are correct. In fact I am not sure how I have gotten away this far with the bottom feeding autopots with no runoff. Maybe because there is no excess at all due to each pot being independently regulated so each pot only gets as much as that specific plant needs. I also have oxygen pumped to the bottom of each pot so it doesn't really just "sit" in the nutrient feed. I also agree that the medium should remain relatively moist for coco/hydro growing. I've managed to finally get that right with the autopots by developing the root system substantially before switching to the reservoir for the bottom feeding. It causes a wicking effect which draws moisture all the way from the bottom to up the pot. 

I will say though, reusing the medium was a major fail last time I did it, most likely because of the salt buildup. 

[AK-47 Gold Arabesque]

7 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

either way I know that a big factor to using synthetics is auto drip and watering systems that'll go rancid with organics, but auto watering system will make it that much easier to avhieve perfect moisture levels. 

Would a Blumat work in this case? I figured that just like with autopots it would then be better to have clones, rather than different seeds/phenos, as they all have different nutrient needs. The appeal of convenience is there, having a constant moisture kept in my coco so the top doesn't dry out. But I wonder whether the synthetic nutrients I use would cause a salt buildup overtime in the Blumats, or if it would even work considering I'd need to make one feed that would feed 6 plants with different needs. 

4 hours ago, Ill_Evan said:

I will say though, reusing the medium was a major fail last time I did it, most likely because of the salt buildup. 

When a grow is done, should you rinse heavily with just balanced water to clear out the coco of any residual salt buildup? That makes sense, but then I imagine you would also need to buffer it again (with calmag) before starting the next grow. 

[Ill_Evan]

2 hours ago, AK-47 Gold Arabesque said:

When a grow is done, should you rinse heavily with just balanced water to clear out the coco of any residual salt buildup? That makes sense, but then I imagine you would also need to buffer it again (with calmag) before starting the next grow. 

Preferably with a chelate solution like FlashKleen. Do until runoff shows low enough EC. I'd recommend adding a little fresh coco anyways though if reusing. 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

I know the other Evan with the lights got a nice way to keep things dry under the canopy yet topsoil stays moist. he got some kind of plastic over the top of the pot. not sure right now if he grows synthetic or organic, but it'll benefit both situations. 

16 hours ago, AK-47 Gold Arabesque said:

Would a Blumat work in this case? I figured that just like with autopots it would then be better to have clones, rather than different seeds/phenos, as they all have different nutrient needs. The appeal of convenience is there, having a constant moisture kept in my coco so the top doesn't dry out. But I wonder whether the synthetic nutrients I use would cause a salt buildup overtime in the Blumats, or if it would even work considering I'd need to make one feed that would feed 6 plants with different needs. 

Oh hell yeah, good on picking up on that bro, that's the thing with auto watering systems and why I haven't gone down that route - It's the same as with most "weed knowledge" and I found a perfect picture on instagram the other day to describe it - we all went through this

 

but we can replace the first and last picture with "watering by hand" and the one in the middle a guy ranting on about how a auto watering system is the best. 

Majority of growers start off watering by hand, then get to a point where auto watering systems will help them understand how media moisture works, then you hear professionals at the peak of their game talk about the "small private gardens", behind every big time guru is a private small garden grower that moves in silence. all the "new frontier" bits of information and methodology comes from a crazy scientist grower with no friends hardly every goes out and just tinkers with his craft day in and day out. those guys are the fuel to the fire we all gathering to catch some warmth from and they all water by hand.

I also feel there's more authenticity to the bond formed between man and plant when watering by hand. anyway, joint almost finished so I'll jump back to the important bits. 

Yeah, auto systems work best when running one phenotype - clones of one mother. out of the random% of people that swing away from hand watering right from the start will get their motivation from synthetic growers. though these days I also see most auto watering growers letting go of their auto systems. not sure if they reached the next step in their journey or of they never got it right, but as of recent times, since no till living soil became the new focus, people have been using just clean water in the auto systems and it seems to work like a bomb. but then like you said, how do you manage when growing different phenos with different needs? I guess with synthetics in the res you can't cause of the fact that the feed goes with the water, but with organics the feed is already in the soil and you just giving clean water, the plants "self regulate" - take what they need and leave what they don't - in the soil. so you can grow different phenos. organics really just making everything easier for yeeeeeeears people wanted to pump organics through the auto system complaining organics is shit cause of this and that reason, but it's because people spend their time and money listening to retail floor staff that sell products, but doesn't even know 50% of the product they have in the shop. we forget where those people are and why they are there. I ask "where do you keep the aminos" not "would you please try your best to make up some randy shit trying to explain the depths of amino acids to me so your supervisor can see you talking to customers" and if I stand there listening to a guy explain to me how synthetics and organics are the same then that's my own lack of understanding will never forget how asking questions in the grow shop had one employee call the next employee call the next employee till the final boss master level employee came and still didn't even understand half of what I was saying

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Just to clear up, the scientist type tinkering with his craft does not mean buying the cheapest bag of soil and trying his luck, that's just being lazy and calling it an experiment as an excuse. We don't pick apples from the citrus tree the exact same way we don't use azalea and hydrangea care products on cannabis plants. No "new frontier" information is going to come from someone buying already composed soil or products, as we all know each plant species demand their own specific kinda growing media, even within one genus like cannabis slight changes is needed. a tinkering scientist will be making his own soil, cause they're usually aware of the horrors of buying, well basically anything from the commercial nursery. experiment doesn't mean hitting google with a quick search and running to the commercial nursery for the cheapest product with that stuff in it. that's being lazy and wanting the quick fix. the more experienced you become as a grower the less time you spend running back and forth to the nursery or any grow shop for that matter. that's why we see the whole industry shift to biological control, living inputs. most nutrients your plants need is already in your kitchen and in the yard around your house

[AK-47 Gold Arabesque]

June 20

8 days since last update. Forum was a little quiet, figured I'd post a quick photo update on the flowering plants.

53 days old. Week 7/In Week 8

Misc Updates

Got annoyed with hanging cables, did some cable management. Mycelium natural CO2 bag developing nicely as well.

@LitItGrown broski your plants are surely ready to harvest now?  Where is your update? I want to see 

Edited June 20, 2023 by AK-47 Gold Arabesque
added misc update stuff as well

[LitItGrown]

almost...

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

On 6/20/2023 at 3:29 PM, AK-47 Gold Arabesque said:

June 20

8 days since last update. Forum was a little quiet, figured I'd post a quick photo update on the flowering plants.

53 days old. Week 7/In Week 8

Misc Updates

Got annoyed with hanging cables, did some cable management. Mycelium natural CO2 bag developing nicely as well.

@LitItGrown broski your plants are surely ready to harvest now?  Where is your update? I want to see 

Looking good bro

just wana give a quick heads up, you have probably heard of "pin holes" in your tent or "light leaks" - we talk about a hole in the material of your tent the size of a *pinhead, the amount of light that can come through that pin hole is enough to make your females go hermie. Usually on cheap tents the zips cause light leak or theres no inner flaps to cover the zips and that can be a big problem come flowering time. The reason I bring this up is, I see you got your plugs inside your tent. I see the multiplug got a little red light on it and the plug timer also got a little light on it. Not sure if you thought about this already, maybe I am a little late, but you either need to open the plug and remove the soldering on the tiny LED inside the plug, or you can try put electrical tape over it and just check up every now and then that it's still on there. 

During darkness you want complete blackout darkness, stray lights can give a big headache have you thinking it's genetics related or you caused the problem or wondering why there is seeds on your indoor plants. this is one people don't mention nearly enough.

Edited June 22, 2023 by Naughty.Psychonaut
*edit

[AK-47 Gold Arabesque]

11 hours ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Looking good bro

just wana give a quick heads up, you have probably heard of "pin holes" in your tent or "light leaks" - we talk about a hole in the material of your tent the size of a *pinhead, the amount of light that can come through that pin hole is enough to make your females go hermie. Usually on cheap tents the zips cause light leak or theres no inner flaps to cover the zips and that can be a big problem come flowering time. The reason I bring this up is, I see you got your plugs inside your tent. I see the multiplug got a little red light on it and the plug timer also got a little light on it. Not sure if you thought about this already, maybe I am a little late, but you either need to open the plug and remove the soldering on the tiny LED inside the plug, or you can try put electrical tape over it and just check up every now and then that it's still on there. 

During darkness you want complete blackout darkness, stray lights can give a big headache have you thinking it's genetics related or you caused the problem or wondering why there is seeds on your indoor plants. this is one people don't mention nearly enough.

I had no idea that tiny bits of light during a dark period can cause fems to go hermie. That is awful, really?  I thought it was only extreme stress or not properly feminized seeds that causes hermie plants. 

I've been running lights 24 hours , with loadshedding. Ended up being like a 18/6 20/4 hour cycle. Then loadshedding stopped for a bit and it was 24 hour light. Now I'm doing 18/6 to save on some electricity, because 24 hours was a bit crazy. My tent does have a tiny pinhole of light at the bottom. One at the top too. I make sure to zip up properly so that flaps cover, and not rush it, because light leaks there too unless the flaps are properly in place.  I never figured it to be an issue. Same with the LEDs, of which there are on the plugs and the dehumidifier. 

Am I compromising my fem autos here, by not doing complete darkness when they do happen to be dark? The last thing I would want with my first indoor grow would be seeds in the bud xD I cry.

If that is the case, then I should patch light leakage in the tent, and tape over all LEDs in the tent. 

 

Edited June 22, 2023 by AK-47 Gold Arabesque

[LitItGrown]

Sup my fellow mystic. As far as my knowledge you can run autos on any light cycle. (My autos are also on Eskom schedule ) (I think he mentioned it as an observation on the tent, for your future runs, I thought that was pretty insightful to point ou. I didn't even notice it ) 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Yeah, autos are much less light cycle dependant, but just keep in mind a light cycle is something different than stray light. a Stray light wont be enough to make the plant think it's lights on mode and rather cause stress on one spot.

You are right a lot of things can cause a plant to hermie, but you'll notice if a plant is somewhere between mid to late flower and it's a - it's only this one bud that's making nanners - situation it's most likely stray light hitting that spot. if you got more than one fem plant in a tent and one is throwing nanners and it's on all buds it's something else. plants even do this when everything is 100% but just left a little too long. 

the important part is to reduce the chances of anything going wrong, since we can't pin point exactly what and where things will go wrong we just reduce the chances of it going wrong. with the light cycle thing, the Rederalis trait that we look at as "auto", comes from a gene pool found in Russia. They have looong winter there and extremely short days during winter and besides that when the sun shines it's cloudy so very little sun light hits any part of the eastern European countries, this is what made the plant over generations adapt to the flower mode right from the start no veg time trait, cause it's the long summer days and clear sunny skies we make use of to veg and when winter hits we flower, in Russia their summer is like our winter, so the cannabis plant never got to veg there and adapted to it. 

If you take that into consideration and look at an indoor setup it would make sense that less light and shorter light cycles and colder temps will make autos perform better, but then again they are all hybrids and a lot of people have tried all kinds of ways with autos, it seems somewhere between 18/6 and 12/12 is best as that's what the bigger part of the species is familiar with.