New Grower Mephisto, Megacrop in soil and autopots (Skywalker, 3BOG, Sour Stomper, and 2 Illuminautos)

[terp182]

Greetings! This is my second ever grow, following my first attempt here. I learned a lot there as you can see in the last post by me, and I'm eager for round two. This time it all 60-70ish day plants. I'm continuing to learn the base cultivars of Meph's catalog with this, and am going with the new 50 Shades of Grape and Sweet n' Smelly as a multipot to try both the new F1's Illuminauto's and try multipotting.

The details:
4x4 Tent
Cultivars: Mephisto's Skywalker, 3 Bears OG, Sour Stomper, 50 Shades of Grape, Sweet n' Smelly
MARSHYDRO SP-3000 x2
MARSHYDRO TS-600
Fabric Autopots XL x4 in 5 gallon pots
Roots Organic Soil/Perlite (70/30)
Megacrop Nutes
Dynomyco added
Schedule: 20/4

The seeds were all put into water/H203 last night, and are now in wet paper towels in a warm spot. Tomorrow, they go in the dirt, hopefully. One thing I have not done is to "cook" the soil - the only prep this Roots Organic has gotten is the perlite addition, watering through and bringing up to temp in the tent with the lights on. I also added mycorrhizae to the medium before wetting through. @WildBill also pointed out some benefits of Yucca and Molasses to moisten the medium and activate the bugs, but I don't yet have either and need to get this going so I'm going in not quite as prepared as I will be next time. We are getting molasses tomorrow so I can supplement a bit with that at least. But we're leaving town for a few days in a couple weeks and I want these going by that point, so hard decisions had to be made. Learning!

The main objective of this grow is to learn from my last mistakes, keep the medium and bugs happy, avoid calmag and lockouts (last time was mostly coco), and see what happy plants look like. Also, keep the light levels healthy for the plants. And quality, quality, quality.

Any and all advice or insight is appreciated! Thanks for reading along. Let's gooo!

 

[nizmoKush]

 

[Jean-O]

Ill tag along with ya on this journey hopefully its epic for ya... Some tasty strains in the mix...

 

[terp182]

@WildBill (and others), I slowly watered in the already moist pots with 2 gallons of 15 ml/gal molasses in water, across 4 pots, so about a half gallon a pot. This after adding some additional myco yesterday in the seedling zone and top. I was pretty sure they weren't totally watered through beforehand (I only had a few gallons of unchlorinated water water handy at first) but after an hour or so I collected just over a gallon of runoff between the 4, which pH'd at 5.7. Seeds went in a couple hours after the molasses water was added. I didn't think to pH the molasses water going in, of course.

Should I re-water with the runoff or just regular water in 5ish days (whenever they need it), and should I be concerned by the low pH runoff? I'm assuming just regular water for the next couple waterings but thought I'd read somewhere that it could be useful to re-water with initial runoff.

 

[WildBill]

terp182
Why don't ya tag pop22 and get his MC expertise on this run? I'm sure he'd be happy to help.
First, no more watering until after the beans pop. The seedlings can damp off if it's too wet. And that's assuming you're direct planting.
MegaCrop is really pretty easy, but you need to be meticulous about mixing. You'll need a Ph meter and PPM meter.
The way I did and understand MC feeding is this.........after you can fully feed....... I took my water PPM reading and added enough MC to bring the TOTAL PPM to 500 and final solution was 6.4 to 6.8.
What Roots did you get?

 

[terp182]

Thanks, Bill. @pop22 if you wouldn't mind tagging along, I'd sure appreciate any insight you can provide. Bill, I've got a solid ph meter and PPM meter. Total PPM at 500 was my plan but I wasn't sure about which soil pH to shoot for, so that's super helpful. I'm using the RO Original formula, cut with about 35% perlite.

I've been meaning to update here but we just went on a short trip... Below is my update from Sunday...from my Put Up Or Shut Up Thread at beanbasement, which I'd intended to duplicate here. Just forgot to update it this Sunday as we left. Following that is today's update.

--
Checking in from days 11/12. The Skywalker and 3BOG, both on day 12, are growing strong and reaching for the edges of the pots. The Sour Stomper is sadly a bit stunted, after being a couple days later to sprout and getting a bit overwatered. It’s the plant I was most excited about this run but is now an experiment to see the effects of early stunting on auto flower growth compared to the others. The 50 Shades and Sweet n Smelly are both on the smaller side in the multipot but growing nicely enough.
Fungus gnats have been an issue since day 1, mostly in the sour stomper pot. The overwatering was from me trying to wet one more time before adding diatomaceous earth. All the plants have recovered decently though I know the gnat larvae or whatever are going. Drying out the tops of the pots tamed them a bit but today I gave them their final top watering so we’ll see how that goes. Pics are attached (Days 11/12)! I’m wide open to suggestions on how to deal with the fungus gnats other than the diatomaceous earth!
--

After getting back home today (Days 14/15), everything looks great. The Skywalker and 3BOG are almost to the edges of the pot already. One thing that suffered was VPD dipped since the humidifier went dry for a few days, getting down to 55%ish RH and 74ish leaf temp, but everything shows solid growth, even the solo cup transplant of the original stunted Sweet n Smelly. Interestingly, the direct planted Sweet n Smelly #2 (which went in a day later, after I flubbed getting #1 into the hole properly, finding it on top and with a small brown tip on the root) is doing better than the 50 Shades of Grape I multipotted it with that got germed/planted a couple days earlier. Maybe I'll just direct plant the Meph gear from now on and skip the germ in the paper towel, or germ in a starter cube for less early stress.

Here's my question for you guys @pop22 and @WildBill - I'm planning on bottom watering in the autopots one more time on friday or saturday (just direct pouring into the pots' bottom to start with), and then starting MC with the first res watering, the following week, which would be around day 20/21ish. I'm planning to shoot for 400 ppm total and 6.6ish pH for the first feeding, and then up by 50 ppm the next feeding and 50 ppm more after that, leaving it there through flowering. Keeping it simple this time! Does this sound like a good baseline plan? Is there any value to alternating water/MC reservoirs when growing in Roots Organic/soil or should I just keep the MC consistent and approaching 500 ppm? Really appreciate the insight and feedback!

 

[WildBill]

One thing Terp, The Ph 6.4 to 6.8 was for the solution and that's what my range was during the grow. No friggin idea why I left off "going into" the soil.
Pop recommends 6.4 to 6.5 in the solution. I shot for that most of the time with occasionally being outside.
I think your thought on feeding is fine. KISS(Keep it simple Stupid) with MC should be quite an easy grow. The organic grower in me couldn't leave it alone. I started my grow with the intent of using worms and just basically feeding them, but Covid put a run on the worms and my bin got raped by coons. I knew about MC from a friend and found the thread about dialing it in, so I chose to use it. I didn't feed MC all the time. I fed Molasses and with it being acidic, I just added enough to Ph the water down. That was for feeding the microbes.
Bottom feeding worked fine for me with the same soil you have, but with some added amendments. It should wick just fine. I mainly bottom watered to be able to use DE on top to kill the gnats. I used the dunks and later Neem oil. I probably wasn't as consistent as I should have been in trying to break their life cycle. They came back later with a vengeance, so I started bottom watering and made it snow DE on top. That did the trick, but I'm sure the larva hurt my yield. Pretty sure my yield on my first grow would have been well over 2lbs. Knock those fuggers out and just keep on the Neem and/or dunks...............lots of glue traps too.
Enough of the rambling from me. LOL! I gotta start my new grow thread here in a couple of days. I planted two HBSS, a Purple Kong and a Sour Stomper yesterday. HBSS in regular EarthBoxes should make quite big girls. Purple Kong and a Sour Stomper are gonna be in 7gal fabric pots.

 

[pop22]

I have always fed MC in the 500-550 range from first feeding, it has no detrimental affect on your plants. I strive to keep my PH 6.4-to 6.5. preferring to stay at 6.4. With auto pots you should be on the res as soon as the canopy is as wide as the pot, that's the signal the roots have filled the pot.

And you can start feeding as early as day 7, unless your soil is already charged with organic nutrients. I also recycle my soil, and I never flush it. I've never had an issue with "salts" buildup in the three years I've been doing that. Yep, I too like to keep things simple!

 

[WildBill]

I have always fed MC in the 500-550 range from first feeding, it has no detrimental affect on your plants. I strive to keep my PH 6.4-to 6.5. preferring to stay at 6.4. With auto pots you should be on the res as soon as the canopy is as wide as the pot, that's the signal the roots have filled the pot.

And you can start feeding as early as day 7, unless your soil is already charged with organic nutrients. I also recycle my soil, and I never flush it. I've never had an issue with "salts" buildup in the three years I've been doing that. Yep, I too like to keep things simple!

With the Roots Organics Original, I really don't think he has to worry about early feeding. I think he can start feeding once he can fully water the girls with the roots reasonably established. If he wants, he can either start off with the 500-550ppm or just sneak up on it. There's enough nutes in the Roots to let him do either.

 

[terp182]

One thing Terp, The Ph 6.4 to 6.8 was for the solution and that's what my range was during the grow. No friggin idea why I left off "going into" the soil.
Pop recommends 6.4 to 6.5 in the solution. I shot for that most of the time with occasionally being outside.
I think your thought on feeding is fine. KISS(Keep it simple Stupid) with MC should be quite an easy grow. The organic grower in me couldn't leave it alone. I started my grow with the intent of using worms and just basically feeding them, but Covid put a run on the worms and my bin got raped by coons. I knew about MC from a friend and found the thread about dialing it in, so I chose to use it. I didn't feed MC all the time. I fed Molasses and with it being acidic, I just added enough to Ph the water down. That was for feeding the microbes.
Bottom feeding worked fine for me with the same soil you have, but with some added amendments. It should wick just fine. I mainly bottom watered to be able to use DE on top to kill the gnats. I used the dunks and later Neem oil. I probably wasn't as consistent as I should have been in trying to break their life cycle. They came back later with a vengeance, so I started bottom watering and made it snow DE on top. That did the trick, but I'm sure the larva hurt my yield. Pretty sure my yield on my first grow would have been well over 2lbs. Knock those fuggers out and just keep on the Neem and/or dunks...............lots of glue traps too.
Enough of the rambling from me. LOL! I gotta start my new grow thread here in a couple of days. I planted two HBSS, a Purple Kong and a Sour Stomper yesterday. HBSS in regular EarthBoxes should make quite big girls. Purple Kong and a Sour Stomper are gonna be in 7gal fabric pots.

I got what you meant by SOLUTION - I'd mistyped and phrased it as if I thought you meant soil pH but I got that you were talking about nute solution pH. Appreciate the clarification regardless. 6.4 target it is. Dunks and NEEM ordered - hopefully I can still interrupt the larvae at this point. Still need to dig into IPM past the glue traps and NEEM. I REALLY appreciate your "rambling" and can't wait to follow along on your next grow. I saw some HBSS in stock at a vendor last night actually and was thinking about adding that to the already extensive queue. What was your thinking behind choosing the HBSS for the earthboxes and PK/SS for the fabric?

I have always fed MC in the 500-550 range from first feeding, it has no detrimental affect on your plants. I strive to keep my PH 6.4-to 6.5. preferring to stay at 6.4. With auto pots you should be on the res as soon as the canopy is as wide as the pot, that's the signal the roots have filled the pot.

And you can start feeding as early as day 7, unless your soil is already charged with organic nutrients. I also recycle my soil, and I never flush it. I've never had an issue with "salts" buildup in the three years I've been doing that. Yep, I too like to keep things simple!

Thanks @pop22! The soil is Roots Original, which seems to have plenty of nutes for early growth so far. Going to give them a bit more time and then turn on the MC and autopots. Just to make sure I read it right, your method is to stay at 500-550/6.4 for the life of the grow, with MC in every feeding (as opposed to only water alternating with MC)? That's about as ideally KISS as I can imagine, if so!