Humboldt Seed Organization Autotron does HSO UK Cheese - Hydro, COB

Here's an update on where she's at. She's currently at 56 days old here. The AutoCOB w/reflector is at 14 inches from the top of the canopy. I think she's pretty much finished with stretching and is just starting to bloom. I've had her on 12/12 for about a week now. You can see in the photos that I've done quite a bit of extensive defoliation to open her up. I've got 12-15 tops at an even canopy across the top and about as many second-tier ones below those, so I think I'll have a bunch of good solid colas hopefully. I got some close-ups of the tops so that everyone can see where they are in flowering.

I just brewed up a new solution geared towards early bloom for her. I'm giving it a day to let the pH level out before I adjust the pH initially, let it rest another 8 hours or so, adjust pH again as needed before I toss out the old solution in the reservoir and replace it with this one. I'm curious to see how this Terpinator works out. The directions call for a whopping 10-30 ml/gallon which just sounds outrageous to me. So I opted for 50% of the lowest recommended dosage during flower. This is also my first time adding Liquid Kool Bloom, so I've been trying to follow @Olde School Player 's recommendations for nutrient strengths at this stage.

Early Bloom solution formula (all measurements in ml/gallon)
To 4 gallons of bubbled tap water, I added the below in this order and in the following ratios.

Armor SI: 2 ml/gallon
CaliMagic: 4 ml/gallon

Micro/Grow/Bloom were added at 75% strength of standard GH recirculating schedule for Early Bloom
Micro: 5.6 ml/gallon
Grow: 1.9 ml/gallon
Bloom: 7.5 ml/gallon

RapidStart: 1 ml/gallon
Floralicious Plus: 1 ml/gallon
Liquid KoolBloom: 1 ml/gallon
Diamond Nectar: 5 ml/gallon
FloraBlend: 2.5 ml/gallon
FloraNectar: 2.5 ml/gallon
Hydroguard: 2 ml/gallon
Terpinator: 5 ml/gallon

View attachment 943039 View attachment 943041 View attachment 943040 View attachment 943042 View attachment 943043 View attachment 943044

She is looking great, Autotron! You are going to be a happy man in a few weeks!

Tell me, why do you think she is done with the stretch?
 
Last edited:
She said looking great, Autotron! You are going to be a happy man in a few weeks!

Tell me, why do you think she is done with the stretch?

I haven't seen as much vertical growth or internodal growth lately. She seems to be focusing on buds. If she's not done, she's pretty damn close. I could be wrong though.
 
Thanks man. Trying to learn about flowering stretch, as I am going through it now. I thought it really started when shifting to flowering and plants can double from there. What you are saying is encouraging... if a plant vegges for longer, there is less of a flowering stretch.
 
Hello my friend, yes, we still carry Em dog by B-Real from Cyprus hill and you are spot on with the parentage. She's a cross between OG kush and chem#4 :pass:

https://www.humboldtseeds.net/en/buy-cannabis-seeds/dr-greenthumbs-em-dog-by-b-real/

We do have more aitos planned and 2 of those are heavily ChemDawg influenced but the time is not right just yet for release. When we do we will bring these new strains 1st to AFN :thumbsup:

Kind regards

Mark..

Hey Mark, apologies for the delayed reply, back from one vacation and trying to put together another so I haven't been on here the last couple of weeks. If you have the means, most definitely keep my info in your contacts for when any ChemDawg strains are ready for release. I'm a sucker for that strain. And if I ever catch up with recreational travels I'll probably be leaning toward an EmDog photoperiod grow. I can't help myself, you got some stellar genetics there!!! Later, Bro.
 
@Autotron Hey Buddy, back from my CA road trip and trying to recover from a crashed cell phone the night before I left home... technology sucks when you don't have it!!!
Anyway, I took a look at your thread since I left & looks like you've made a lot of progress. Glad to see the switch to 12/12 triggered bloom, and I share your concerns with, can you go back to a longer photoperiod without causing problems. With auto's I suspect you could, with minimal risk of hermies. I'm more concerned if it would stop flowering, as something was holding her up. So my thinking is, the switch to 12/12 most likely helped, and the absolute worst case effect of leaving it at 12/12 is some reduced yield. But considering the size of your girl, I think I would take that risk. Big photoperiod plants still yield well, and she's still going to yield more than you can smoke before you finish another grow!!!
I am also glad to see you kept up with the heavy defoliation. It's something I rarely did with photoperiods but seem to do more and more with auto's. And yes, my Dinafem Blue Cheese when apeshit CRAZY while I was traveling. I probably spent 45 minutes defoliating her when I got back - she had totally covered over her canopy with fan leaves, although the buds were poking through. Never had to defoliate this much, but I've also never seen a plant with this many bud sites. If these stay true to form and fatten up like all my past grows this is going to be a real winner. So hoping the same for you, my Friend!
I'll drop back by later tonight with a pic for you, until then, keep up the good work, I think she's gonna make you happy.
 
@Autotron, back with a little more info. that may help. There's the question of, will leaving the plant at 12/12 reduce yield? Compared to a full-on auto, probably, a bit. But growers have been doing this with photoperiod plants since Jazz & the Blues were in their infancy, so you can deal with it. And there's things you can do to offset any nominal decrease in yields from the shortened light period.
I know you said you were trying to stay with one COB for the rest of this grow. However, considering the bulk your girl has put on in veg / stretch, a second COB and some serious LST training could come close to doubling the yield on your girl. But the way your girl has stacked her branches, it's going to take a lot of LST to minimize popcorn buds at the bottom of the branches, and for her to live up to her true potential. I would only recommend this if you have a second COB. LST will REALLY open her up, and come close to doubling the canopy of your plant. And with this you'll about double the number of top colas she will grow for you.

The only challenge in doing this with your setup is going to be nute changes, because once this style of LST is set it's a PITA to remove the net pot from your DWC container. To work around this set a siphon hose through the top of your net pot to the bottom of your DWC container & terminate the other end of the siphon hose with a cutoff valve ($2.50 at any hydro shop). Or you can install a sight tube in the side of the DWC container with a couple of grommets, two elbow connectors, and a length of hydro hose. This gives you a very handy nute level sight tube as well as drain. Come nute change time disconnect the sight tube from the top connector, turn the bottom elbow 90 degrees to horizontal & catch your nutes as the DWC drains.
If you want to go for the LST training -
what you'll need to do is to run a string all the way around the plant, all limbs, somewhere between 1/3 to 1/2 the way up the plant. Snug this up like a belt and tie it off - the result should be to slightly squeeze the branches inward. Not a lot - what you're really doing is setting an anchor point all the way around the plant so that you can bend over the outer portion of every branch anywhere from 60 to 90 degrees.
Next, take another piece of heavy string (parachute cord is perfect for this piece), tie it to one corner post of your tent, then wrap it around each of the four corner posts, securing it to itself past the starting post.
The purpose of this cord is to create convenient perimeter anchor points all the way around the tent to tie off your LST's with a minimum of work.
This cord should be at about the same height as the "belt" you put around your plant, perhaps a little bit lower.
For the actual LST, start with the top branch, then the most dominant secondaries, and finally the lowest / least dominant lower branches. For each branch, form a loop in a string and secure it about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way up the branch. Drop the other end of the LST line over the perimeter anchor cord, pull until you get about a 45 degree bend in the branch, and secure it to the perimeter cord.
Repeat for all the branches.
I really like using small binder clips (some call them butterfly clips but the box says binder clips) to secure the LST strings to the perimeter cord. They hold securely, are easy to reposition, and can be re-tightened every day or two until you get a good even canopy with every branch. Which is the final point of LST - set them all on day 1 of LST, but spread the bending over several days so as not to crimp the branches. No harm if you do - splint the crimp with a popsicle stick and gauze and start over. She will heal with no harm.

All in all your girl looks happy and you've handled everything that's come at you - great job!!! Since she's stopped stretch, I'd give her a few more days and raise the KoolBloom. Then keep pushing her through the additional bloom stages
per previous formula discussions.
I'd like to share a pic of my girl, but my photo hosting site is down (again :crying:) so I can't upload any pic's at this time. If the weather's bad tomorrow & I can't go fishing I'll drop one in for your perusal. If I'm counting correctly she's going to have at least 35 nice top colas. And if they fill in like I'm hoping she's going to be a monster yielder.
 
Hey Pal, back with a little plant porn. Here's my Dinafem Blue Cheese from yesterday:

21cb415.jpg


I'm definitely seeing the parental heritage similarities with yours from the lots of branching. This plant has a great infrastructure & she's popping bud sites all over - I counted over 50 today as I was doing some more leaf pruning. That's one of the reasons I was recommending you do more LST when I posted last night. If you get light to those nodes the buds will grow!!!
Brings me back to the leaf pruning topic … I've never seen a plant with such a propensity for leafiness. When I came back from CA I spent maybe 45 minutes leaf pruning and ended up with a plastic grocery bag filled with leaves. Not packed but not loose either. To put it scientifically, there was a shit-ton of leaves I needed to remove. And today I removed about half that amount again. Which doesn't count what I took off yesterday. All total, I've removed at least TWO shit-tons of leaf :tang:.
And I noticed as I trimmed today the trich's are starting to build up on the leaf and stems. By the time I'd finished I had to give the fingers a little alcohol rubdown to remove the stickiness. And turn up the carbon filter exhaust a bit on the speed controller.
All in all I'm happy with her. She's drinking close to a gallon a day & seems to have settled into a happy spot of 950ppm's. Nitrogen sensitive; had to eliminate all Flora Grow from my formulas before the leaf returned from dark emerald to normal green. I believe that's unique to my pheno & you probably won't see it, but to be safe watch your fan leaf color as you increase bloom nute strength. If they darken to very dark you may need to cut back as well. But your color right now is perfect so I think you won't need to do that.​
 
@Olde School Player , sounds like you had an awesome trip! Hopefully you can salvage some pictures from your phone and post 'em up here for us all to drool over.

I'll have some detailed updates and pics this week or early next week. Been super busy with work and life in general lately. Things are looking good with my girl and it looks like your Blue Cheese is kicking some ass too!
 
Back
Top