best tips and tricks you ever got?

[automan2]

Patience is the most unused tool and the last to be employed. Don't ignore it.

 

[Proph]

"Listen to the plants" was some of the best growing advice I've received.

 

[Arthur]

When you think it's ready, go 2 more weeks.

 

[Blu_tri]

K.i.s.s. Keep it simple son.
As a stoner, I tend to over complicate things.
As a scientist, I tend to experiment.
As a connoisseur, I tend to want better.
As a human, I tend to want more.
As a auto grower, I tend to know better.
As an experienced grower, I know that plants can overcome most adversities and thrive in many conditions.
As an AFN member, my best advise is ... “keep doing what works for you.” No one knows your Ladies better than you do.

 

[Simplicio]

The two best pieces of advice I ever got are how to correctly feed in hydro, and how tmuch humidity to use.

For feeding,
If ppm falls from day to day, the plants are eating more than drinking, so increase ppm.
If ppm rises from day to day, the plants are drinking more than eating, so reduce ppm.

For humidity the best advice is to use the VPD chart. Subtract about 5 F for air temp to get leaf temp, then stay in the green.

 

[OttoCBD]

They're not particularly 'tips or tricks' but a few of the things that have made my decision to grow autos a whole lot easier.

TaNg's Autofeed schedule. I've been using a very simple hydro version of it with great results and not a single issue. Not having to deal with pH is a dream come true.

Top your plant(s) some time between the second and third week with six days of recovery before LST (only if it's healthy) from Autobeast's epic topping thread.

If defoliation must occur, remove only inward-facing secondary fan leaves. I think I got that from Green75's 35 day autoflower defoliation video.

Know the time frame of autoflowers and have a good idea of what to expect and when. Before I started growing autos, I found a few different non-AFN forum posts with a few different autoflower time frames. Neither one have been exact to my experiences but just having the info from the two posts has helped a lot.

DAY 1 - First real leaves emerge
DAY 6-7 - Plant has 3 nodes with smaller branches beginning to emerge
DAY 10-12 - 5 nodes
Day 17-21 - 8 to 10 nodes, plant sex is shown. Very fast growth by this stage.
Day 25-30 - Plant begins flowering and starts to stretch. Bud sites popping up.
Day 35-45 - Growth slows, gets a bit boring, buds slowly develop more and more each day.
Day 50+ - Buds begin to fatten, heavy trichome production and smell. This is the exciting part.
Day 65-75 - Harvest.

and..

Weeks 1 - 3. Once you've started your seeds and they break the surface of the soil, they are in their seedling stage. The first set of leaves to appear will usually single fingered, followed by a second set that may still be single fingered or perhaps 3 fingered. Once that second set appears growth will start to accelerate as the new leaves provide more photosynthesis. This process will continue, more new leaves, faster growth. Depending on the type of soil in use, mild vegetative nutes can be introduced at week 2. By week 3 most plants will start to show their sex. Males will start to produce pollen sacks and females will display pistols.

Weeks 4 - 6. The plants are now entering a pre flowering stage. During this time the plants should exhibit explosive growth, often as much as a new set of nodes and 1" vertical growth a day. This is the time when they will gain most of their vertical height. Many people make the mistake of switching from vegetative to flowering nutrients at this point, assuming that since they see flowers it must be the proper time. This is incorrect. If the switch to flowering nutes is made at this time the vertical growth will stop and the plant will put it's energy into producing buds. If you need to keep your plants small, or want them to finish earlier, they by all means switch nutes at this point. But if you want to get the most out of your plants continue feeding vegetative nutes until you see the vertical growth slow and stop. Depending on the strain that will usually be sometime during week 5 or 6.

Weeks 7 - 9. By now vertical growth has stopped and the switch to flowering nutrients has been made. The buds will start to fill out and put on weight, becoming hard and tight. Pistols will start to change from white to brown, orange, red, etc. By now the plants will also have developed a strong smell. Toward the end of this phase the large primary and smaller secondary fan leaves will begin to turn yellow. This is an indication that the plant is moving toward the end of it's life.

Weeks 10 - 11. At this time flowering nutes should be discontinued and only plain pHed water fed to flush the remaining nutrients from the soil and improve the taste. Yellowing of the fan leaves will continue as the plant draws the stored energy from them. Eventually they will die and fall off. By the time that the smaller leaves that come from out of the buds will also start to turn yellow. Then it's time to harvest.

 

[organicgordon]

will do this winter. You might have a look at my grow in my sig as it was the same setup as yours. Ditto the autopot review, both are directly applicable if you stick with the fabric pots.

If you go with MegaCrop with those xl fabric pots, you will grow them big. You will want to assume at least 4 square feet/plant unless the strains are known for small size. With MC or similar and coco, you do not need the full "5 gallon" pot size, which can be reduced easily by folding the rims down, which also makes lifting and training easier due to the thicker folded rims.

Good luck with it.

@Olderfart have you ever used soil with megacrop and autopots? Even if you haven’t, would you recommend it? I just did organic soil with megacrop and want to useorganic soil megacrop and autopots next round

 

[Olderfart]

@Olderfart have you ever used soil with megacrop and autopots? Even if you haven’t, would you recommend it? I just did organic soil with megacrop and want to useorganic soil megacrop and autopots next round

Nope, I haven't, so take my ideas accordingly.

If you are interested in a soil grow with autopots, I would recommend a few adjustments to the normal autopot approach. First, with soil, be extra careful that your soil mix is well drained. I recommend a minimum of ~~30% perlite, and maybe a significant component of coco as well. Bottom line is that the mix must drain nute mix readily, which translates to better oxygenation of the root zone of your pots. If your soil is too heavy, you could end up with mischief like root rot because the root zone does not stay oxygenated. Fabric pots also help with this issue, and I recommend them highly.

Second, I would put an inch or so of very well drained mix in the bottom of the pot, say ~50% or so of perlite. This will make absolutely sure that the flood zone controlled by the autovalve aerates well with each flood cycle. Do not deal with this by putting hydroton only in the bottom because the extreme difference in soil particle size will interfere with wicking of your nute mix up into the soil mix in the pot.

Third, especially if you have an organic grow in mind, I think you need a larger pot than the 5 gallon XL fabric pots I used in my coco grow. I am considering a soil grow this winter, and if I do it, I will probably make my own tray arrangement to irrigate a ~20 gallon fabric pot. I have a couple 100+ liter SIPs on my deck at the moment growing edibles, irrigated by one autopot valve for over 200 liters of peat mix, and it works perfectly, so a single autovalve will work just fine with a 20 gallon pot. I might also just use one of the 100+ liter SIPs instead of the fabric pot. Haven't decided on that yet.

Coming back to the organic aspect, you need to deal up front with pests like fungus gnats. This issue almost persuaded me to forget a soil grow, but I may be willing to give a try with mosquito dunks to kill the little buggers before setting an indoor soil grow up this winter. I have a kiddy pool of soil on the make at the moment. I am not 100% convinced yet, but I have ordered a supply of dunks, and they will get used if I decide to go ahead with the soil grow. I can tell you that there are plenty of the little bastards in my soil pile at the moment, so I will need to do something about them before bringing that stuff into the house. I live in hope that my composting worms have a predatory streak in them.

As to the combination of organic and Megacrop, I see nothing wrong with keeping MC in the arsenal in case deficiencies show up. The challenge here is that you do not know exactly what the soil mix is able to provide, so it can be tough to figure out what more is needed, and a balanced mix like MC might not be the best solution to a problem. Having said that, if I do the soil grow this winter, MC and a few other more specific amendments will be ready to go if needed. One thing to remember here is that adding organic top dressings may not work well or even at all with the autopot setup because of the sub-irrigation design, and most organic amendments risk plugging of lines and valves if they are added to your reservoir. If you need to supplement, you need to do it with fully soluble nutes, of which MC is a good option. NPK Raw also makes lots of more specific additives that could help deal with particular issues.

Anyway, this is all theory on my part, but I have been thinking lots about this, so I doubt that I am too full of beans. Good luck with the grow if you go ahead, and do a journal to keep us all in the loop as well as get help if needed.

 

[organicgordon]

@Olderfart you just convinced me to do coco with this system, thank you for that thorough answer. I’m in a 24”x30”x69” tent so I’m thinking two 2.2gal 1Pot’s with coco/perlite all the way down with no air dome. I wanted to avoid needing to pH but I’d rather worry about pH and not about how much to water than the other way around. Might pm you with a question or two.

I just finished my first grow of Mephisto beans in BioBizz light I amended myself with megacrop, pulled 140g over 5 small plants. Thinking of this since I know my watering cycle can afford to be better, I don’t like pH-ing but I’d rather do that than worry about how much water is needed again. Thanks!

 

[Olderfart]

@Olderfart you just convinced me to do coco with this system, thank you for that thorough answer. I’m in a 24”x30”x69” tent so I’m thinking two 2.2gal 1Pot’s with coco/perlite all the way down with no air dome. I wanted to avoid needing to pH but I’d rather worry about pH and not about how much to water than the other way around. Might pm you with a question or two.

I just finished my first grow of Mephisto beans in BioBizz light I amended myself with megacrop, pulled 140g over 5 small plants. Thinking of this since I know my watering cycle can afford to be better, I don’t like pH-ing but I’d rather do that than worry about how much water is needed again. Thanks!

In my opinion, it would be really hard to do better than coco/perlite, autopots, and Megacrop. You can probably complete a very successful grow with nothing other than Megacrop. If you can find fabric pots to fit your trays rather than the standard plastic pots, so much the better in my opinion, but use pot socks if you do. You will be amazed at the root growth - they will find the valve if you let them.

The only reason I am thinking soil for part of my grow this winter is just to do something a bit different. I am pretty sure I can dial the coco and autopots now, but I am curious whether I can make a water only grow in soil work. I still haven't decided though, and if I don't do soil, it will be back to coco, or maybe try ProMix. I probably would have tried ProMix last winter, but by the time I set up the grow, none was available locally. We shall see. So many fine options.

Don't sweat the ph'ing, it is not difficult, but my advice is to buy a good meter rather than a cheapie. The cheap ones are not reliable or durable. The pH sensor these meters use is a delicate piece of gear, and the cheap ones seem to be garbage. The cheap EC/PPM meters seem to work fine.

Also, with pH, if you run into any suspected nute issues, the first thing you should do is check pH in your medium by top watering with your nute mix and checking what drains into your tray. PH in the medium tends to change, and can wander enough to cause lockout even when the pH of your nute mix is fine. Guess how I learned that... In my next autopot grow, I may even do a pre-emptive flush or two to make sure that the environment in the medium stays in the zone. I know that some peeps say flushing the autopots doesn't work because it moves concentrated nute residues around, but I have done it successfully a few times. The key in my opinion is to use pHed nute mix to flush NOT PLAIN WATER, and keep flushing until the runoff is near identical to the input. At that point, you know that the medium is where you want it to be. It takes gallons of nute mix before the runoff comes to target. I just collect it all and fire it back into the reservoir, with pH adjustments as needed rather than waste it. I'm sure not everyone will think this was a good idea, but I hate wasting nutes and so far, I have not seen a problem from the practice.

PM me or tag me any time if I can help. Good luck with the grow.