New Grower Dr.Autoflowers Auto Question Center

[Dr.Autoflower]

Lighting is just as important as big healthy roots

What you use for lights is just as important as the root mass health and size when it comes to autos.Your lighting can determine what you can expect to harvest. So if your using a few 26w CFL's or a cheapo LED dont expect much. IMO CFL's, LED,s and Flourecents just cant do what HPS lights can do. IMO HPS is the only way to go when growing autoflowers. sure ive seen some nice CFL grows but they usally have like 300 to 600 watts of them goin to get anything good which seems pointless because HPS just puts out way more LUMENS per watt and has Way better light penitration then all others. I wouldnt waste any money on LED until they can finally produce like HID lights, which will probley take a few more years.

But if you need lights for small set up there are 75w, 150w and 250w HPS light systems that dont produce that much heat.

 

[Rebel]

Great info here Doc! I'm subscribed and can't wait to read on! Quick question to your last post... I am currently growing 6 Snow Ryders with a 150W HPS. Is this sufficient enough for them? I have been told it would be o.k. for 6 plants. They haven't sexed yet so I might have less. Since you brought it up lol I was wondering if you could answer a lingering question of mine about HPS being good for the ENTIRE grow? You didn't mention MH so I'm assuming you use HPS for the whole grow. Interested in your response. Thanks again for sharing this great info for us noobs!

 

[Dr.Autoflower]

IMO a 150w hps is to small for 6 plants. i would say 4 tops. a 400w would be what your needing to fully cover 6 plants. but if that all you got then thats what u gotta work with, id say pick the best 4 and put them in the centerof the light and the runts on the outskirts or toss em or put em outside. becuz 4 will probley yeild more then if you got 6 fighting for light. and those 150w need to be close like 6 inches away , im not sure on the distiance for those 150w, but they dont cover much

And yes i use a hps the whole grow. Its fine if your using regular seeds but if your are doing fem seed(i dont recomend fem seeds) you need to start them on t5's or cfl because hps is a lil harsh on babys. Reg seeds can handle hps as babys but fems cant, it seems to cause stress in fems and makes them turn hermie and can stunt em

 

[Dr.Autoflower]

thanks for the positive words Dr. Im going to be working on getting a steady autoflower harvest down for every month. i should have some more things to toss in here as well

sound good bra

 

[theapprentice]

good thread man, i understand what your saying about water.i wonder how much better my plants would look if i fully saturated instead of 1 1/2 cups everyday

 

[Red eyed c]

I'm growing in soil and due to my job taking me outa town 3-4 days a week iv been saturating my soil,feeding every 6-7 days early on,now I'm into week 5-6 iv noticed there drinking more and need feeding every 3-4 days..I'm currently taking 2 weeks off so it's not a prob,once I'm back at work my wife can do it while as I know how much water is needed to saturate my pots

 

[Dr.Autoflower]

Thanks for starting this thread, I found this site through your youtube videos I have watched alot of them. I have a couple of questions for you if you don't mind. I used to grow awhile back and messed up 2 crops 30 plants each, they turned out like garbage. 1 grow i got root rot on almost all the plants on the 2nd i burned them bad with chemicals. (just some background info). 1. How do you prevent root rot? and 2. Could you do a detailed video about preparing soil/medium for autos?

ive never had root rote befor. were you watering to much ? or was there no holes for drainage in the bottom and water just sat the getting stagment?

 

[Dr.Autoflower]

There was no holes for drainage. i basically at that time, Knew nothing about growing dumped seeds into a ton of pots with a 1000watt HPS bulb and went off of some advice from a friend. I didn't even have a fan on them lol. I think i over watered and that is what caused the issue or it could have been that i did not have a good grow medium?

if you had no drainage holes and you were over water then that is what caused it

 

[whatsgoodie]

thx for help sinbad

 

[Dr.Autoflower]

Fert Soil Topic -For New growers

1 mistake ive seen happen many times and usally hear about it when it to late. is when new growers use Miricle Grow pre-fertilized soil. This is a huge no-no. This is very bad for your cannabis plants because it is slow release nutes and the more you water the more they release. The main problem is that you cant give them the proper nutrients at the proper time in there lives. Make sure the soil you get doesnt have fert all ready in it.