FD's Guide to Growing Hefty Autos in Small Places.

Ok guys i have been dragging my knuckles on this for too long. This thread will be dedicated to my actual grow technique. I will have everything in here from the way i germ seeds to the way i harvest and everything in between.

ill cover my soil mixes, teas, water adjustments, feeding schedules as well as the recipes for the soil and teas that i use. My goal is to teach how to grow the bud lumps you see in the small pots i use. I feel if you use this you may have the same success that i do when it comes to autos in small places.

Bare with me as i will update this on the regular, but will be locking it to get it all organized.

 

[Mrnicedude]

Yo dude sorry to but in but I seen in your comment that bigger pots prolong the veg stage. I've germed straight into there final pots and haven't seen much growth my plants are now 2wks old and only starting there 2nd nodes I'm worried that I have stunted there growth when I germinated them because the temps were not great but now I have sorted them and dialled my room in nicely now look forward to your reply dude

 

[bongwater923]

For those wanting to know about the tiered planting. Here is a shot of the ICU in a 2 pot set up.

Can't see your pics bro. peace...bongwater

 

[hereb4]

here ya go...tier transplants

 

[noob13]

when to feed nutes in 50/50 happy frog/ light warrior mix

Wondering when I should begin feeding nutrients my dinafem auto cheese babies that are in a mixture of happy frog and light warrior soil.

 

[Rp365]

This is genius never occurred to me to add o2 to the water but it makes a ton of sense going to store now so I can super charge my water with o2 ASAP :key:

 

[donkeykong]

been thinking about this recently also. check out also "oxygen concentrators" or "oxygen generators". this could used to pump oxygen enriched air, concentration set at a defined, raised level. don't forget raised o2 levels will be a more flammable environment so don't empty the whole tank then spark up. not all will be absorbed into the water instantly and not beyond the limit which is governed by the pressure and temperature. ideally you want to contain that high oxygen environment and keep aerating that through the water until it is "saturated".
there are meters available for reading dissolved oxygen so yo kno you did good. also for O2 ppm in the environment so you know it safe to spark up

 

[tbart]

been following this thread, and got to say there's a heckuva lot of good info.

i'm a newbie on my first grow, and the issue i've had is with the PH meters - i've gone thru two of the "Luster Leaf" brand (1st one was called Luster Leaf, 2nd one "rapi-test" and found it was made by Luster Leaf. 1st meter, no matter what solution i dropped it in, showed 7.0 PH, and finally on one solution (the PH UP solution), it showed 4.8 when it should obviously have been showing far higher

what meter are you guys using that are known good, and won't break the bank?

tks in advance

PS - found a discussion on PH meters in another thread (andybotwin) and a link to his review - for those interested, seems the calibration (or lack of ) issues i found, are apparently common issues - andybotwin wrote an interesting review on a PH meter he settled on at http://www.autoflower.org/f25/review-hm-digital-ph-200-waterproof-ph-meter-2722.html

 

[tbart]

Got a problem already. i ordered some of the Grodan Rockwool, small cubes 1.5 inch cubed to germinate in, watered them with the ph 6.2-6.3 regulated distilled water, and drained them per Grodan's instructions. I sanded the seeds, dropped them in the holes and wham, they took off, within 3 days had a couple breaking above the surface of the cube. They've only been in the cubes 5 days. One of them, i noticed tonite, the white tap root has a white fuzz growing on it - looks like a mold (the holes or recesses in the wool are big enough to see down there with a flashlight. The white mold looks like a white hairy sausage skin, it's that even all the way around the root, and you could even say looks like a white hairy or fuzzy condom pulled up from the bottom tip to just below where the stalk is showing green. Did a little research on the net, found this is a common mold, but my concern is it will or can easily spread - apparently creating a mini-greenhouse is a major culprit once the spore gets in there, ie it loves high humidity conditons etc. the recommendation on the net that i'm leaning toward, indicated baking soda (approx 1 tbsp to a gallon of water), and/or high akaline water (PH 8.0) is the way to treat (there are also some chemicals, as well as un-pasturized milk is supposed to work. Anyone have another approach - the seeds at this stage i assume are fragile. - i've got 5 seeds in those cubes, and figure if i can get 3 or 4 to survive AND my female rate is 2 out or 3 plants, i'll be a happy camper. thanks in advance btw, have no idea why this post went up as one long paragraph - ???

 

[tbart]

fwiw, in case some one else has the issue, last nite i mixed some baking soda (maybe 1/8 teaspoon to 3 ounces distilled water, which was a heavy mix by all the web recommendations) and applied it from a water dropper, basically hosing the exposed white fungus. Two hours later, all the fungus had totally dis-appeared. But i noticed the tiny cotyledon (hope that's right) leaves were wilting. So i hosed it with some distilled water i'd regulated to PH 6.2, and this morning all appears well, no sign of wilting etc If it returns or re-occurs, i think i'll go the route of using water regulated to a PH 8.0, as the baking soda was basically raising the PH in that first treatment ---- fwiw --- PS - another 24 hours later, that plant is doing fine --- not sure why i'm not getting paragraph breaks in my posts - i did on the first few

 

[itscapital]

I have seen a few questions on this as well as had a few directly asked to me about these products. Since there was a demand on the knowledge i figured i would share what i use and how much and when.

Currently i am using my own teas, BUT i still have the on standby. When it comes to products you have to know one thing these are not organic, but they do have organic compounds in them. You have to be careful with the use of them as they WILL burn the piss out of your plants. With that said lets get into the meat and potatoes of this.

Right now Fox Farms sells a wide variety of cannc friendly ferts, soils, and mixes that suit any need of the grower. It leaves you with several questions as to what to use, how much and when. i hope to simplify this for you after you read this info. i have tried a few of their products other than the trio but i have to say hands down that if used right as well as routinely fed your plants will get huge. There is Grow Big, Big Bloom, and Tiger Bloom that form the main trio, they offer it in both soil and hydro applications. So they cover both sides of the spectrum here. So you hydro guys are not left out of this as the levels i use for the soil are THE same as i used for Hydro back in the day. Im sure that i could have pushed it a little further in the hydro setup.

Most autos do not need fed until they sex, most of them make it to this point before they ever need any type of feeding other than the pH water. Usually you see the need for feed at or around 2 weeks of life. You will see the Cotyledons begin to yellow and this is usually the first sign for food. At this point most begin to add nutes to their feedings to heal the plant as well as make it grow. I how ever push them a little bit when it comes to the stuff. I have grown out several autos and have learned from them what they like and when they like it and most important can handle it.

As you grow out your own autos you will see that they need a specific treatment from one strain to the next, even one pheno to the next. As we know autos are not real stable at this time but are getting close to it. I see this happening in the near future though.

So if you would like to super charge your autos this is what I do. But remember that this is my feed schedule to my conditions as well as soil amendments. SO if you know you have a hot soil ease up on the mix to make sure you dont burn and if your soil is plain compo you can get a little brave but less is more here.

The back of most of the bottles say 2teaspoons for regular feed and 3 for heavy feeding. I never use the 3teaspoon regimen. 2tsp is ideal for a 1/4 part break down.

Week
1 pH water only

1.5 add in Big Bloom to the mix at 1/2 tea spoon

2 1/2tsp Grow Big 1/2 tsp Big Bloom

2.5 3/4 tsp of grow big

3 1tsp grow big and 1/2 Tiger bloom 1/2 tea spoon Big Bloom

3.5 1/2 tsp Grow Big 1/2tsp Tiger bloom

4 1tsp Tiger bloom 1/2 tsp Grow Big

4.5 Clean pH'ed water to clear out salt build up

5 2tsp tiger bloom 1/2 grow big

5.5 1 Teaspoon Grow Big

6 Begin Flush for the final weeks. At this point i can flush for a week before i begin to see yellowing of the fans.

I like to leave enough time to get all the salts out of there before the harvest. This stuff WILL salt up on you and cause build up and lock out.

Hope this helps some of you out there and remember this may vary to your application. This is just MY feed schedule.

i am using fox farm ocean forest...im not going to start to ad ff trio until week 3 around...how would i modify this schedule for ffof?