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.

 

[FullDuplex]

hi full duplex thanks for all your tips, youre obviousley an experienced grower so i must ask you a few questions if you dont mind? Basically i have a 3ftx3ft and 7ft tall space (closet).im wanting to grow 12 autos in 6.5l square pots.
Q1. do you think i could veg with a 300w cfl blue and finish flowering with 600w hps
Q2. can i start them out using paper towel method thin when taproot shows put in canna pro soil without them burning?
Q3. do you think i will have heat probs with hps? i will be getting carbon filter at later stage and a desk fan will be all i have to combat this.
and finally do you think 1 600w hps in mylar lined space will sufficently flower 12 autos? sorry for the questions but any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

you are most welcome just thought i would share what has worked to get the info out there for all to use to help them medically
I know it has helped me get my stock up for when i need it most especially if i am having a spell.

as far as your questions go i think that what you have will do great. I veg till sex under 2 42 watt cfl's then into the bloom room with a 250watt hps and 2 4foot HO florescent tubes.
You can start them in a paper towel just fine as you described. I have been doing this here latly to see my germ rates on my offspring and i see white tails on the 3rd day every time
sometimes before that.

Now your room is a little bit larger than mine. you have me by .5ftx.5ft and then 2 foot on the height. So you will have more room to dissipate the heat in there BUT you will need to extract that heat.
My 250 gets warm in there it can spike the temps well into the 100 mark if something happens to the inline fan. BUt i have to run the inline fan when the lights on all the time except winter. So a desk fan isn't going to get it with that 600 in there.
The space and light are going to be good enough for 12 autos. I have run several in my cab and still got great numbers off a 250. Id actually like to see what that 600 would do in that space. If it does good ill be in the market for one. My space was the biggest reason i chose the 250 i built the room and then added the light rather than get a massive light and not be able to cool it.

 

[JM]

yeah if you're running 600 you want at least 250 CFM on your fan... the rule is.. calculate your space:

3 x 3 x 7= 56 Cubic feet
and then you want to be able to clear that in 5 minutes...

so techically you want a minumum 11.2 CFM... but with a 600 thats nowhere near realistic... thses calcs are usually usd for bigger gorw rooms... small spaces heat up real fast!

so in a tent I'd reccomend a fan that will clear it in one minute ... HPS's put off a LOT of heat... my current closet is 144 cu ft and I have one 400 HPS and 2 125 CFL with a 90 CFM fan... which just barely keeps up running 24 hours a day... with a 20/4 light cycle... just enough to cool overall mass between hot cycles...
I'll be adding another 90 CFM fan in the spring to combat summer heat

hope this helps
JM

ps - i use bathroom fans off of ebay (2.5 sonas) because they are super quiet

 

[FullDuplex]

couple things you also want to think about. the CFM of the fan as well as the CFM of a filter if you use one. If you have an air exchange from inside to out you will need a filter.
I have a 435 cfm fan on a 635 rated filter. So i know that there is no resistance at the filter side. But i will tell you i have to run the inline fan at all times while the light is on in my space.
if not that 250 will heat that cab so fast it isn't funny. I would look at least at getting a 6'' fan or bigger for that light.

This is the one that i have love it and great price.
http://www.plantlightinghydroponics.com/valueline-inch-435-cfm-centrifugal-inline-fan-p-2260.html

 

[xbladex1984]

thanks guys, much appreciate the valuable info i have my eye on a 4" cfm kit with active carbon filter(only one within budget at the mo) i think i will need it not just for heat issues but im going to go for ak 47s and they get quite stinky, between that, my cab door being open in day time and deskfan is all i will really have to work with right now but i will place filter just above light to try suck up as much heat as possible. great forum btw guys im still noobing my way round it and really excited about the future of autos and +rep for that plant on page 3 full duplex if my ak's end up anywhere near that i will be very happy for a few months. im just currently awaiting some more items to come eg new ph pen,nutes etc etc(2 weeks max due to a paypal fuck up) but as soon as i get sorted i will start a journal on here and keep you guys informed and hopefully get some dense bud and good results of my little girls with that 600w.if not and i have too many heat issues i will sell it and get 250w. im hoping to get at least 10 - 12 oz of 12 plants just from using canna soil, bio bizz bloom, and molasses. is this realistic thinking?? as i get more creative and a couple more grows under my belt i will try your tea recipes full d for sure but as this is only my 3rd grow and biggest im just trying to keep it simple also im on a budget.

 

[FullDuplex]

Wiz calles it magic and now i am starting to believe

Ok so i know i havent been posting much, but as we all know we all do have lives out side of this wonderful ring of friends. But between all the busyness of life and work i have been doing mounds of research on something because i wanted to know why. I see the results and watch it happen time after time after time but what is it doing for the plant that it likes so much.

So i bring to you my final theory on why the bubbled water works so well. It isn't concrete and it is not proven gospel but to me it makes sense and to a few others i think it may to, and if not i am hoping to get some feed back on this one.

Over the last few years i have been running the bubbled water and started it all to avoid over watering the girls. I figured that since the roots could live submerged in gallons of water and all they needed to survive was an air pump. I figured that if i added o2 to the water it would be more concentrated than it would normally be avoiding me over watering and starving the roots from the much needed source of life. So i began the treatment and then i started seeing the results you all are seeing from my pics to your own grows.

The someone said something one day to me about the process, "its almost like its a hybrid system," well this got me thinking and around the same time i received my digital pH pen to get things dialed in that much more. Little did i know that the above comment and this pen would change the way i looked at this all together and bring forward a whole lot of new questions and puzzles.

I have shared and shared with you about the levels of pH and how important it is to your grow. How the plants cant eat if its not right may it be soil or hydro. We have all seen the charts and the diagrams that show the ideal range for nutrient pick up. But here is the thing, i think that i have broke through those ideal ranges and found out that MJ can take more than we thought that they could, Here's why.

Before the arrival of my digital pH pen i used a typical aquarium pH tube and drop solution. blue green was 7.0, more towards greenish yellow 6.5 and yellow being 6.0. When i would check my fresh rain water the color was right on the 6.5 mark, but i know its going to bounce all around when i add my mixes to it. Usually when i added my tea i would bring the water to what i thought was ideal 6.0 for my girls. i would add my mixes and nutes and then take the measurement....yellow....6.0 everything is set to go. I have been doing this for years now and all i have had was good results.

Now the game changer, i finally get all the calibration solutions in to properly calibrate the pen and after i do i tested the water that i had just fed the plants with that i checked with the drop system. After a good min of sitting in the water i take my reading, awaiting 6.0 or the likes to pop up on the meeter.....not so much. What i get is the reading of 5.2......i couldn't believe what i saw so i re calibrated the pen and ran another test, same thing 5.2 . it didn't make any sense to me so i had to figure out why one kit was saying one thing and the other was saying something different. Knowing the water that i just had tested was super low i added more pH down to the water. It dropped it off the pens available reading range. So i took the same water added it to the tube and added in the color drops. In this pH range you should see a red to orange color at this acidic level, but i didnt i saw .....you guessed it yellow.

So for the last year i had been feeding my plants water at a way lower range than what i thought i had been. my methods have not changed and the way i do things is always measured out to a t and i follow my notes if i have an issue or forget something. This took everything that i have worked on the last year and threw it out the window. Yet it brings it back to the statement that started all of this. Its like a hybrid system, and it almost has to be to be able to eat and grow under those types of acidic conditions. Something is going on here and i am not sure what but i promise you its not hurting the plants at all.

Now to the good part, why i think that this is doing something greater to the plants. It would also explain, if true, why i am getting stupid high weights in little pots. I think that the water is amended enough that it is allowing the plants to eat twice as much as they ever have.

If the water is introduced to them in a soil that is light and airy and no resistance its acting almost like a EBB and Flow system or hempy. the water goes in and gets picked up by the roots as it passes over it, the low pH of the water is allowing the plant to do this just like in a hydro system. It would explain the need to water more than i ever have had to before.

Then there is the water that gets trapped in the actual soil medium i have and is loaded with o2 left from the treatment, and as the plant transpires its feeding again from the water that is saturated and trapped in the soil. thus allowing the plants to eat twice as much as they could in the past.

I think that its the two in combo that are allowing a much wider pH rage of feeding allowing the plant to eat at all times always getting what it needs. This is why i think that i am getting hydro numbers in small soil pots. even with the acidic waterings the soil still remained between 6.2-6.7. This is all shocking to me but i have seen the results and most of you have too. This is the only thing that i can come up with that explains the phenom that i am having in small pots.

I cant think of anything else that would be going on here, i do know that what i am doing is not harming them in anyway so i know that the pH being that acidic isnt doing to much damage as i am not seeing it reflected on the plant, so it has to be eating if it wasn't i dont think i could pull 1.5 zips from less that a gal of soil.


Now what do you think?

 

[FullDuplex]

New soil amendment!!

well i have found something local that may be a huge asset to my hand mixed soil.
went to the local mom and pop garden supply and she had a new product called Slag. I was after dolomite lime but found this Instead. not only will it balance out the pH in the soil but it also has micro nutes in it.

Heres some basic info

Basic Slag
Lawns, Gardens, Farms, & Food Plots

Basic Slag History
Basic Slag has been used as a secondary fertilizer in the Southeastern United States for over 75 years. The low cost and availability of Basic Slag made this one of the first soil amendments used on Alabama cropland. Basic Slag became a major fertilizer and soil liming material in Alabama and the Southeast during the WWII era and ranked second only to super phosphate in the worldwide use of phosphorus fertilizers.

How its Made
APC Basic Slag is a recycled product produced from the iron making process. When manufacturing iron and conversion of steel in an open hearth furnace the principle products used are iron ore, coke, dolomitic limestone, fluxing stone, and various additives. The intense heat of the furnace converts limestone to burned or quick lime that is highly reactive. The unwanted elements, such as phosphorous and unnecessary metals is absorbed by the limestone, most which are extremely valuable plant nutrients. There is only a thin layer just above the molten steel that contains most of the nutrients, this is separated and processed into what farmers call Basic Slag.

Nutrient Value
Basic Slag is a nutrient-rich soil amendment product that has excellent soil liming properties. Because of its nutrient content and value, Basic Slag can correctly be termed as a Minor Element Mix which helps maintain the best level of soil fertility. Basic Slag contains micronutrients and trace elements many researchers have found to be valuable to plant life. The wide range of nutrients contained in Basic Slag include but not limited to: Iron, Calcium, Magnesium, Manganese, and zinc. Basic Slag plays an important role in helping the farmers obtain production efficiency. At unfavorable pH levels, many other products are insoluble and have nutrients that are inaccessible. The vital nutrients contained in Basic Slag are available at all pH levels. Basic Slag has a high neutralizing value making it an economical way to sweeten sour soils. Our Basic Slag can also be stockpiled in bulk outdoors and will not harden. It is an all around liming product with quick reaction, which results in increased yields of most crops and flowers, including: soybeans, corn, tomatoes, pastures, sod farms, etc.,

Advantages Derived From Use Of Basic Slag

Increases farm income by boosting crop yields and improving crop quality

Reduces soil acidity

Increases crop response to other fertilizer

Maximum crop yield from every acre of land

Excellent liming material with minor elements

Immediate reaction to the acid in the soil

 

[Rebel]

This is a crazy amount of incredible information FD. I (as well as many I'm sure!) really appreciate you sharing your information. I hope my Snow Ryder comes out as well as your plants!! I'm growing as organic as I can. My girlfriend and I are doing this together and she just ordered Humboldt Nutrients Grow Natural and Bloom Natural. Plan on adding the DeuceDeuce in week 5. Also going to use Molasses. Do you have any opinion on Humboldt Nute lines? I respect your opinion so looking forward to what you have to say. I realize you use your own mixture. This is my second grow so I'm a total newbie. Thanks again for all this info. I'm copying and pasting all of it into my Microsoft Word!!

 

[FullDuplex]

This is a crazy amount of incredible information FD. I (as well as many I'm sure!) really appreciate you sharing your information. I hope my Snow Ryder comes out as well as your plants!! I'm growing as organic as I can. My girlfriend and I are doing this together and she just ordered Humboldt Nutrients Grow Natural and Bloom Natural. Plan on adding the DeuceDeuce in week 5. Also going to use Molasses. Do you have any opinion on Humboldt Nute lines? I respect your opinion so looking forward to what you have to say. I realize you use your own mixture. This is my second grow so I'm a total newbie. Thanks again for all this info. I'm copying and pasting all of it into my Microsoft Word!!

Thanks WVR, and i hope to be adding more and more soon.
I have some new thoughts on the tiered potting method.
just have to do a bot more research on it and see if i am headed in the right direction.

Im glad to hear that others are using these methods or at least reading them :thumbs:

 

[sickbiker]

On my grow Im going now I thought i would try something diffrent im using my fish tank water to water my plants with. The ph is right at 6.5 I have lots of o2 pumped in to the tank. I will let you know how this works out for me.

 

[JM]

yes... per gallon... and use enough water to properly water the plant.... thats all... .. watering should be done in cycles... water thoroughly... to a little bit of runoff (removes excess salts build up) and then let them dry out anywhere from a day to 3 depending on conditions... stick your finger in to the second knuckle... if it feels moist you have enogh water... if it starts to feel more on the dry side its time for another water cycle... hope this helps... FD wont be in till tommorrow or later... just wanted to get you off on the right foot..

JM