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.

 

[iLuvIndica]

Wow nice information and awesome ingenuity like for real im tryin out your tier method but smaller scale im using starbucks 3.5 oz- 105 mL cup to germ my RRF str8 into soil i plan on then tiering this into a 1 gal pot do you reccomend waiting until its sexed in this tiny cup or what i was orginally planning on doing is was to tier the cup as soon as the seedling sprouted i plan on growing this lil bad boy in a 3.5 inch x 1.5 ft box with 2 27 watt cfls i plan on doing the whole grow in here using these cfls and the box i dont want it tall as more bushy doing a micro expierment grow haha :thumbs:

 

[FullDuplex]

I usually transplant as soon as the second set of leaves come in. That way i never disturb the roots and they are in the final home for the long haul then.

let me know when you get it started and ill stop in

 

[NC420]

I usually transplant as soon as the second set of leaves come in. That way i never disturb the roots and they are in the final home for the long haul then.

let me know when you get it started and ill stop in

When you are starting a plant in a smaller container with transplanting in mind, Do you let the plant grow in the 1st pot ttill it has made a big enough root mass to hold all of the medium together when you pull it out?

It's kind of like Non-Stress Transplanting or NST, You let the plant start the 1st stage of root bind then when you pull the plant and dirt out they are one big mass that you can just put in the new container with no root disturbance...

Just wondering what your exact method is, I would like to try what you do because of the success rate you have...
...Peace, Bud and Karma NC420...

 

[iLuvIndica]

The lil RRF popped his head today well in you opinion what would be the best way to make my mini grow mini not huge bc the box i have for it is quite small i kinda actually wanna stunt it for a bit in the lil cup then let it explode when it starts flowering in the 1 gal what would be the best way to make my plant like 6-8 inchs in total hieght but at the same time making it bushy any ideas

 

[micromaster]

Well guys it has been a while since i have been in here with any new tips. Some of you know that i am currently working a few projects and that has taken my time and i hate it that i cant be here more than i am. But none the less the stuff that i keep testing over here is to make the experience of growing autos better for you and to keep it all under one key statement, keep it simple. :thumbs:

Now i have been testing a few of the newer strains by Wiz for times, yields, and for effects. At the same time i am always looking for something new to make the auto produce that much more in its little life span. If you have been growing autos for any time you know that the bigger you get the plant the better the yield is going to be. The first step to this is providing a thriving environment for the roots, if you do that then the plat will yield well.

This next process was to stop the root balling at the base of the plant to en long the veg period of the auto. Currently we think that the auto show sex at the time the roots touch the sides and or the bottom, i think think that there is a massive explosion of root growth at this point. If you think about it the auto shows its preflowers and then the plant goes into overdrive. This is when the roots start to fill the bottom of the pot and i believe that this is when the head starts to form and vertical growth stops and the buds begin to cluster, form and then swell.

On my last grow i had 7 plants, one in which i change something about the pot. what i did was remove the bottom of the pot and replace it with a fine screen. Something small enough to stop the roots but yet let water pass and not cause a clogging issue. what happend was amazing, the mesh bottom stopped the root ball from forming as fast as it usually does allowing the plant long time to grow int he veg stage. This plant was 2x taller and 2x the yield of the other six in the room of the exact same age.

As the roots grew to the mesh and through it, they were "air pruned" and then from the tip back feeder roots will form, stopping the root pooling at the bottom untill the mesh became full of roots. This proves to me that a lot of the autos "timing" has to come from the roots.

I am testing this again in the party cup challenge, i have three cups that have the bottoms removed to see if they will double in size with these changes.
Fingers crossed for another live experiment.

but what about autos that are grown outdoors and have no "walls" to stop root development? I get what youre saying but I dont think the whole development lies within the roots. I believe the auto has a set lifetime no matter what, but what happens when grown in a pot instead of outdoors is the roots hit the walls of the pot and the plant realizes it cant wait its energy anymore growing and has to pass on its genetics through flower development. Hence why autos generally take longer to flower when grown outdoors without restricting pot sizes.

 

[FullDuplex]

When you are starting a plant in a smaller container with transplanting in mind, Do you let the plant grow in the 1st pot ttill it has made a big enough root mass to hold all of the medium together when you pull it out?

Usually i like to do it when the plant has got its either first or not longer than the second true leaves. This keeps me from disturbing anything and not cutting roots, any longer you risk cutting them, i know it don't do much harm but i dont like doing it :no:

I never remove the seedling from the cup. i simply lift it slice it with a sharp razor, and then plant it down in the final pot. press the cup in the soil a little and call it a day.

It's kind of like Non-Stress Transplanting or NST

Yep i like that, its exactly what it taking place here, no disturbance at all.

Just wondering what your exact method is, I would like to try what you do because of the success rate you have...
...Peace, Bud and Karma NC420...

Now i cant give it all away NC, ha ha there is really nothing more than what i type in here, after that its down to each growers technique. I found something that worked, and repeated the process. There has been TONS of trial and error along the way, and i wouldn't change any of it.

 

[AndyBotwin]

This current run of Autos, I used a party cup within a party cup. Cut out the bottom of the inner party cup. So when time to transfer, just pulled the inner cup out of the outer cup and transplant it. No risk of cutting or disturbing roots at all.

Great idea, Buddha. When I cut the bottom off my cups I did disturb some roots, but none got damaged as far as I could tell. I was thinking about pre-cutting the bottom and taping on a small piece of trash bag that could be easily removed at transplant time. But your idea is much more simple. +rep!

 

[FullDuplex]

but what about autos that are grown outdoors and have no "walls" to stop root development? I get what youre saying but I dont think the whole development lies within the roots. I believe the auto has a set lifetime no matter what, but what happens when grown in a pot instead of outdoors is the roots hit the walls of the pot and the plant realizes it cant wait its energy anymore growing and has to pass on its genetics through flower development. Hence why autos generally take longer to flower when grown outdoors without restricting pot sizes.

This is exactly the point of this entire thread. I know that the plant thinks that its time to mature when the roots get out there on an indoor plant. They hit the side walls and bottoms and realize that its time to flower, have you ever watched the progression? As they hit the sides and the bottom they show sex, as they grow in the mean time the roots are forming at the bottom. Once the roots pool the head forms. I know these triggers to be fact, seen it time in and time out.

Like you said we see larger autos in the wild because of the no limit root space, thats why they Veg longer, grow longer and bud better because they have root space. Either location the plant is really working off its biological clock, the difference is the amount of room the roots have to grow. So outdoors the clock is a little slower inside they get triggered by the pot walls a little faster either way the roots still control the age, size, and structure of the plant. If there restricted shes gonna be small if not shes going to be big, and that plain and simply comes back to the roots of the plant.

I have changed the way that they grow in 6 in pots, i am pulling the same yield from a .5 gal pot than some one in say a 2 or 3 gal pot. Its about controlling your roots, its all ive ever focused on.

 

[Terd]

Excellent thread and thank you for all the great info you have shared. I have a question about your PH. Did you try raising your 5.2 water to the 6.0 that you thought you had been using all along and if so what were the results?

 

[FullDuplex]

Excellent thread and thank you for all the great info you have shared. I have a question about your PH. Did you try raising your 5.2 water to the 6.0 that you thought you had been using all along and if so what were the results?

Anytime Terd, to be honest there was no big change in the way the plant reacted. I think what happened is the hybrid system, soil being light and easy pass through and air rated water, acting like a soil/hydro grow allowing a wider range of pickup for the plant. im still working on this to see, i have ran my last grow with out the meter and i haven't had a single pH issue.