New Grower First grow, humbolt caramel cream (8-3-22)

[Zer0]

I’m using em now for my first grow, you can check out my first grow in this forum and see if I run into any issues. No complaints so far and made my grow waaaaay less maintenance than hand watering multiple times a day to run off in coco.

The thing is…you can test em out without purchasing them if you have a gridded pot riser and a saucer and fabric pot. When I asked the ac infinity for replacement wicks they said they were identical to any generic 1/5 inch capillary wick on Amazon. I made my own diy version with this wick but 1/4 inch thick.
View attachment 1525891
Currently my Top Gun by Atlas Seeds is on top of my DIY version of the ac infinity pot under 3 of the 1/4 inch wicks and it’s working just as well as the ac infinity ones!

this is my first ever grow so I am sure others can get much better results than I am with this simple system.

Very nice! i still think bottom watering is my preferred feeding style but i'd love to watch the wicking in action and DIY is even better as it saves us cheapos tons of money. Thanks for sharing.

 

[proustdreams]

@4wiscoLegal420 if I am hijacking your journal let me know and I will delete this post. I am just excited to share some of what I am learning in my first grow.

Me: Can we get Autopots?
Mom: We have Autopots at home.

Autopots at home…

And here is the Top Gun by Atlas Seeds on top of it. It is around 29 days old. It has been bottom fed since day 17 or so.

I was skeptical that a rope wick can effectively deliver nutrients but it seems to be working at least with Dyna-Gro nutes. I cover the openings with foil to prevent algae because I spent about 1 min 26.498 seconds putting this together. I put a couple drops of Southern Ag Fungicide (same as hydroguard) into the saucer as a rot preventative and I only fill up enough water for the plant to suck up in one or two days.

 

[Cannaficionado]

@4wiscoLegal420 if I am hijacking your journal let me know and I will delete this post. I am just excited to share some of what I am learning in my first grow.

Me: Can we get Autopots?
Mom: We have Autopots at home.

Autopots at home…
View attachment 1526117

And here is the Top Gun by Atlas Seeds on top of it. It is around 29 days old. It has been bottom fed since day 17 or so.


View attachment 1526120

I was skeptical that a rope wick can effectively deliver nutrients but it seems to be working at least with Dyna-Gro nutes. I cover the openings with foil to prevent algae because I spent about 1 min 26.498 seconds putting this together. I put a couple drops of Southern Ag Fungicide (same as hydroguard) into the saucer as a rot preventative and I only fill up enough water for the plant to suck up in one or two days.

Man Idc share away. Knowledge is power my man

 

[Zer0]

@4wiscoLegal420 if I am hijacking your journal let me know and I will delete this post. I am just excited to share some of what I am learning in my first grow.

Me: Can we get Autopots?
Mom: We have Autopots at home.

Autopots at home…
View attachment 1526117

And here is the Top Gun by Atlas Seeds on top of it. It is around 29 days old. It has been bottom fed since day 17 or so.


View attachment 1526120

I was skeptical that a rope wick can effectively deliver nutrients but it seems to be working at least with Dyna-Gro nutes.

bottom feeding is the way

I skip all that and just get a oil drain pan and put the fabric pot in the oil drain pan and fill it with nutrients, i started with clayballs on the bottom but found it is not needed and the roots grow into them but works great!

I did that method vs autopots and had a equal outcome, the only difference is you have to know when to bottom feed but that is not hard. I pour until it stops sucking it up and then i leave a little for it to suck on for later and repeat everyday or every other day depending on size of plant.

I got the idea from watching my autopots in action, they fill the tray up and wait for the plant to suck it dry then add more. i am just doing the work myself but still bottom feeding.

On the left side i have 2 bottom feeding the way i do it and on the right side of the tent is 2 autopots xl's. In the end they all got big and had great yields so 1 is not better than the other.

 

[Cannaficionado]

Probably gonna be updating almost daily as this is my first real grow amd my first expirience with flowering with decent genetics. Pistils showing on some of the first calyx Ive found

So she is indeed a girl! Praying to god she doesmt hermie, but even if she does, more caramel cream beans. Im super stoked. Cant wait to do it all over again

(Late edit after water thought Id show tops and the rest of the plant)

Still yellowing progressively but its definitely slowing down...thinking my problems were not feeding it enough, now that Ive been giving full feeds shes definitely liking it.

 

[Cannaficionado]

Well I made my trip to pick up some new bud, now that Im home Id thought Id check out the tent again

Definitely stretching, these tops are stretching and stacking like crazy. More pistils showing up around the plant but its way to hard to get pictures.

Water last nigh with 6.4ph water and a full dose of nutes for the flowering cycle. Gave her 3/4 of a gallon and the pot is already half the weight it was last night. Shes thirsty but she'd better be with all this growth going on. Also chopped a few dead leaves, or almost dead.

 

[Cannaficionado]

@4wiscoLegal420 if I am hijacking your journal let me know and I will delete this post. I am just excited to share some of what I am learning in my first grow.

Me: Can we get Autopots?
Mom: We have Autopots at home.

Autopots at home…
View attachment 1526117

And here is the Top Gun by Atlas Seeds on top of it. It is around 29 days old. It has been bottom fed since day 17 or so.


View attachment 1526120

I was skeptical that a rope wick can effectively deliver nutrients but it seems to be working at least with Dyna-Gro nutes. I cover the openings with foil to prevent algae because I spent about 1 min 26.498 seconds putting this together. I put a couple drops of Southern Ag Fungicide (same as hydroguard) into the saucer as a rot preventative and I only fill up enough water for the plant to suck up in one or two days.

Now with a wicking style base like this is there a maximum pot size? All I have right now are a bunch of 5gal. Im skeptical about water wicking to the top 3rd of the pot, because right now the top of my soil is littered with roots. All you gotta do is move the soil slightly and you'll see em everywhere. But I suppose if Im only watering from the bottom the roots will probably only grow straight down

 

[proustdreams]

Now with a wicking style base like this is there a maximum pot size? All I have right now are a bunch of 5gal. Im skeptical about water wicking to the top 3rd of the pot, because right now the top of my soil is littered with roots. All you gotta do is move the soil slightly and you'll see em everywhere. But I suppose if Im only watering from the bottom the roots will probably only grow straight down

I don’t want to give advice as I am still very new. This research paper has a lot of good information about bottom watering in coco.

Growth, Yield, and Water Productivity Responses of Pepper to Sub-Irrigated Planter Systems in a Greenhouse

A sub-irrigated planter (SIP) is a container irrigation technique in which water is supplied to the crop from the bottom, stored in a saturated media-filled reservoir beneath an unsaturated soil, and then delivered by capillary action to the root zone. The aim of this study was to optimize the...

www.mdpi.com

According to the paper in a bottom watering/SIP system the top 2 layers (they divided the depth into 5 layers) has a higher concentration of salinity than a top fed system. However, the bottom 3 layers of a SIP system has much lower salinity levels than the top fed system. Greater soil moisture level -> less salinity in coco. Also, taller pots (greater than 15 cm) had a better yield and better distribution of salinity than shorter pots in a SIP system. I do believe they flushed the SIP system at least once in their study - not entirely certain.


I would say your concerns about establishing roots on the top half of the medium is entirely valid if I understood the paper correctly.

Based on those results it makes sense to me to top water initially so that the roots can initially establish themselves in the top half of the pot then switch to bottom watering so roots can seek out the bottom half.

Again, I don’t want to be prescriptive as I am very new to all this.

 

[proustdreams]

Going back to your point about less vigor in the top part of the soil - the study found that the lower EC + tall pots group had greater yield than the high EC + short pot group. I believe this was because in the high EC group the top layer salinity exceeded the tolerance threshold for the peppers.

 

[Hog_M@Gundy]

Now with a wicking style base like this is there a maximum pot size? All I have right now are a bunch of 5gal. Im skeptical about water wicking to the top 3rd of the pot, because right now the top of my soil is littered with roots. All you gotta do is move the soil slightly and you'll see em everywhere. But I suppose if Im only watering from the bottom the roots will probably only grow straight down

The wicking isn't what distributes the water through the soil. It only provides the contact between the pot and the reservoir. The capillary action of water the pulls the it up and distributes it evenly throughout the medium. The top inch or two will get dry but thats not really an issue ,but you can get a cover or put down mulch and it will stay moist. Probably not a good idea to switch to bottom feeding this late in a grow but, I'm no expert.