First(ish) autoflower grow - new to the game

[Harukisan]

Hi everybody,

Last year I decided to put a few anonymous seeds in a pot and I was amazed to see how resilient this plant is. I grew them next to my window, all purpose soil, not much sunlight, no nutrients and it still grew surprisingly well. It started to flower but winter came and it died. But still, I had no idea that it would grow so “easily”.

Since then, I’ve moved and I now live in an apartment with a south facing balcony. So I decided to try and be more serious about this hobby. Let me tell you what I have prepared and please let me know if you have any feedback.

I ordered some autoflower seeds (Royal Ak, Royal Dwarf, Diesel Auto, Quick One and a Northern Light Auto freebie). Got myself some Biobizz light mix soil and an extra bag of perlite, 11 L pots (about 3 gallon) and Biobizz grow + bloom.

I’m planning on germinating directly in the pot, after drenching it. I will then keep the seedlings inside for a little bit until the temperature at night is a bit warmer (it’s sunny and warm during the day, at night it can be around 4 degrees right now - 40 degrees Fahrenheit). Regarding feeding, I will follow the schedule advised by Biobizz.

If everything goes well, the plants will go on the balcony once it will be warm enough at night. I have a few aromatics so I hope it will help with the smell but there’s also the size issue.
I know that the royal dwarf will stay, well, a dwarf. For the rest of them, I’d like to limit their growth so they don’t attract too much attention. I’ve read a lot of different opinions regarding scrogging autoflowers, what do you think about it? By scrogging I just mean, placing some kind of net above the plants. Nothing too fancy.

I have read many forums, skimmed through some famous books, watched a lot of videos but I’m still very much a newbie so any piece of advice is welcome. Anything you think I should know or that you wish someone would have told you.
I am very excited about this experience.

Thanks for reading!

 

[Harukisan]

This is what I grew (to be fair, it grew itself) last year with tap water and lots of love.

 

[Olderfart]

Hi everybody,

Last year I decided to put a few anonymous seeds in a pot and I was amazed to see how resilient this plant is. I grew them next to my window, all purpose soil, not much sunlight, no nutrients and it still grew surprisingly well. It started to flower but winter came and it died. But still, I had no idea that it would grow so “easily”.

Since then, I’ve moved and I now live in an apartment with a south facing balcony. So I decided to try and be more serious about this hobby. Let me tell you what I have prepared and please let me know if you have any feedback.

I ordered some autoflower seeds (Royal Ak, Royal Dwarf, Diesel Auto, Quick One and a Northern Light Auto freebie). Got myself some Biobizz light mix soil and an extra bag of perlite, 11 L pots (about 3 gallon) and Biobizz grow + bloom.

I’m planning on germinating directly in the pot, after drenching it. I will then keep the seedlings inside for a little bit until the temperature at night is a bit warmer (it’s sunny and warm during the day, at night it can be around 4 degrees right now - 40 degrees Fahrenheit). Regarding feeding, I will follow the schedule advised by Biobizz.

If everything goes well, the plants will go on the balcony once it will be warm enough at night. I have a few aromatics so I hope it will help with the smell but there’s also the size issue.
I know that the royal dwarf will stay, well, a dwarf. For the rest of them, I’d like to limit their growth so they don’t attract too much attention. I’ve read a lot of different opinions regarding scrogging autoflowers, what do you think about it? By scrogging I just mean, placing some kind of net above the plants. Nothing too fancy.

I have read many forums, skimmed through some famous books, watched a lot of videos but I’m still very much a newbie so any piece of advice is welcome. Anything you think I should know or that you wish someone would have told you.
I am very excited about this experience.

Thanks for reading!

Hi and welcome to AFN. This is a friendly and helpful place, with lots of people who know what they are doing when it comes to growing cannabis.

As to your setup, you should be able to make things work well enough to get some bud, but I will comment on three aspects. First, don't let your initial success germinating fool you, cannabis seeds, at least the highly selected auto strains, can be fussy about germination temperature. I do not recommend germinating in final pots unless you are certain that you can start and continue the process at 80-85 degrees F. For many home growers, starting and keeping initial pots at this temperature is more difficult than germinating in smaller containers and transplanting. And no, transplanting is not difficult. @slowandeasy may be able to direct you to his germination instructions, which are excellent and would be a great way to get the job done for you.

Second, I am not sure how many of the strains you mention you intend to grow at once, but I suggest you need to consider smell carefully. With a garden of four or five plants on your balcony, your apartment neighbours may be immersed in weed funk for weeks. Even if you are in a legal area, you could end up with a war with neighbours and/or the apartment owners. You could get yourself and your garden evicted. Some rental agreements specifically prohibit growing cannabis on the premises. Do not underestimate the powerful odour that flowering plants can produce. My wife told me that she found the odour of three plants nasty when she was on a ride on lawn mower fifteen- twenty meters away from my grow shelter. Your neighbours are going to know what you are up to...

And third, don't bother with scrog. You may want portability, and that ain't gonna happen if you tie your ladies into nets. For your first serious grow, just grow them natural with training attachments to pots only so you can move them if needed. If you need to keep height under control, careful topping can help, but some strains tolerate it better than others. In any case, height is unlikely to be the reason you are "found out", odour will reveal your grow whether anyone can see the plants or not, at least it will if you select smelly strains.

Anyway, good luck with your grow, and don't hesitate to ask for help here.

 

[Harukisan]

Hi and welcome to AFN. This is a friendly and helpful place, with lots of people who know what they are doing when it comes to growing cannabis.

As to your setup, you should be able to make things work well enough to get some bud, but I will comment on three aspects. First, don't let your initial success germinating fool you, cannabis seeds, at least the highly selected auto strains, can be fussy about germination temperature. I do not recommend germinating in final pots unless you are certain that you can start and continue the process at 80-85 degrees F. For many home growers, starting and keeping initial pots at this temperature is more difficult than germinating in smaller containers and transplanting. And no, transplanting is not difficult. @slowandeasy may be able to direct you to his germination instructions, which are excellent and would be a great way to get the job done for you.

Second, I am not sure how many of the strains you mention you intend to grow at once, but I suggest you need to consider smell carefully. With a garden of four or five plants on your balcony, your apartment neighbours may be immersed in weed funk for weeks. Even if you are in a legal area, you could end up with a war with neighbours and/or the apartment owners. You could get yourself and your garden evicted. Some rental agreements specifically prohibit growing cannabis on the premises. Do not underestimate the powerful odour that flowering plants can produce. My wife told me that she found the odour of three plants nasty when she was on a ride on lawn mower fifteen- twenty meters away from my grow shelter. Your neighbours are going to know what you are up to...

And third, don't bother with scrog. You may want portability, and that ain't gonna happen if you tie your ladies into nets. For your first serious grow, just grow them natural with training attachments to pots only so you can move them if needed. If you need to keep height under control, careful topping can help, but some strains tolerate it better than others. In any case, height is unlikely to be the reason you are "found out", odour will reveal your grow whether anyone can see the plants or not, at least it will if you select smelly strains.

Anyway, good luck with your grow, and don't hesitate to ask for help here.

Hi, thanks a lot for your reply.

I realize that letting a plant grow next to your window and nurturing a plant to get big buds is not exactly the same. I’ll do my best anyway.

Regarding the smell, I admit I’m a bit worried so I think I’ll start with one...However, based on the smoke fragrance coming from neighboring balconies, I like to think that I’ll be alright and that no one will bother me. We’ll see.

I was under the impression that you can’t transplant an autoflower ever?
Well noted regarding scrogging, I’ll give up on that.

 

[420Forever]

Hi everybody,

Last year I decided to put a few anonymous seeds in a pot and I was amazed to see how resilient this plant is. I grew them next to my window, all purpose soil, not much sunlight, no nutrients and it still grew surprisingly well. It started to flower but winter came and it died. But still, I had no idea that it would grow so “easily”.

Since then, I’ve moved and I now live in an apartment with a south facing balcony. So I decided to try and be more serious about this hobby. Let me tell you what I have prepared and please let me know if you have any feedback.

I ordered some autoflower seeds (Royal Ak, Royal Dwarf, Diesel Auto, Quick One and a Northern Light Auto freebie). Got myself some Biobizz light mix soil and an extra bag of perlite, 11 L pots (about 3 gallon) and Biobizz grow + bloom.

I’m planning on germinating directly in the pot, after drenching it. I will then keep the seedlings inside for a little bit until the temperature at night is a bit warmer (it’s sunny and warm during the day, at night it can be around 4 degrees right now - 40 degrees Fahrenheit). Regarding feeding, I will follow the schedule advised by Biobizz.

If everything goes well, the plants will go on the balcony once it will be warm enough at night. I have a few aromatics so I hope it will help with the smell but there’s also the size issue.
I know that the royal dwarf will stay, well, a dwarf. For the rest of them, I’d like to limit their growth so they don’t attract too much attention. I’ve read a lot of different opinions regarding scrogging autoflowers, what do you think about it? By scrogging I just mean, placing some kind of net above the plants. Nothing too fancy.

I have read many forums, skimmed through some famous books, watched a lot of videos but I’m still very much a newbie so any piece of advice is welcome. Anything you think I should know or that you wish someone would have told you.
I am very excited about this experience.

Thanks for reading!

heya @Harukisan and to afn! a basic rule of thumb is -> pot size = plant size another well uzed practice to control size is that of topping/lst great commune here & anything u need, jus give a holler

ppp &

 

[Olderfart]

Hi, thanks a lot for your reply.

I realize that letting a plant grow next to your window and nurturing a plant to get big buds is not exactly the same. I’ll do my best anyway.

Regarding the smell, I admit I’m a bit worried so I think I’ll start with one...However, based on the smoke fragrance coming from neighboring balconies, I like to think that I’ll be alright and that no one will bother me. We’ll see.

I was under the impression that you can’t transplant an autoflower ever?
Well noted regarding scrogging, I’ll give up on that.

Never transplanting autos is mostly a myth. If you do not do it carefully, you can stunt the plant for a while, but done properly, little or no delay in growth results. Ditto for topping as well in my experience. The issue with autos is that their vegetative growth is time limited, so you don't want to waste it recovering from any kind of screwup, including but by no means limited to transplanting. Early nute screwups can do even more damage than a somewhat sloppy transplant. In any case, you want your autos growing full speed ahead for all of their limited veg time. Otherwise you can end up with runts that do not produce much bud.

I have transplanted every plant I have grown, and as far as I could tell, vigorous growth resumed in less than 48 hours every time, and every plant matured as big or bigger than suggested by the breeder. OTOH, germinating in final pots can work, as long as you are able to manage temperature. However, FWIW, there are additional potential reasons for transplanting - arguably, you may get better root colonization throughout your final pot by forcing roots to first fully colonize a smaller container, but I do not have enough experience to suggest how important this is for cannabis. No matter, on my next grow, I will be using @slowandeasy's germination method. Until now, I have always used the cd case/paper towel method, but I like Slow's method better.

Regarding smell, I have read that Northern Lights is relatively low in smell, so maybe going with that to see how the neighbours respond would be an idea. It does tend to be a slow finisher though, so plan on 11-12 weeks minimum unless specific growing experience with your strain and breeder strongly suggests otherwise. Estimates by the breeder are unlikely to apply well to your outdoor grow, and are often optimistic even for an indoor grow in ideally controlled conditions. Bottom line is that getting the best out of your grow will take time, so be patient. Depending on where you live, and the length of time the balcony will be warm enough, you may be able to complete only one grow in the summer time you have available. If that seems to be the case, you might want to grow at least a couple plants while you are at it rather than just one.

Good luck with the grow, and don't hesitate to ask for help here.

 

[slowandeasy]

Germing seeds is all about the TEMPS. 80-85F is ideal for any germ method. I prefer to use a seedling Mat with Thermostat to be more consistent. I soak in a cup of water, sometimes with a drop of h2o2. 24 hours approx or when I see a decent tail. No longer thsn 48 hours in a cup of water for me. If temps are lower, it can increase time or failures if too low. Moist, Not Wet, medium with Mycos in the hole can help with root development. Keeping temps 80-85 for the germ process and first week of life of perfect IMO and should be the ultimate goal when possible to keep consistent temps. With Autos, its all about roots. Faster root growth translates to the entire grow. Overwatering is the most common mistake in growing. Less is more with seedlings. I bottom dunk seedlings in Coco. Or spray my Soil girls to keep MOIST...NOT WET. good luck, slow

 

[ForceOfNature]

Hi everybody,

Last year I decided to put a few anonymous seeds in a pot and I was amazed to see how resilient this plant is. I grew them next to my window, all purpose soil, not much sunlight, no nutrients and it still grew surprisingly well. It started to flower but winter came and it died. But still, I had no idea that it would grow so “easily”.

Since then, I’ve moved and I now live in an apartment with a south facing balcony. So I decided to try and be more serious about this hobby. Let me tell you what I have prepared and please let me know if you have any feedback.

I ordered some autoflower seeds (Royal Ak, Royal Dwarf, Diesel Auto, Quick One and a Northern Light Auto freebie). Got myself some Biobizz light mix soil and an extra bag of perlite, 11 L pots (about 3 gallon) and Biobizz grow + bloom.

I’m planning on germinating directly in the pot, after drenching it. I will then keep the seedlings inside for a little bit until the temperature at night is a bit warmer (it’s sunny and warm during the day, at night it can be around 4 degrees right now - 40 degrees Fahrenheit). Regarding feeding, I will follow the schedule advised by Biobizz.

If everything goes well, the plants will go on the balcony once it will be warm enough at night. I have a few aromatics so I hope it will help with the smell but there’s also the size issue.
I know that the royal dwarf will stay, well, a dwarf. For the rest of them, I’d like to limit their growth so they don’t attract too much attention. I’ve read a lot of different opinions regarding scrogging autoflowers, what do you think about it? By scrogging I just mean, placing some kind of net above the plants. Nothing too fancy.

I have read many forums, skimmed through some famous books, watched a lot of videos but I’m still very much a newbie so any piece of advice is welcome. Anything you think I should know or that you wish someone would have told you.
I am very excited about this experience.

Thanks for reading!

Your planning could be described as meticulous, looking forward to your great successes on your balcony! All the best!