First time growing autos in coco, can anybody give tips on my little guide I wrote for myself?

[Scroger]

When I say "wrote for myself" I mean just a document I made based on advice from other sources, none of this information I came up with myself.

I feel like I'm missing a lot of details on a few stages, especially veg and flower. I would really like your opinions on what you'd change, what's incorrect, and what you'd add. Any and all advice is greatly appreciated, I'd love to have my little guide mostly accurate so I can follow it closely and not miss anything. Thanks so much for your time everybody!


1. Buffer the coco coir.
⦁ Hydrate the coco coir with any regular water.
⦁ Put hydrated coco in a strainer and rinse out the dusty coco. Pour the filtered coco into a 5 gallon air pot.
⦁ Fill up the 5 gallon air pot, and put it in a 5 gal bucket. Do this for 2 buckets.
⦁ Soak the buckets in a 1.5x calmag dose water for 8 hours.
⦁ Dump it out, mix another 1.5x calmag dose and soak for 8 more hours. Mix all coco with 30% perlite.

2. Germination and solo cup
⦁ Get solo cups filled of buffered coco, however many seeds you pop. Cut drainage holes in bottom. Flush it with filtered 6.5 pH water til EC runoff is 100.
⦁ Wet paper towel in filtered 7.0 pH water, fully wet but not dripping. Pre-warm the paper towel and ziploc on the heat pad. Put seed in paper towel, then into a ziploc bag with some air, and set on heating mat at 80-85 degrees and in the dark.
⦁ Keep in the dark, check on it 24 hrs later to see if root sprouted. When roots are half an inch long, place into the solo cup with root down. Barely put any coco on the top, don't compact it down.
⦁ Put the solo cups with the seed in the grow tent on top of a heat mat at 80-85 degrees. Water with filtered 7.0 pH water until the little leafs sprout. This should take 5-10 days. Turn the overhead lights on by day 3 and run them continuously. Put the lights between 16-18 inches, and run on 30% power.
⦁ Keep sprouts in very high humidity. Spray with water and cover with another cup to keep humidity up.
⦁ Once the seedlings have 4+ leaves they are ready to go into the final pot. This should be around day 12.

3. Seedling Stage
⦁ For fertigation, filter all water you use for feeding. pH around 6.1-6.3. Seedling to late veg, work up to 500-600ppm. Week 1 - 100-150 ppm. Week 2 - 200-250. Week 3 - 400. Week 4 - 500.
⦁ Seedling now in final pot, mix nutrients at 100-150ppm for week 1 (day ~12-19). Water til 20% runoff.
⦁ Gradually turn lights up to about 50% at 18 inches throughout the seedling stage.
⦁ Keep humidity in 50-60% range, and temperature 68-74 F.
⦁ Top the plant right above the 5th node.

4. Veg Stage
⦁ Depending on the week, mix nutrients to appropriate ppm/EC. pH now to 5.5-6.5. Aim for very high 5's. Continue to runoff til 20%.
⦁ Turn lights up to around 75%. Adjust to potentially 100% by the time flowering starts.
⦁ Continue to water twice a day.
⦁ Maintain 60%-65% humidity and 68-74 degrees F.
⦁ Start LST. Gently bend down the main stem to the side of the pot. Every few days, rotate the stem clockwise til you've done a full rotation around the pot.
⦁ By late veg, defoliate any oversized fan leaves or low leaves that will not produce buds.

5. Flower Stage
⦁ Lights should be 80%-100% depending on plant needs. Full nutrient PPM at 600-650. pH still at high 5's.
⦁ Maintain 68-74 degrees F and humidity 50%. Avoid too high humidity.
⦁ Have all unnecessary foliage trimmed.
⦁ Use a scrog net if necessary to even out the plant height.
⦁ Check for milky trichomes and harvest at 10% amber.

6. Harvest and Curing
⦁ Chop plant, trim off larger leaves, hang upside down to dry at 50% humidity for 4-8 days, until stems almost snap.
⦁ Trim buds, put them in jars 2/3rds full with a hygrometer. Burp jar daily and shake up the buds. If humidity drops below 62%, use 62% humidipacks in the jars.
⦁ Repeat burping and maintaining humidity for 3-6 weeks to fully cure the bud.

 

[Del boy]

Hello that looks a lot of pissing about
1. Get bufferd coco with perlight added saves all that crap at start.
2. Soak seed for 24Hour in glass of ph 6.1 water
3.Put seed in final pot
4.Wait till it pops out the ground ph6.1 water for first few days you can have a dome on if you like
5. Start to give nutes at the correct ppm at day 5ish PH 6.1 to 6.2
6.Wait till she is growing then up the ppm as plant asks for more and water evry day
7.Top at node 4 or 5 as she grows lst if that what you are going to do.
8. Let her grow till harvest
As for lights that all depends on how powerfull they are as to what height you hang them

ppfd/umols seedlings 150-300 vegetative 300-450 Flower 300-600+

seedlings 150 to 250ppm veg 250 to 400ppm flower 400 to 600ppm this is just a rough guide the plants will tell you to much or to little

Seedling rh 60% to 70% veg rh 55% 60% flower rh40% to 55%

As for temps i stick to 24C all the way

The one thing i will say is keep it SIMPLE each plant will be diffrent so you will have to adjust accordingly and wait till plant has well established good root's before you try and get 20% run off

Hope this helps you will get a 100 diffrent answers to what you have ask as we all grow diffrent ways with diffrent environment and diffrent styles

Happy growing you know it makes sense

 

[Scroger]

Hello that looks a lot of pissing about
1. Get bufferd coco saves all that crap at start.
2. Soak seed for 24Hour in glass of ph 6.1 water
3.Put seed in final pot
4.Wait till it pops out the ground ph6.1 water for first few days you can have a dome on (i dont bother)
5. Start to give nutes at the correct ppm
6.Wait till she is growing then up the ppm as plant asks for more.
7.Top at node 4 or 5 as she grows lst if that what you are going to do.
8. Let her grow till harvest
as for lights that all depends on how powerfull they are

ppfd/umols seedlings 150-300 vegetative 300-450 Flower 300-600+

Seedling rh 60% to 70% veg rh 55% 60% flower rh40% to 55%

As for temps i stick to 24C all the way

The one thing i will say is keep it simple

Thanks very much for the reply. You're right I'm probably overthinking it. I will adjust and trim my notes to cut out some of the bullshit. I was pretty unsure on the rh and ppfd/umols so that helps tremendously. Appreciate the advice dude!

 

[Del boy]

Thanks very much for the reply. You're right I'm probably overthinking it. I will adjust and trim my notes to cut out some of the bullshit. I was pretty unsure on the rh and ppfd/umols so that helps tremendously. Appreciate the advice dude!

Hello like i said keep it simple i fcked the first couple of grows by trying to follow a plan watch the plant it will tell you what it needs or dont need wont be long before you will grow some monster plants like these girls grown in coco like i said above

 

[parsing_trees]

3. Seedling Stage
⦁ For fertigation, filter all water you use for feeding. pH around 6.1-6.3. Seedling to late veg, work up to 500-600ppm. Week 1 - 100-150 ppm. Week 2 - 200-250. Week 3 - 400. Week 4 - 500.
⦁ [...]
⦁ Top the plant right above the 5th node.

About germination, I soak seeds in a shot glass full of tap water for 24-36 hours, then plant them in coco once I see the taproot emerging. I keep the water warm (but aim for 80F, 85F may be a little too high?) by covering the shot glass with a coffee mug and then putting that somewhere warm, or under a heat lamp depending on the time of year. They usually sprout from the coco in 2-5 day, though humidity management is a bit of a tightrope walk there and too much humidity can lead to them dying from damping-off. (I'm going to experiment with Jiffy pellets or something next time, it's the growing step I'm least confident in right now.)

You description of the seedling stage reads like "Toddler: 1. Start feeding solid foods. 2. Teach to drive." Wait, what? If the plant has 5 nodes they've probably been in veg for a week or two. I don't know if there's a widely accepted specific cutoff, but I stop thinking of them as seedlings once they have more than one node. That also seems like a pretty high ppm for a seedling, but you say "week 4", which will probably actually be late veg. When my current batch was working on their second nodes, I was giving them a nutrient mix with about 234 ppm total, including my ~140 ppm tap water. In late veg I was up to around 500 ppm, but I don't follow a fixed schedule -- I start low, gradually increase, and watch how the plants react. Deficiencies? Increase more. Burnt tips or other signs of stress from excess nutrients? Stay at the same or decrease a little.

If this is your first grow, I'd recommend against topping AND doing LST. Maybe do one of those? But also leave at least one plant untrained, so you see the natural structure and how training affects it.

Those pH numbers seem off. I adjust to 5.8 - 6.0 through the whole grow. High 5's, as you say.

I agree with Dell Boy's general sentiment -- "that looks a lot of pissing about" ... "watch the plant it will tell you what it needs". The trick there is you need to know how to see what the plant is telling you, but that will come in time.

 

[Del boy]

Hello here are a few pics to help you

Hope thes will help you

 

[AJrexxx]

The other posters are on the right track its to regimented is the word I would use. Keep it simple.

I went on four or five years without ever buffering coco and I used the cheapest shit you can find. I would rinse it just to get the dust out. If your feeding calmag how much difference will it really make? Not much. As much as the science guys will disagree it has never seemed that important in my grows.

If you using a good nutrient consistently track your drift. If your using the same nutrient schedule and nutrient you will get a better feel for it.

I mix two days and a time and shoot for 5.6-5.7 at the end of the second day I am at 5.9-6. I then remix for the next two days and start over. The range coco works in is bigger than most lead you to believe it is not a hard set number.

If your tent is warm enough you can always just start in the final container. I have not soaked in years either (my preference).

Outside of that just grow the plant. You will learn as you go and will get better over time. I look at growing like an art based on preference and your conditions. Your environment and the plant will let you know what needs to be done you just have to get some experience "listening". The more you grow the more you will be able to see these things. Then your grow style will emerge.

Almost all of us grow a little differently and end up at the same end place more or less. I tell you all this because being that regimented in your growing will suck all the fun out of it. Unless your a commercial grower making your living growing you do not have to ekk out every bit of efficiency. Don't sweat the small stuff and grow your own smoke. No matter how the first one turns out it will be the best to you because, well its yours.