Grow Mediums Newbie Autopot Grow

[Olderfart]

Alright I am ready to start my first grow!

got me jacks nutrients that i will be using and some coco from Canna mix with perlite.

I am not entirely sure how to germinate and start the seedlings out but my plan is this:
1) start with the paper towel method (in a warm dark place).
2) Once the shell breaks and a 1.25cm tail appears i will be putting that into a jiffy pellet. (Not positive where best to put this pellet)
3) once a head appears I will turn the light on and transplant to a solo cup (do i cover this to keep humidity in?
4) once it gets a little larger i will transplant to the auto pots and keep hand watering until roots get far enough down to turn on the autopots

Does this sound correct? Im not sure how my feeding for coco will go when not in autopots but i will jsut follow what jacks states and leave my lights at 25% about 18 inches away.

Here is how I now germinate:

1. Make a sandpaper tube about 1.5 cm diameter and 6 cm or so long (you need to be able to close both ends with tips of index finger and thumb of on hand), with grit to the inside of the tube. The grit can be anything in the neighbourhood of 220 grit, wet and dry paper has nice sharp grit.
2. Put seed(s) into tube, close off the ends with your fingers, and give the seeds a 20-30 second vigorous shake to scratch them up well. This assists penetration of water into the shell and cracking of the case.
3. Give the scratched seeds a soak for 3-6 or so hours in a mix of 3% hydrogen peroxide (the first aid stuff you find at pharmacies) and water (1:3 peroxide to water)
4. Put soaked seeds between wet paper towel, kept dark and warm. 30C temperature is best. I use a small holder that keeps the folded paper towel vertical rather than flat, it seems to avoid the roots drilling in to the paper and having to be extracted without damage. I also use a seedling heat mat controlled to 30C, but that is not necessary - I have also had good results by sitting the container on a router that is warm 24/7. Others put their germination container on top of grow lights or in the top of a grow tent. Warm is good, 30C is best.
5. Once you get a ~1cm tap root showing, plant the seed root down in your moistened Jiffy Plug, and proceed as you wish from there. You can also just put it directly into your final pot. The advantage of using the Jiffy is that it is dead easy to avoid overwatering and ensure oxygen to the root because the plug is small. Tiny plants use tiny amounts of water, so if you start them in large pots, you have to be super careful not to overwater because your medium will stay wet a long time because the seedling is not capable of drying it out. It is also easier to keep a bunch of Jiffy plugs at germination temperatures than it is to get and keep final pots to germination temperature.
6. Typically, I plant the Jiffy Plugged seedlings into an instant-transplant pot made out of yogurt containers or small plastic plant pots ~10cm diameter. The transplant pot allows transplant into the final pot with little or no disturbance to roots, and again, the small size makes watering less tricky. I am thinking of making my own soil plugs in future instead of using the Jiffys, but I haven't done it yet.

All just where I have ended up with this process at the moment. Other do it differently with success, and who knows what I will be doing a few years from now.

By the way, Jack's is good stuff. I may end up going with coco and Jack's 321 in my grow this coming winter. If I don't go with a soil mix and water only with the autopots. The jury is out. If you end up going with Jack's and coco, please tag me, I would love to follow along.

Good luck with it mate, and welcome to the AFN gang of misfits.

 

[OzScott]

@Olderfart - wow, that's great detail on how to germinate seed(s) - most excellent - I am following your process with 2x AK (Buddha Seed) & 2x Lemony Berries (Beaver Genetic) beans right now - using distilled water @ pH6.0, 27c temp & H2O2 mixed 1:3.

As for grow - will be using 15L pots with coco/perlite 70/30, no balls or air etc down bottom, Green Planet nutrients. I've noticed many talk about readying their grow pots in anticipation of germinated seed placement.

Can I ask what is your generalized process is for pot readying, and also the ongoing watering & feeding for 3 gal grow pots in support of the seedlings growing large enough to then enable the autopot reservoir weeks later?

TIA- sorry all for just jumping in...

 

[Olderfart]

@Olderfart - wow, that's great detail on how to germinate seed(s) - most excellent - I am following your process with 2x AK (Buddha Seed) & 2x Lemony Berries (Beaver Genetic) beans right now - using distilled water @ pH6.0, 27c temp & H2O2 mixed 1:3.

As for grow - will be using 15L pots with coco/perlite 70/30, no balls or air etc down bottom, Green Planet nutrients. I've noticed many talk about readying their grow pots in anticipation of germinated seed placement.

Can I ask what is your generalized process is for pot readying, and also the ongoing watering & feeding for 3 gal grow pots in support of the seedlings growing large enough to then enable the autopot reservoir weeks later?

TIA- sorry all for just jumping in...

What I do to get coco pots ready:

1. Buffer the coco if necessary. This is done by soaking it in a calmag mix before rinsing it with plain water. I use a double dose of cal mag, but a normal dose might suffice. Leave it soaking overnight before rinsing.
2. Fill the pots with moist, buffered coco. I fill with moistened coco to make sure the entire volume of medium is moist initially, and thereafter I prevent it from ever drying out by watering it early and sufficiently enough. I also use Yucca in my nute mix to help water distribution in the medium. Once the coco is in the pots, never let it dry out. If for some reason this happens before planting, empty the pots and re-moisten before refilling. If coco gets dry enough, it can get hydrophobic and kill roots or prevent roots from colonizing that part of the pot.
3. A couple days before planting, fertigate your pots to runoff with your initial nute mix of choice. Your initial nute mix needs to be dilute, but do not start with plain water. Coco is hydroponics, not soil. If you manage it like soil, you are headed for trouble.
4. Place your filled pots in your heated tent for a couple days before planting or transplanting into them to make sure that the medium warms up before use. Ideal temperature for young plants is ~30C, but they will still stay happy between 25-30C.

Once the pots have plants in them:

1. Until the seedling has a couple sets of real leaves, you can moisten the pot surface by spraying it with plain water. The initial pre- charge of nutes will be enough to feed the youngster for a week or so.
2. If your humidity is lower than about 60% or so, keep the babes under transparent cover until they have a chance to develop a set or two of real leaves, by which time they will be better able to handle the drier air. There is no need for fan circulation at this stage either.
3. After a week or so, you can start fertigating. Keep pots moist with dilute nute mix, but do not apply nute mix closer than roughly 3 cm or so from the stem, and as the plants grow, water only outside the diameter of the canopy. Watering coco to a bit of runoff at this stage likely will not hurt, but I doubt whether it will help much either.
4. Once your plant's canopy reaches the edge of the pot, or after a couple weeks, turn on the autopots. By that time, the fan(s) should be on and gently moving leaves around.

A couple other suggestions:

Autopots tend to build up nutrient levels in the medium because they do not allow for the flushing that happens with top-fertigation to 10-20% runoff. As a consequence, management of nutrient levels is trickier, especially later in the grow when salts can build up. I believe that as a general rule you need to keep your nutrient levels at roughly 60% or so of the levels that would be required with top watering with the same nute mix, but you need to read your plants. If they are clearly hungry, up the nutes carefully a step and watch for a couple days before upping them again. If you see signs of nutrient toxicity, back off nute levels immediately. Clawed tips on leaves are usually the first hint, yellowing of tips is the second, and by the time you see actual tip browning, I think you are already in the glue, and may need to flush. Most autopot growers using salt nutes experience the need to flush one of their plants once in a while, which is not a big deal if you do it early, especially with coco which drains easier than some soil mixes. In my opinion, the main tricks with flushing autopot plants are:
a) finish the flush with nute mix, not plain water, and

b) when you finish flushing with nute mix, continue flushing until your runoff is close to identical to the input in both pH and ppm/EC.

Note here that effective flushing takes a lot of water/nute mix. As in maybe 5-10 times the pot volume. The idea with flushing is to leave the entire pot medium rinsed back to the pH and ppm/EC that you want the plant to experience. If you do it, you have to do it all the way. This is because with an autopot plant on salt nutes, salts will have built up in the top portion of the pot, and the flushing process needs to completely move this stuff out the bottom of the pot before flushing is complete. If you do not get this stuff out of the pot, your plant may be worse off after the flush than it was before it. This issue is why you will read opinions that one should never top water or flush an autopot plant due to the buildup of salts in the top of the pot. It is definitely best to avoid having to flush, but not flushing will be worse if you need to do it.

You asked...

Oh, I forgot to mention - more than one strain = more than one session with the sandpaper tube. Put more than one strain in the tube at once, and it becomes a tad hard to tell which is which. Not that anyone would ever forget that.

 

[OzScott]

@Olderfart - again, thank you for your time and effort in providing such detailed response!

In readying my 4x 15L pots as per your suggestion above... (using PN coco/perlite 70/30 - washed, pre-buffered, EC<0.5, pH stabilized).

I made 25L nutrient solution using proCal & 3 part base nutrients (~EC 0.5 PPM ~260 pH6.0 temp 20c) then evenly flushed the pots with all 25L - result of 1st round flush was an average pot RTW of ~EC1.5, PPM ~750ppm, pH 6.0.

I wasn't happy with the 1st RTW outcome values (still too high?) - so made another weaker 20L nutrient solution (~EC 0.4, PPM ~190, pH 6.1 temp 20c) and again evenly flushed the pots with all 20L - result of 2nd round flush was an average pot RTW of ~EC 0.65, ~PPM 320, pH 6.2.

Having flushed 45L through (or ~11L a pot) I've now placed back in tent to acclimitise.

Do you think this commercial coco/perlite mix was/is too strong to start off with @ manufacturer EC of up to EC 0.5?

Do you feel I should flush yet again to further lower EC and attempt to get pH down to suggested pH5.8 starting point (currently ~pH 6.2 per pot)?

In now having put so much water through the pots, I've read other forum suggestions to compress the coco in the pots to remove as much water as possible - then re-fluff the coco mix back to a open airy pot mix - rather than leaving compressed coco from removing excess liquids... do you agree or would you just let gravity do its thing knowing pot water percentage will be good come planting day?

Wow - never would have thought that growing weed was so meticulous - but fully understand the need to have all variables 'as right as possible' to obtain the most effective grow you can...

All - apologies again for hijacking this thread... but great information for 'Newbie Autpot Growers' as per the thread title

 

[throxic]

That's a nice starting medium and I wouldn't flush it. I like to keep pH between 5.7-6.3. I let it drift up and add pH down if needed. Due note with that coco/perlite blend, it's just for starting, so any nutrients will need to be fertigated. With autoflowers, I try to start off at 1/4 strength nutes and work up to 1/2 strength while adding bloom boosters during flower.

 

[OzScott]

Thanks @throxic - too late as for not flushing this new medium - I've now run a 3rd flush (~EC 0.35 PPM ~160 pH 5.6 temp 21c) through the 4x 15L pots - this further reduced the pots to ~EC 0.45 ~PPM 220 pH 6.3. I just can't get the pot coco pH levels lower than pH 6.3? That's it for now, no more flush, into tent waiting for pot up.

The coco mix initially starts @ ~EC 0.5 and with my initial base nute/calmag readying as described the pots were too high EC value imo (EC 1.5) - your suggesting don't worry about the initial starting value of ~EC 1.5 as long as the starting pH value is between 5.7-6.3.

So - I should really flush the pots again to further lower pH from current 6.3 down to 5.8 (that'd be lots of pH downing imo) or is my current pot value of pH 6.3 OK for initial seedling planting?

Have I f@#k'd up? No problems if so, I'll crack open another bag of same starting mix and commence 'readying' again under my now more informed knowledge of this process

@MANNIK - cause we typed earlier...

 

[throxic]

6.3 is fine, but when you fertigate, just be sure you're feeding around 5.7-5.8. The medium you bought was pre-charged with some beneficials more than likely and that's why it was showing a higher EC.

I run with Coco Loco, it's a pre-amended coco/soil mix, and I've noticed an EC of 3-3.5k in my run off near the beginning. Girls don't miss a beat.

 

[Olderfart]

Thanks @throxic - too late as for not flushing this new medium - I've now run a 3rd flush (~EC 0.35 PPM ~160 pH 5.6 temp 21c) through the 4x 15L pots - this further reduced the pots to ~EC 0.45 ~PPM 220 pH 6.3. I just can't get the pot coco pH levels lower than pH 6.3? That's it for now, no more flush, into tent waiting for pot up.

The coco mix initially starts @ ~EC 0.5 and with my initial base nute/calmag readying as described the pots were too high EC value imo (EC 1.5) - your suggesting don't worry about the initial starting value of ~EC 1.5 as long as the starting pH value is between 5.7-6.3.

So - I should really flush the pots again to further lower pH from current 6.3 down to 5.8 (that'd be lots of pH downing imo) or is my current pot value of pH 6.3 OK for initial seedling planting?

Have I f@#k'd up? No problems if so, I'll crack open another bag of same starting mix and commence 'readying' again under my now more informed knowledge of this process

@MANNIK - cause we typed earlier...

I'd say you are ready, I would not flush any further. It is hard to say what the meter is actually measuring in the initial drainage from fresh coco, but I think the flushing you have already done should set you up nicely. As to compressing and then fluffing the coco, I would not bother. Your coco perlite mix will drain very effectively, and in the long run, the medium will settle on its own no matter what you do. If I were you, I would get those pots into your grow space to warm them up, and get those seeds soaking if they are not planted already.

Your care and attention at this stage is an excellent start to your grow. I expect that you are going to be well supplied by the end of it! If you have not done so already, have a look at @Mañ'O'Green's information on nutrients. Bottom line is keep that nute mix balanced, and be really careful with the cal mag. Make sure that you understand the instructions from the nute manufacturer, follow their instructions on the ratios and sequencing for mixing. But do not use the full strength mix they recommend. Mix up exactly as recommended, and then dilute with water to your target EC before adjusting pH. The ppms/ec that @Mañ'O'Green finds effective are your best starting point for information, other than adjustment downwards to account for autopot operation. You are better off leaving your plants a little bit hungry (note that I said little bit) than overfeeding, or getting nutes out of balance. You largest risk with coco and salt nutes is getting the plants locked out due to imbalance or excess. As long as you avoid that problem, you will have a great grow. If using tap water, it needs to be less than ~300 EC or the contents could cause mischief.

Which Green Planet series are you using? I notice that they actually have a few specifically intended for autopots, but do not know how important the differences from their other lines are.

Apologies to @Bonzerchicken, @OzScott and I seem to have taken over here, I hope that some of this is at least a bit useful to you as well.
Happy growing to both of you.

 

[OzScott]

6.3 is fine, but when you fertigate, just be sure you're feeding around 5.7-5.8. The medium you bought was pre-charged with some beneficials more than likely and that's why it was showing a higher EC.

I run with Coco Loco, it's a pre-amended coco/soil mix, and I've noticed an EC of 3-3.5k in my run off near the beginning. Girls don't miss a beat.

Thanks @throxic - your reassurance that my initial coco/perlite pot pH level of 6.3 is fine - great news. Will definitely fertigate ongoing with a low pH as suggested of 5.7-5.8 (hopefully this slowly stabilises the pots pH at lower value than current 6.3). Must admit though - I have placed my soaked & now germinated seeds (thanks again @Olderfart for your detailed germination process) into prepared solo cups for the first days of life. So once they push their heads above ground in these cups and stabilize (germination tent, heat mat, humidity tray with lid etc...) I'll pot up into the 15L readied pots asap (in tent acclimatizing presently).

Considering you run with similar coco & it too releases very high initial EC when first used which was fine for your plants - I will not bother attempting to lower EC when readying my next bag of coco based on your experiences.

 

[OzScott]

Thankyou @Olderfart for your informed response again... you and all the other AFN autopot growers caring enough to provide us newbies with advice and direction - greatly appreciated all!

I'd say you are ready, I would not flush any further. It is hard to say what the meter is actually measuring in the initial drainage from fresh coco, but I think the flushing you have already done should set you up nicely. As to compressing and then fluffing the coco, I would not bother. Your coco perlite mix will drain very effectively, and in the long run, the medium will settle on its own no matter what you do. If I were you, I would get those pots into your grow space to warm them up, and get those seeds soaking if they are not planted already.

15L pots are in the tent acclimatizing - baby seeds sprouted and in germination tent waiting for above ground day - all systems go for grow... My meters are Bluelab, both pH & EC/PPM pens - so I'm trusting they're correct (both regularly cleaned & calibrated).

Your care and attention at this stage is an excellent start to your grow. I expect that you are going to be well supplied by the end of it! If you have not done so already, have a look at @Mañ'O'Green's information on nutrients. Bottom line is keep that nute mix balanced, and be really careful with the cal mag. Make sure that you understand the instructions from the nute manufacturer, follow their instructions on the ratios and sequencing for mixing. But do not use the full strength mix they recommend. Mix up exactly as recommended, and then dilute with water to your target EC before adjusting pH. The ppms/ec that @Mañ'O'Green finds effective are your best starting point for information, other than adjustment downwards to account for autopot operation. You are better off leaving your plants a little bit hungry (note that I said little bit) than overfeeding, or getting nutes out of balance. You largest risk with coco and salt nutes is getting the plants locked out due to imbalance or excess. As long as you avoid that problem, you will have a great grow. If using tap water, it needs to be less than ~300 EC or the contents could cause mischief.

Your comments re nutrients taken on board. I am using Green Planet 3-part nutrients along with their supplements & additives. They do in deed have a specific recommended feeding schedule supposedly developed specifically for autopots - it is different from there generic hydro nutrient feed charts. I understand the requirement to keep manufacturer NER (Nutrient Element Ratio), mixing order, and need to weaken nute mix down to required EC levels. I have decided based on other discussion on AFN to use the GP supplements & additives at half strength only in the mixes (hopefully correct thing to do). My starting water is creek water running at ~PPM 45. @Mañ'O'Green - any chance of a link to your nutrient information for our ongoing reference please?

@Bonzerchicken - again, my apologies for seemingly hijacking your thread - but I do beleive the information discussed will be quite relevant for any newbie growers ongoing...