Indoor SCH & Chaze done wrong

[Gilbert Shelton]

Let's start with the apologies.

To all concerned:
Sorry I will have been so lazy tending my plants and updating this journal.

To the civilized world:
Sorry for using Imperial measures. Blame the British.

To Stitch:
First, let me make perfectly clear that I will NOT be showing the best of what Stitch genetics can produce. To see a Chaze done right check out Stanko's grow @ https://www.autoflower.org/f21/chazedays-1477-11.html . Instead, I'll try to show what great genetics will yield a novice grower under really quite poor (but common) growing conditions. Stitch's SuperAutos, I think, respond best to being grown outside in deep soil with tropical sun and lots of headroom. I'll be doing none of that. I'm going to try to force them to live in a small tent (4'x2'x5' ghetto modified to 6') in small pots (3 gal. for SCH, 5 gal. for Chaze) under 400w HPS/MH. IF you HAD to grow a SuperAuto under these conditions, you should probably just grow one at a time under 600w and SCROG it. I'm going to try to grow 2 ('cause I want to hit them with my CG & MG pollen before it gets too old), [maybe more if my re-veg experiment works - but I don't expect it to], and I'm too lazy to SCROG. But I will try to at least get some decent pictures for Stitch that hide the terrible things I might have to do to keep these girls in the tent.

To the plants:

I fully expect to be killing quite a few of these seeds. Sorry, I just do. I'm batting about 50% with cannabis, which is better than my 10% success rate with tomatoes.

Things I'll be doing wrong:

Air flow. Dead calm from ~8 PM-9 AM, due to close neighbors & fan noise (which is minimal with the new fan, but still...)

Humidity. Under 30% whenever the lights are on, 60-70% during lights out.

Ph. Not gonna sweat it. Tap water is ~5.7 and that's what they're going to get. Runoff with the soil mix should still be ~6.5 - I hope. [I did this with the last photo grow and nobody got crippled.]

Light. Hours, to a large extent, will be determined by factors other than what might be best for the plant. Including temps, hours I'm willing to run the fan, and probably switching to 12/12 for awhile to speed flowering and reduce stretch.

Temps. Hot. I expect the canopy will run in the 90's for extended periods every day. The current crop, with only 11 hours of light a day, hit 100 almost every day during Summer. It won't be that bad this grow, but it will also be... Cold. Expect PM temps in the mid 50's and low 60's.

Nutes. No nutes. No massive colas. No insane yields.

Water. I will be over watering. I just do. Heck, the two beans I just buried are in a swamp as we speak. But I just pulled 'em from the fridge; hopefully by the time they wake up, the soil will be back down to 'moist'.

 

[Gilbert Shelton]

The Soil: I've been cooking the soil since 6/21 in 2 batches: Flower and Veg. Added the Kelp, Rock Phosphate, and Gypsum 9/5.

Supersoil III (Veg.)
1 Bag Roots Organic (1.5 cu ft?)
8 C. Coco
4 C. Worm Castings
1 Gal. Perlite
1 T. Azomite
2 T. Epsom Salts
1/3 C. Lime (pelletized dolomite)
1/2 C. Greensand 0-0-.1
1/3 C. Bone Meal 3-15-0
2 T. Blood Meal 13-0-0
1 1/3 C. Alfalfa Meal 2-1-2
1/2 C. Eggshells (hand crushed)
2 T. Fossilized Seabird Guano 1-10-1
1 T. Mycorrhizae
1 C. Kelp Meal .6-.5-2.5
1/2 C. Gypsum
1/2 C. Soft Rock Phosphate 0-2-0

Supersoil III (Flower)
1 Bag Roots Organic
6 C. Coco
4 C. Worm Castings
1 Gal. Perlite
1 T. Azomite
1/4 C. Epsom Salts
1/3 C. Lime (pelletized dolomite)
1 C. Greensand 0-0-.1
1/2 C. Bone Meal 3-15-0
2 T. Blood Meal 13-0-0 [Won't be in next flowering mix.]
1 1/3 C. Alfalfa Meal 2-1-2
1/2 C. Eggshells (hand crushed)
1/4 C. Fossilized Seabird Guano 1-10-1
1 C. Bat Guano 0-7-0
1 T. Mycorrhizae
1 C. Kelp Meal .6-.5-2.5
1/2 C. Gypsum
1 C. Soft Rock Phosphate 0-2-0

I filled the containers 2/3 with Flower mix, made a hole nearly to the bottom and pushed it up the sides,



then filled with Veg. mix and made another party cup sized depression


and filled that with Black Gold seedling mix.


Dropped a SCH bean in the 3 Gal.


And a Chaze in the 5 gal. Since I bought the SCH and the Chaze are testers (thank you again, Stitch), the Chaze get the glamour pot. (I'll run the Onyx next).


Then plopped 'em in the tent to cook.


Now we wait. If nothing is up in a week or so, I'll start another bean of each. Or if one pops and the other doesn't after a few days, I'll drop another of the laggard.

Temps are currently ~65-85 in the tent on an 11/13 cycle. Once the MG comes down, I can go long light and better germination temps.

Now I'm not saying that this layered supersoil thing that I'm doing is a good thing to do, it may even be harmful for all I know. But I can afford to experiment because I don't care a whit about yield. It's just something you can do if, like me, you are exceedingly lazy or prone to over loving your girls with potent fertilizers. And the ratios I'm using are just WAGs based very loosely on Subcool's recipe and toned way down - very much a work in progress. I figure as long as the Ph works out and there aren't any toxic quantities in there, the plant can go get whatever it wants without my trying to guess. YMMV.

 

[Gilbert Shelton]

I put all 3 of my prior grows in the introductions thread; both for background and for practice. See: https://www.autoflower.org/f35/howdy-do-11544.html . So, if I reference anything prior to this, it's likely in there.

 

[Gilbert Shelton]

It's (presumably) a girl!:dance: Or a weed. But looks like the SCH is up.



I rooted around in the Chaze pot to see if it was having trouble coming up, since I put the beans ~1/2" down to help 'em shed their shells on the way up. But I couldn't even find the seed - despite having planted a flag on it. The soil was actually rather dry. Seems the seedling mix handles my heavy-handed watering better than my amended soils. Anyway, I soaked it down again and dropped a second Chaze bean in there. Hopefully, at least one Chaze will pop before the Super Cali Haze gets too far ahead. Or dies. None of my babies are safe from my black thumb until about the third set of leaves. But at least there's something green going on in the tent.

Further bulletins as events warrant.

 

[Gilbert Shelton]

OK, time for the regular weekly update. I'm going to try and shoot some pics every Monday and post them Mon. or, well, when I get around to it. So far, I've got a very small SCH in a small (3 gal.) pot.



She came up with very slight damage to the cotyledon ends, but without a shell stuck on her, which was the idea behind burying her 1/2" deep. Why is it important to me for the babies to emerge w/o a shell stuck on? Glad you asked. Because 1) in somebody else's journal Sir Stitch had mentioned that some of his Super Autos [or maybe specifically the Chaze, I forget] can have rather thick shells and occasional difficulty shedding them, 2) there's maybe a 10% chance that a stuck shell can stunt or kill a plant if left alone, but most importantly 3) there's about a 70% chance that I will stunt or kill a plant if I try to "help" it out of a stuck shell - and I will.

Meanwhile, my half-hearted attempt to re-veg a CG and a MG continues without much happening. Half-hearted because I don't really have the room and may have to pull 'em even if it works. Just something I want to try and see if I can do.



Everyone's been on 18/6 cycle since the MG came down 10/16. Soil-level temps are 65-85F, with most of the day spent in the 70's. Humidity 25-45% with most of the day spent in the 30's. Light is a tad over 2' above the SCH.

So far, nothing from the Chaze beans buried on 10/11 & 10/20. If I don't have green by the weekend, I'll drop the last Chaze bean.

 

[cifer]

Wish u good luck for the chaze

 

[Gilbert Shelton]

And then there were two...

A Chaze popped her head up this AM. Sans shell - so that's one less way I can kill her. And look at her stem!



The only other time I've seen a deep purple stem like that [in my vast experience growing 12 plants ] was on the Malawi Gold. So I suppose I should acknowledge that there's a minute possibility it's a volunteer from the MG girl, but the laws of physics argue against it.

Haven't killed the SCH, yet.





So the Chaze is 5 days behind the Super Cali-Haze. But in a much bigger pot. Seems like a fair fight. Hopefully, the other Chaze bean won't come up and force me to have the abortion talk with myself. Don't really know what I'd do.

Oh, and I kinda lied about not sweating the Ph. They're getting Ph'd water now and will until I can drench them and test runoff, because I haven't tested this batch of soil yet. But I expect they'll be on a diet of plain acidic water in a few weeks. With a little honey or molasses - just because.

 

[Gilbert Shelton]

No fatalities to report, yet.

I let the girls get a little dry (for me) yesterday, then (prematurely) drenched them today. Mostly just to get a runoff Ph reading. Which I didn't, because I gave them just enough to drastically over water the babes - but not enough to get any runoff. Swing and a miss. Maybe next week I can start weaning them off the baking soda.

SCH started her 2nd set of leaves yesterday.

Lowered the light (also prematurely) to 18" today. And started to give them a few hours of oscillating fan a day (maybe prematurely). The lights and fan may be a little harsh at this stage, but I desperately need to limit stretch. I want 'em concentrating on growing down 'n' out - not up. Also, the fan will help 'em suck the excess water out.

Low temp for the week was 64, high 99 @ 7" below the light, probably high 80's/low 90's down by the girls. Didn't have a monitor at soil level, as they were all doing duty monitoring the curing of the last grow. :booya: I'll have a second one in the tent this week. Humidity ran 20-50% with the bulk of time spent in the mid 20's to mid 30's. Super Autos are Stitch's way; hot, dry, and over watered is my way. :no:

SCH @ 9 days from breaking soil, 18 from seed:



Chaze @ 4 days from breaking soil, 9 from seed*:







And the CG just showed (maybe) the first sign of new growth (re-vegging):



Still not sure where I'm going with this side project. Just in it for the experience at this point.

If you're on the US east coast, stay inside and dry. If you're not - then you don't need my advice. Come to think of it, you don't need my advice even if you are. Heck, almost no one has ever needed my advice, and certainly none who did ever took it. So, um, I guess what I'm saying is...carry on.

*I'm assuming here that the Chaze that is up is from the second bean I dropped. If it were from the first bean, it'd also be 18 days from seed. Just sayin'.

 

[cifer]

Cool they definetly take off in the following days

 

[Gilbert Shelton]

Everyone survived the storm. Which is to be expected, as I'm nowhere near it.

Got a monitor on the babies last Tues., and they hit 100F between fan off and lights off. Adjusted the light cycle back an hour (still 18/6, I just started an extra hour before fan on and made lights out an hour less after fan off), and they haven't topped 94 since. Low temp was 63. Humidity between mid-teens and mid-50's.

Lowered the light a little more today, to ~15".

Gave them a good acid rain today, but runoff was only around 6.0, so top dressed them each with ~1/4 tsp of lime. May be stuck with using baking soda after all. We'll see what happens next week.

How come whenever I upload a group of pics the first one in que always fails? The rest upload fine, but I always have to go back and get the first one again. Annoying. Anyway...

Chaze 11 days from up. Just starting third set.






SCH 16 days from up. A couple days into her third set.





CG #6 just starting to show new growth.



Malawi Gold getting into the re-veg. [I lied last week, it was the MG, not the CG that started new growth last week.]



Tent.



Still dunno how long I'm going to let the photo girls re-veg, or whether I'm going to go so far as to re-flower. Just playing it by ear. They switched from 11/13 to 18/6 20 days ago, if anyone cares.

Hot, dry, acidic, and over watered is my way.