Runtz Auto

Nothing too exciting to report here. The pictures are exactly 7 days since I put the seeds in the soil. Not watered so far, soil still wet enough. There is no ventilation in the small tent I'm using for seedlings. I just leave the corner of the tent unzipped and it stays a constant, steady 80F. To get the VPD in the ideal range, I have to crank up the RH to about 70. It seems kind of hot and wet to me, but I guess it's not a big deal at this stage. After transplanting, they will be in a cooler, drier environment. They'd be there now except I'm waiting for some climate control equipment to be delivered.

I'm inserting this week just to document the pics. The seedlings are still in Solo cups. The pics were taken on the 21st and 22nd (11-12 days since planting in the soil). I will be transplanting them in a week, which is early, but I have some external factors that necessitate moving the plants to the attic a little earlier than expected.

Note to self: If you do this again next year, wait one more month so there aren't any hot days Photos taken on 10/29 (19 days from seed). The plants have been transplanted into the Earthbox (both of them--I'm doing 2 plants in a full size Earthbox). It seems like they slowed down for a few days after transplant but they are growing again. Preparing for explosive vegetative growth. The plants are now in the "deep freeze grow room." The insulation is working very well, but there are some stability issues with temperature and humidity. I have been able to keep temperatures *relatively* stable, but they fluctuate between 70F-80F pretty frequently. Humidity is 50%-Here are some details: 1. A 100W flat panel radiant heater keeps the temp from falling below 70F. This mainly kicks on when the light is turned off. 2. The humidifier max setting is 80%RH, and the cabinet itself stays at about 60%RH. I'm not sure why this is since the fan is ensuring maximum entropy. My best guess is a cheap hygrometer in the humidifier. Unfortunately, I do not have a control device that could regulate the humidity more precisely. I should invest in one for the next grow. 3. The exhaust fan is something I am adjusting constantly. We have had hotter days than expected lately, and the insulation really keeps in the heat. When it is cold outside (sub-40F), the cabinet works great, but that means the heater kicks on more often. When it is warmer outside, the fan stays on constantly, but when it is cooler I set it on a cycle. 2 min On / 7 min Off tends to work best when the outside temps are between 30-40. Temp/humidity regulation will obviously change as the plants get bigger and respirate more. The jury is still out on how well my cold weather cabinet will work, but so far I have been able to regulate it so that the VPD is averaging 1.33 kPa. Not terrible, but not great. The real Achilles heel in the system is the weak humidifier. If it could more quickly raise the humidity in the cabinet I'd be able to keep VPD lower, as one would want in the veg stage. Fuck it, though, I'm growing in an uninsulated attic in a totally DIY cabinet so I should be happy it's working at all.

I added a couple pics from early in week 4 (day 24) to mark when they started to transition to flower. The photos are of the larger plant. The smaller one is also transitioning. Some of the other Barney's Runtz Auto diaries on here have larger plants at this point. Some of them are actually hard to believe. I think they might be fibbing a little bit (or counting days differently).

The Day 28 pictures are from the last day of Week 4 but I might not be available tomorrow to take photos. I don't know what is going on. One plant is doing great. The other plant seems to have given up on life and hasn't added any height in about 5 days. The new growth is curling like it's N toxicity. However, that's not supposed to happen in Build-a-soil 3.0 / Earthbox. There are three theories that I came up with in collaboration with Reddit commenters. 1. Maybe there are "hot spots" in Build-a-soil mix. I don't know how that would happen since the soil is all mixed up, but maybe the plant just didn't like where I put it. It was a little too small to transplant, but I had to do it for personal reasons. Maybe transplanting when they are very young is a mistake because the soil is too hot for them. 2. I didn't top water when I transplanted. One commenter said that you should top-water when you transplant because the roots haven't yet had a chance to get to the clear water at the bottom of the Earthbox. That makes some sense to me. I'm just hoping the roots make t to that water before the plant dies. 3. Barney's has spotty genetics. I have no idea if that's true. Haven't used their product before. I chose them because I read they have a good reputation. Otherwise, things are going great. The temperature outside has finally cooled down, so I am able to keep a consistent climate inside the cabinet. The larger plant is starting to flower right on schedule. You can see in my pictures that I moved my temp/hum sensors so they're right above the surface of the Earthbox. It would be better if they were in shade, but I need to wait for some more leaf cover before I can do that. Regardless, I think they are reading accurately. Since I am inexperienced with autos and I'm already having some problems, I decided not to top the plants. I'm just going to let them run and see what happens. ------- Day 35 (Last day of week 5): The large plant is doing well overall. A couple of leaves are showing what appears to be a calcium deficiency, and I'm not sure why that is since I'm using dolomite and Build-a-flower top dress. I know the Ca is in there.... The smaller plant, strangely enough has seemed to regained the will to live. It's about a week or two behind the other one. I decided to top it to see what would happen, and it seems to have responded well. The larger plant was not topped. Since this is my first run with autos/Earthbox I'm just letting it go to see what happens. I did some LST to provide light to lower bud sites, but that is all I'm going to do. Oh, and the whole cabinet smells like Fruity Pebbles. The buds already have the characteristic colors. Very glad to see the strain expressing its unique qualities.

11/19 Update on nutrient deficiency: The problem that had been happening seems to have resolved itself. I trimmed the worst affected leaves, and I left the ones that only had a few spots on them. The Earthbox reservoir ran dry, so it was time to water again. Instead of filling the Earthbox (2.5-3 gallons), I only put in a gallon. Since I trimmed, there haven't really been any new necrotic spots on the leaves. It seems to have found whatever it was lacking. My best guess is that it was over watering due to my inexperience with the Earthbox. Anyway, one plant is doing swell. The buds are getting thick. The other plant seems stuck in adolescence. The buds are at least two weeks behind the other plant. Next time I will definitely not try to grow two plants in one Earthbox. I wanted the plants to turn out small since I'm growing in a very small space, but they are WAY too small and have a lot of room in there to expand. I'm probably looking at 1.5 oz off of the big plant and a big zero off of the runt Runtz. 11/20 Weekly roundup: So far, I'm not loving the Earthboxes. These plants are totally screwed. I'm going to continue the grow because it looks like a few decent buds are developing, but the plants are really stunted and this has turned out to be pretty embarrassing overall. I'll keep uploading pics every Sunday, but I'm going to keep the comments to a minimum from here on out. I defoliated a little and I also LST'ed the main cola so it bent away from the light. Lessons learned: First, don't grow two plants in one Earthbox. Second, there is way more technique to using an Earthbox than "just add water." Balancing pH and making sure not to over or under water in an Earthbox is more difficult than in a cloth pot. You have to water more often with a cloth pot, but in the Earthbox you can't make any mistakes. Once the water is in there, it's in there for good. The pH in the reservoir fluctuates, and what are you supposed to do about that? You can't pH adjust the water in the reservoir because you can't get a good reading. I'm sure that after you use the Earthbox a few times you get used to it. I don't see the advantage though, especially after seeing how much more the Earthbox promotes fungus gnat reproduction. I would rather water every day than get gnats in my mouth. I'd also like to be able to dry out the plant and pH adjust quicker, as you can with a cloth pot (or anything else). I have never had a plant fail in either hydro or soil. This is the worst grow I've ever had. I also tried to grow basil in an Earthbox Jr. and it died too. I am about to abandon the Earthboxes.

Although both plants are small, it looks like they are going to produce a decent amount after all. The leaf spotting problem never really resolved itself, but it's also not getting worse. I lowered water pH to 6.2 last time and 6.0 the most recent time that I watered. It's kind of weird that the little one is about 2-3 weeks behind the larger one. I don't know if that's just how autoflowers work or if the delay was the result of my mistakes. Maybe it will end up producing a lot. I topped the small one a few weeks ago, and the center of the plant is very crowded right now. Lesson learned: I think that autoflowers with good genetics grow so fast and start needing flowering nutrients so quickly that there is less room for error than I'm used to. The plant doesn't have time to adapt (especially if you transplant early like I had to--I should have gone from seed in the Earthbox.). I had a combination of overwatering and underwatering problems right after the transplant and right before the plant transitioned to flower. What you want with the Earthbox is for the plant to have become totally comfortable in its environment before the transition to flower. The transition happened so fast with this strain (Day 24) that it had to be transplanted around the same time as the transition to flower. Problems cascaded from poor initial conditions.

In proportion to the plant's size, the buds are huge. If I wouldn't have messed up the Earthbox stuff these would have been really big producers. The larger plant is looking pretty good. I only took pictures of that one. The smaller plant is visibly behind--many more white pistils, just younger looking. So, maybe it will end up producing okay. Both plants are riddled with nutrient deficiencies, but there's nothing to do about that now. It was a depressing grow in many ways. Earthboxes + living soil are not the magical solution to low, low maintenance growing. Maybe if you have established living soil in a perfect environment and a whole bunch of automation equipment you could more or less set it and forget it. However, that's not where I'm at. I'm in a cramped attic closet with minimal space for gear. Once you factor in the fucking fungus gnats, the whole thing isn't worth it. A few must've hitchhiked with me and now they're in the houseplants. This shit doesn't happen with hydro. Oh, also I got out my little microscope to track trichome production. Cool pics.

Buds developing. It's funny how small these plants are. Even if I wouldn't have messed them up they'd still be rather small. In terms of size, these autos are great for home growers like me. The quality of the bud looks fantastic, despite my fuckups. To recap my lessons learned: Earthboxes/living soil are the worst if you're a microgrower in a 2x2 or 2x4 space. I'm sorry, but NO ONE can create a thriving microbiome of symbiotic organisms in a little ass plastic box unless you are ULTRA-attentive to it and you have your environmental control dialed in to absolute perfection. If you want to be a living soil guy, you have to be on top of things. I'm not interested in this hobby taking up that much of my life. The Earthbox is what it is. More trouble than it's worth in my opinion. Since this is a diary, I'm going to write about my plans for the future: I'm going back to fabric bags and amended Fox Farm potting soil. My ultimate goal is to have a plant that I can completely ignore for a while (a week or so, but more would be better) if I have to travel. To that end, I think the next thing I'm going to try is a blumat. I noticed online that there's a blumat kit for a 5-gallon fabric pot. It's like $12, so worth giving a try. I learned that autoflowers are definitely the way to go for a hands-off approach. You can plant it and not do a thing--no lst, defoliation, whatever--and it will turn out great, remaining small enough that you don't overcrowd a small space. I'm sure there are some autoflower strains that grow a lot bigger, but there are no photoperiods, in my experience, that grow as small. I've done 12/12 from seed in a small space and the plant ended up larger than these autoflowers. Now that I've done a whole bunch of grows in hydro, soil in pots, and an Earthbox, I can pretty comfortably say that the lowest maintenance/best result option is fabric pots with organic potting soil and organic amendments. The one thing I will try in the future that I haven't in the past is mycorrhizae in the potting soil. If the blumat works out, I think I will finally have a super low-maintenance option.

Big purple thickies. Harvesting in one week. Day 73 Update: I snipped a bit of a bud to look at under the microscope. Looks perfect. Decent number of amber trichomes. Two more days (Day 75) and it will definitely be harvest time.

The genetics were great. Even though I seriously messed these plants up somehow they still ended up producing great. The ultra-stressed plant developed denser trichomes, but it was much smaller weight. The colors on the strain are crazy. Dark purples and maroons all the way up to lighter greens and yellows. The scent is super fruity and light. The messed up plant smells more myrcene dominant. I will post buds once they are dried and trimmed. I pulled off the big leaves and left them on the branches. I'll do a dry trim later.