(mostly) Organic Autopot Mephisto grow

🌱Seeds sprouted Nov 29🌱 This will be my first organic soil grow in a long time. I have been doing synthetic photoperiods in coco for a few years now (not all my grows are tracked on here). My goals for this grow are to use primarily organic products (some things like miicrobial mass pro are not listed as organic but I may still use it). I also would like to aim to use Canadian products, the more local the better. My substrate of choice is 'Original Sea Soil organic compost', a local product made in Canada. I've heard amazing things about it especially among the few who try it out for cannabis. As for amendments I'll be using Gaia Green Bloom, worm castings, and keep meal. The soil was mixed with roughly about 30% Perlite, and the very top portion of the pots were mixed with a bit of peat moss as well just in case the soil was too hot for seedlings (and because I ran out of soil to top them off) This will also be my first time going back to Autoflowering plants since my very first grow. I wanted to check out Mephisto's genetics as I've never used them before. If growth is good and healthy I intend to try and top each plant once and then train under a scrog net.

Week going good so far, I probably could have watered a little more often and a bit more volume. I was really trying to avoid overwatering, and I didn't expect the substrate to dry out that fast. I'm glad the drainage is good.

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Top dressed each container with 2tbsp all purpose, 5tbsp power Bloom, 2tbsp kelp flour, and a handful of worm castings (about 1 cup). I had closed the autopot valve the day prior to empty the trays, then I watered in the nutes and turned the system back on

-- Dec 27 (Beginning of week 5) -- Plants are starting to stretch and growth is VERY fast, have to adjust in the scrog net every day. Plants are showing signs of deficiencies, i believe just due to amending too late and a bit of light burn. Things aren't too bad just yet so hopefully I can get it under control. -- Dec 28 -- Decided to try out a compost tea. I've heard mixed things about it but figured it couldn't hurt to give it a shot. I kind of eyeballed it, but added about 1 cup of my SeaSoil compost, 1/3 cup worm castings, 1Tbsp Gaia Green all purpose, 1Tbsp Gaia Green bloom, 1Tbsp Kelp Flour, about 3 gallons water. Bubbled for about 15 hours. I used it as a foliar spray, used some to soak the top soil where previous amendments were, and added the rest to my water reservoir to continue to bubble. I've heard mixed things about bubbling longer than 72 hours, but i want to try it out. It would be nice if it works as a feeding alternative to top-dressing with the autopots. I raised the lights some more as I think some plants are showing light burn

Have been having calcium issues. Ph seems fine, started adding epsom salts and gypsum to fix -- Jan 05 (Day 37) -- Top dressed the plants with 2.5Tbsp All purposes, 7.5Tbsp Bloom, 1/8cup kelp flour, 1/2cup worm castings. Also added cedar mulch to help keep the top layer moist This is a little early for the scheduled feeding but my previous feed was a bit light to feel out the plants and they are showing deficiencies. We will see how this plays out

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the plant's symptoms just keep getting worse, I'm just hoping they can hold out until harvest. Interestingly, I was watching a video from build-a-soil where they were growing in autopots as well. He started having a small issue as well, and they guessed it was due to the soil being much more hydrated than normal watering from the autopot systems. The overwatering causing issues with nitrogen uptake for starters. going to do more research on this but for now I've turned off my autopot system to try and let them chill out a bit. I'll occasionally water from the top I think to limit the damage until harvest.

The issues this grow were almost for certain overwatering / root rot. I noticed the bottom of the autopot trays had standing water days after shutting it off. Opened them up and pointed a fan towards the bottom of the tent to help dry them out. As for why they weren't drinking that water, I'll do an autopsy after harvest. I don't want to bother them any more than I have to. Such a shame as the buds were fattening up and starting to smell soo good

Not much more to say. After letting them dry out completely from the bottom, I packed the top with worm castings, and watered from above. The damage seems to be slowing down at least, but the buds will look kinda fucked up if they make it to harvest. I don't really want to pull them early but we'll see. My gut feeling is this is all due to one of two possibilities. Either A: using only straight compost and perlite didn't have enough drainage capability and just became waterlogged. Or B: there was a problem at the bottom of my pots with how I prepared them (I had used a layer of perlite instead of clay pebbles on the bottom), I'm thinking it's possible the roots grew out the bottom of the pot, clogged the holes, then died of root rot preventing optimal hydration of the rest of the plant.

Tough ride once I reached flowering. Couldn't get a hold on the deficiencies and the flowers got rather crispy and discolored in the end. Buds were pretty larfy and fluffy.

On harvest the trichomes were amber, I'm not aware if nutrient deficiencies can effect them, or if it was just coincidentally time to harvest anyways. Buds were larfy but got a good yield from them, they will be fine for edibles.