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Time for a new setup! In this grow I'll be trying to find a better nutrient schedule for autoflowers using BioBIzz.
I plan to keep it simple and only use Grow, Bloom, Top Max and CalMag as I have really soft water.
Will be running a parallel experiment using the non auto Purple Lemonade from Fast Buds to see how much faster they are.
Things I want to try this time:
- increase humidity at least during vegetative phase (I need the air filter at full efficiency, due to neighbors)
- Make sure I don't overwater to see if I can prevent fruit flies
- Prevent nutrient lock at all cost
Tested a micro humidifier in this box too and it went horribly wrong, just flooded everywhere. Mind you, it did raise the humidity a bit :D More testing next week.
Second week with the mini humidifier here and so far mixed results. I need something with larger capacity so I don't have to refill it every single day, but still small enough to fit the IKEA box.
Strongly considering to add a heated mat too at some point. There seems to be quite a bit of temperature difference between the plant and the bottom of the pot. Maybe just some insulations. Sooo many things to try, but let's focus on not overfeeding them 😃
Didn't really give these 2 the attention they needed this week and they dried up a tiny little bit. Also they stretched quite a bit compared to the non auto ones.
Time to start with some LST, right at the limit as the core is quite thick already, but still bendy enough.
First pistils have started to come out.
Totally forgot that the plants now require more water and they suffered a bit of stress for a couple of days. Looks like nothing too serious but still the stress is visible.
The flowering has kicked in quite significantly in just one week.
Rusty spots started to appear on some leafs so time to up the CalMag (with moderation :D) and the Low Stress Training continues. Sloppy but it continues.
Did a little more LST and moved the clips around and removed a lot of fan leafs to allow some of the smaller flowers to catch up.
The purple is starting to heavily come out and it's starting to smell real nice in there :)
As I keep on messing up the watering by either over or under watering, I have started to put the water in the saucer to get a better idea how much the plant needs. Hopefully the leafs will start to look a bit better soon as they are quite droopy.
The leafs on these Purple Lemonade autos are getting progressively dry and droopy. not sure what's going on.
I switched to watering the plants directly from the saucer as I'm really bad at determining how much they need.
Humidity too low? What am I missing?
could be a few things but lets get the watering habits sqared away, first.. who knows what clears up from that.
i'd suggest more perlite next time.. approaching 50%. makes overwatering virtually impossible. (30% with coco, not 50)
you don't pick teh volume... the size of the pot and when you irrigate determines the volume needed. you can only learn this retroactively or by doing things the same way each time as far as soil components.
Water until you are certain teh entire pot gets wet. Recurring dry pockets will eventually cause problems. Now, you can dial this in to waste the least amount of water and reduce any runoff to near zero. that way you don't waste what nutrients come pre-loaded into the soil.
i would reduce your current feeding regimen.. either less frequent or lower concentration or combo of the two.. .you can always ramp back up. you'll learn more on the next run when you dial it down a bit and see how the plant reacts to that from a point before problems occur. keep dialing it in better the next time.
Watch for any nosedive in leaves if it starts to pale too much then amp it back up and feel more confident it was more about overwatering than nutrient-related, but i would expect some of that curling is too high nutes in substrate.
allow the substrate to dry top 1" before re-irrigating or fertilizing... depending on concentration of fertilizer you may need it ever other or every third irrigation.. kinda depends on your personal choices with concentration... more frequent and lower concentrations fed 'on demand' will probably have better results but also reuire more effort from you. but, you go that route you might as well switch to soilless.
with soil it's always a guessing game. stick to same products and you can learn how to amp up and supplement whatis lost from soil over time properly to avoid any issues... eventually you'll find a path for a healthy seed to harvest run.
Nothing much happening this week, just trying to get the plants back to normal after weeks of overwatering abuse. They seem to be stabilizing, let's hope the flowering process is not overly stunned.
On the brights side, I haven't had any nutrient lock during this grow (so far) :D
This grow is coming to an end. The plant looks messed up but it's still gonna make it :D
Looks like in all this mayhem I've missed some clear nitrogen deficiency. I was so distracted with the ton of other problems that I just took the BioBizz All Mix soil chart and went with that. I'm starting to thing I'm a bit too rough of a grower for autos :D
We are reaching the end of this grow. Quite a smell difference between the 2 plants, with one smelling nice and fruity and the other smelling like ammonia somehow :D
The output will be quite modest, but at least the plant really looks nice and dark, showing all that purple in full glory.
Time to start flushing these autos. They are progressing extremely slowly, I'm just waiting for some pistils to start darkening a little and then it will be time to take it down. 7-10 days or so
Last week of flushing before one of the 2 plants comes down. I need some better quality camera or a microscope. I'm hoping that I don't cut down the plant too early or too late. Sadly the one that's coming down didn't improve much and has an odd ammonia smell. The second one smells nice and fruity.
It's been hard to watch these 2 plants as they have suffered so much damage due to my overwatering. The 2 plants came down 1 week apart. The second one I took down as it kinda froze and nothing was changing.
The plants definitely have that distinct smell you get from Lemonine. I really hope I don't mess up the drying and curing (another classic of mine), and get to enjoy those nice and fruity aromas.
I've been growing the non auto version of this strain in parallel. Hard to say which one I prefer. The autoflower was faster (duh!) and didn't cause any smell issues. It did however suffer insanely the overwatering and never managed to recover.
The non auto is so far slower, but has been really sturdy. It has allowed me to use full feeding quantity with the BioBizz range, with almost no overnutrition issues. For the next grow I will try to make individual nutrient mix for each plant. This could have avoided the little burn on the tips on one of the 2.
NordicClosetGrower
