Hello fellowship of the weed.
After being a long time lurker here it's finally time to put all the informations I gleaned from other diaries to use and start my own grow.
So I build myself a growbox from a wardrobe, ordered 3 different autoflower strains from RQS (Royal Dwarf, Royal Bluematic & Bubble Kush Automatic) and got a 4th one (Royal Creamatic) for free.
I settled for Autoflowers, because my growbox is a bit short and Autos tend to stay shorter ;-)
As my growbox has exactly the space for four 11 liter (3 gal) pots I decided to give each strain a chance and lets see which ones are resilient enough to survive me.
Each strain will be covered in its own Grow Diary, so this is Chapter 3 of my "Study in Green": Creamatic
Setup
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The wardrobe I turned into a growbox measures 50cm x 80cm x 165cm (20"x32"x65") on its inside
The walls are lined with reflective sheets, the doors sealed for smell and light
A 5" inline ventilator (220m³/h) with a fitting carbon scrubber
Two passive intake holes covered with grills and filter padding against dust and pests
Grow light is a Niello 300W (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y2YN7GV) with 60pcs 5Watt Bridgelux/Epileds (draws 133W for real), seems very similar to a Viparspectra 300W
One 8" fan for internal air circulation
This setup has cost me about €400,-.
It is light and smell tight, looking innocent when closed, only the ventilation is a bit louder than I am comfortable with...
Soil & Nutrients
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I am using a 50:50 mix of BioBizz Light:All Mix, as I read the All Mix might be too "hot" for autos.
I will be using the BioBizz nutes with the All Mix feeding schedule (the one with the lesser amounts as less is more with autos), in the hope the company knows what they are doing ;-)
For better drainage I filled in one litre of clay pebbles at the ground of the pots
The overall cost for seeds, soil, nutes and estimated energy cost for this grow is €140,-
Plans & Goals
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I plan to use LST and defoliation on my girls.
I aim for a yield of 15 to 30 gram (1/2-1 oz) per plant, so 2-4oz in total.
If I can harvest those 60 gram minimum yield I aim for, I would have invested the same money in the grow (including the growbox) than for the same amount of weed on the streets here, but now knowing it is 100% clean and biological. Everything above that would be a bonus.
As this is my very first grow any comments, tips and suggestions are welcome.
And so it begins...
Germination
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I have put the seed in a jiffy pot with soil & perlite, soaked with ph'ed water (tap water is around 8ph) with BioBizz RootJuice and a dose of mykhorriza.
After 3 days the Bubble Kush Creamatic broke the earth together with the Bluematic Lady and the Creamatic, marking my Day 1 of the study, 😍
I am so exited with this adventure...
Less than that, yes. 😎
Here a link to Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06Y2YN7GV/
It says 300W in the description, but that's the equivalent to a HID light.
I draws 67W with only the veg light on and 136W with veg & bloom light, like I have it on since they are in flower.
I looks similar to a Viparspectra 300W.
I am pretty happy with this light so far, even though it is a bit small for my 0.4 m² growbox, should have taken the 450W equivalent, but yeah, you live and learn ... 😜