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Decided to grow one auto in DWC as a kind of test to compare next to the 3 outdoor autos I am growing.
Below is my planting method for hydro:
1. I germinated the seed and as soon as the taproot was about a half inch long I transplanted it into a cut in half Rapid Rooter.
2. I immediately took that and put it into the hydroton at the level I wanted (about 3 inches from the bottom of the net pod) and filled around it with hydroton leaving the top bare for her to sprout out of.
3. Once she sprouted and grew up a bit I filled in around her stem lightly with hydroton.
4. I held the water reservoir level at 2 inches above the bottom of the net pot for the first week then brought it down to 1 inch, then just to the bottom of the pod.
She sprouted on 6/15.
Always see the last picture for nutes, I do not use the system they have built into the site.
Going to be my first auto grow indoor and hydro so I am pretty excited. I am running nutes at 1/4 recommended dosage so hopefully she does not burn. Gave her a smidge of the recharge to see what happens.
Anyway, much love to the community. Grow on!
Day 16:
Hey all,
Things are going good for the most part. Her root mass is definitely developing. I think she is really liking that recharge so I gave her a bit more this week.
She is showing some mild signs of heat stress so I backed the light up a little bit and I am going to work on getting a humidifier in there. Not a whole lot else to report.
Grow from your heart out there! Shout out the Grow From Your Heart Podcast on Stitcher and Apple Podcasts!
-Grim
Day 23:
(Please see pictures for actual nutes)
Found signs of cal/mag deficiency so I added it to her diet.
So I was testing to see if I really needed a humidifier and the answer is yes. Even though her tent never got above 87 degrees, she showed signs of extreme heat stress. I believe this is because it is extremely dry where I live so that much heat and such a low humidity cooked her. I removed several large fan leaves to allow light into the lower canopy and because they were very damaged. I am experimenting with defoliation on this auto so it is probably going to be an ugly plant but I am here to learn!
also added Rhino skin to her diet because it is a silica supplement which increases the plants resistance to environmental stressors such as heat/light stress.
Good luck out there!
Day 30:
(Please see pictures for actual nutes)
Updates/Observations:
- She is pretty stunted from the heat stress and sad looking honestly, especially compared to my outdoor crop but I still love her.
- Bumped up her nutes
- Not really expecting a lot out of her because she is in such a confined space she does not have a lot of airflow and it is making her unhappy I think.
- Still glad to be growing her.
Good luck out there!
Day 37:
(Please see pictures for actual nutes)
Updates/Observations:
- Showing some signs of preflowers.
- Not really expecting a lot out of her because she is in such a confined space she does not have a lot of airflow and it is making her unhappy I think. I knew it was going to be a micro grow when I planted her so its alright.
- She cannot really support most of her limbs that rest on the tent anymore. ;(
- Still glad to be growing her.
Good luck out there!
*If anyone read through my GDP diary, this is going to be mostly the same stuff.
Unfortunately I will not get to grow these plants out to maturity. I was hit with a strong spider mite attack about 3-5 weeks ago and I did not catch it until now I am guessing. I cut them down after a few days of debate. See the week update for more details.
This plant was not given optimal conditions at all and was in a tiny 1'x2' section of my veg tent. I thought I would have more room in my flower tent but it never happened.
Thanks MSNL. Luckily I have two more of these going outside and one is purple! I am going to try switching to soil and autos for my next few grows most likely but I have these seeds ready to go in my little bank.
Biggest learning point from this: Never bring outdoor plants into your indoor garden and change clothes if you are working in between gardens on the same day.
I hope everyone can learn from my mistakes and everyone who wants to say "I told you so!" can do so now 😢 😢@B4RNS, and @Bigdaddyk
*If anyone read through my GDP diary, this is going to be mostly the same stuff.
So, sad day friends. I got spider mites and had to throw all my plants out. This is what I think happened:
About 2-3 weeks ago I noticed some freckling on the lower leaves. I looked at it and thought it might be a cal/mag issue so I added cal/mag that week and went about my business. I saw it about a week later and it wasn't getting any better so I added more cal/mag. This continued for about 2-3 weeks until I finally took off a leaf and examined it under my microscope. I saw little bugs crawling everywhere and my stomach just dropped. My fiance did some quick research while I was panic ripping leaves off (see pictures) and she correctly diagnosed it as spider mites.
I debated with myself and my close friend and ultimately I decided to throw all the plants in my tent away. I know that there are a lot of people who will say that there are things I could have done to make it to harvest but what it came down to is the people I take care of and personal pride. I consider myself a caregiver and I give away product for free that I am not going to use to my family and close friends. I thought to myself "Would you smoke this?" and when my answer was "ehhh, I don't know", I thought about how it would feel giving it away and immediately made the decision to destroy them. I take an immense amount of pride in my product and this hobby and if I am not going to stand behind it I would rather just start over. I grow from my heart (shout out to the Grow From Your Heart Podcast!) to help people and make sure my family is not getting unsafe product from sketchy people. To spray pesticides in flower that may hurt people and have little bug carcasses in there just goes against that in every way and is just wrong in my opinion if you are giving it away to others. If you are the only one smoking it then it is one thing to take that risk but not with your patients. I want my medicine to help people, not create or exacerbate health issues.
It is also important to note that the mites had moved from my flower tent into my veg space and took over my auto berry as well. Damn things are crafty and fast.
So that is why I made the decision to destroy them all after 3+ months of res changes, pruning, and manifolding on a slow vegging strain. Feel free to chime in with your opinion but I do not regret my decision. I threw out my new clones, mother plant, and auto berry I had on my veg side as well. Shout out to all the other growers out there that do the right thing by their patients. Caregivers > Cash croppers.
For anyone curious, I removed everything from my tent and scrubbed it all with a 20% bleach/water solution. All equipment has been wiped down and stored in the garage away from any organic materials. I will give them until tomorrow (2 days) to air out and dry and then I will wipe it down again with bleach and wait another 2 days. Hopefully that will make sure everything is dead and will not come back next grow. That next grow should start in about a week.
It sucks but sometimes it happens and you gotta be ready for it. Lesson learned. Never bring outdoor plants into your indoor garden even if it is after just a day or two. A bunch of people on here and Reddit warned me and I did not listen. Now I have learned the hard way and it feels like when your parents "told you so" haha.
Thanks to everyone who stopped by along the way. Stay tuned for a new grow coming soon. It is going to be some cool new limited edition Mephisto Illuminautos. I am pretty excited.
Good luck out there and always grow from your heart folks.
-Grim
FWIW, I use a hacked swamp cooler similar to this one that we take to Burning Man in my grow space: https://eplaya.burningman.org/viewtopic.php?t=33842
It was getting a bit warm a couple weeks ago so I added that into the space, and like me, it looks like you have a little room in your humidity to go upwards. I was hitting temps like yours at 40% humidity, now it's averaging around 77 F with 58% RH in the space.
@TheFairyBudMother,
Haha neat dude. Yeah I'm flipping my photo plants so I'm going to move the humidifier out of there into that tent and she should be alright.
@ClubRiot,
Thanks dude. She is kind of floundering and really hasn't grown much lately to be honest. I think she is just setting up her root system before she gives me some explosive growth.
GrimbolTheDruid
