Cream Mandarine XL Auto & Jack 47 Auto

I grew Jack 47 Auto and Cream Mandarine XL Auto. Original diary was at UK420. I will copy my photos and comments across to share with GrowDiaries. I chose these varieties as I wanted to grow Sweet Seeds autoflowers again. I have grown photoperiods from different breeders before, and I switched to autoflowers recently. I liked their shorter structure of autos which worked well for my limited headroom. The short time to complete a grow cycle also appeals since the site of the grow is otherwise used as a guest space, and must be out of action for the duration of a grow. I have tried several different autoflower breeders and Sweet Seeds have alway given great quality, consistent results. I chose Jack 47 Auto and Cream Mandarine XL Auto as I wanted to try something new, and was looking for more sativa type plants. These are varieties I have not grown before. I tend to like stronger varieties and Jack 47 Auto has a reputation for strength. I previously grew three Killer Kush Auto plants and one was an orange-tasting and delicious phenotype, and it was a photo from that grow which won the seeds for this diary, so that inspired my choice of Cream Mandarine XL Auto. This will be a comparison grow, with two different growing mediums. I will grow two of the plants in coco with Blumat drippers. My last two grows have used these and I am hoping to make this style of growing work a little better for me than it has done previously. When researching I do not find many examples of people using Blumats with autoflowering varieties so I wanted to see if and how it could be done. Previously I have suffered with salt build-up so I have taken a number of steps to try to improve this, including reducing the pot size. I am not sure whether it will work but I am willing to try. I will also grow two plants in compost. I am hoping to have a relatively easy, low stress and productive grow with these. They function as a kind of insurance and control for the coco experiment. I'm interested in differences in the growth of the plants and the end results between the mediums, but it's not a scientific comparison and it's not meant to draw any conclusions about coco, drippers, compost or handwatering, besides my own skills (or lack thereof!). Location, Equipment, Style of Grow: This is an indoor grow cited in a guest bedroom ensuite. There's a sloping ceiling in a narrow L-shaped room so I have selected the Hydrolab 120 SX which is narrow (120 cm x 60 cm) and short (160 cm) and fits perfectly in the space. This is my second time using this tent. My earlier grows were in a smaller tent (DR60) in a different location, or a smaller Ikea wardrobe before then. I am using my 315w CMH to light the space, which is also the second time I am using it. I had 150w and 250w HPS prior to this. I love this light and the plants seem to too. It is a Philips 3100K Agro bulb in a Maxibright Daylight reflector, with a remote Maxibright ballast. I am ventilating the tent with an extractor fan hung inside the tent. It's a very old Chaysol 125mm centrufgal fan. I have owned it for a full decade though I don't grow full time, and it was already well used when I got it. I keep it clean with an old toothbrush between grows. There's a short ducting run out of the top of the tent. The hole for the regular bathroom extractor fan provides a convenient place to run my new and very effective Phonic Trap ducting. The fan is controlled by my cheap SMS fan controller. It has a built in thermostat but I usually leave it outside the tent set on maximum temperature, so that it stays on the set rate and doesn't ever kick in up to 100%. The extractor fan pulls air through a large 125 x 600 Mountain Air filter hanging at the top of the tent. I also have a couple of small USB fans for air circulation in the tent, but just one is hung up to start with. I've set it pointing slightly downwards across the far side of the tent - the idea is that it can push the wet air from the humdifier down and circulate the moisture around the plants. This is everything set up at the top of the tent. Temperature is maintained with the house central heating, underfloor heating in the ensuite and a small oil-filled radiator next to one of the tent air intakes. A major problem last time was low humidity in the tent. I hope to solve this with my new Levoit humidifier, and work towards getting my VPD badge. I will grow four plants in total. I will grow one Cream Mandarine XL Auto in coco, and one in compost. I'll grow one Jack 47 Auto in each medium too. In both cases they are being started in 4 inch pots before being potted up to their final pots. The coco plants are grown in Canna Coco Professional, in 10 litre airpots (yellow base) with Blumat drippers. This is my third time using the Blumat drippers. I have suffered from salt buildup with previous efforts and I am trying to improve with this grow. This is an experiment to try and find some parameters that work for growing autoflowers in coco with Blumats, something I do not see very much of when researching online. This time I am going to raise the base of the airpot to about half way so I only use about 5 litres of coco in each pot. I have General Hydroponics Flora to feed with. The compost plants are grown in Westland Multipurpose with added John Innes. These will be in the 10 litre airports with the bases down low, with 10 litres of compost in each. For later on, when they need feeding I have a bottle of Biobizz Bio Bloom. I also have some Plant Magic Plus Root Stimulant to add to both the compost and coco grows at the start. Germination: The first thing to note is the difference in the seeds. The Cream Mandarine XL Auto seeds might well be the smallest seeds I have ever seen, and the Jack 47 Auto are among the largest. I put the seeds in Root Riot cubes in the airing cupboard, where the temperature was about 24°C. After 3 days the seeds had popped up, so the cubes were placed in their initial 4 inch pots. Two went in coco, and two went in a 50/50 mix of coco and compost. It was nice and sunny on the windowsill that evening (11 September, now known as Day 0). They were all watered in with tapwater with 2.5ml/l of Root Stimulator added. On Day 1 they went into the tent under the CMH with the humidifier running. The coco plants were not given any food until day 4 besides the seaweed-based root stim, which is why they are smaller. :doh: Eventually I gave them food and they started to grow. Hopefully they will just be delayed a little and not more permanently affected by the slow start. The coco plants were hand watered on days 4 and 7, EC 0.8. My base EC is 0.4, and I added 0.25ml/l of Gro, Micro and Bloom plus 2.5ml/l of Root Stimulator, and a little bit of phosphoric acid-based pH Down to give a pH reading of 6.2. The compost plants were watered on days 5 and 8, tapwater with 2.5ml/l of Root Stimulator.