Billy's First Autoflowers

capncrunch First 4 auto flowers ever! LEDs, auto-seeds, these are both new to me, so we'll see how it grows! I fed them the first couple days with the the Sensi-Bloom instead of Sensi Grow. I know, I'm a brute who doesn't care for the wellbeing of his lil green babies. I just... didn't have the grow food yet.

capncrunch I think I was overwatering - I wasn't letting the coco ever dry out and was keeping it wet instead of letting it get half or three-quarters dry. I'm letting it dry out a little more and I'm going to start keeping the door closed more. I have it open most of the day so I can sing to the plants when I walk by. They probably enjoy the additional protection from bugs more than they like my sonorous voice. Going to work on getting the humidity up, too. Apparently they'll be happier up near 60?

capncrunch Big changes this week! I moved the tent from the main floor of the house I'm in down into the basement. it's cooler, and has more privacy and space... I've just got the authorization from the inhabitants to add another tent, too ;) I'm hoping the cooler evening temps will translate into some interesting colours as the plants flower. I've also tweaked the plant's spot a bit by putting the fabric pots up on brick stands over top of a water collection tray - this way I can water them until they are dripping steady out the bottom, but they're not left sitting in that water. I also couldn't resist planting a few more magic beans: an Amnesia X autoflower (from WWS/DES like my others) plus a Durban Poison feminized seed from Crop King Seeds. A handful of Mephisto seeds also came in the mail and... Okay, I'm considering killing the Northern Lights and POSSIBLY the Pineapple AK - the NL def seems stunted from the burn it had back on June 2, and the PAK has just slowed right down. I'm trying to be mindful of space and also not blow too far past the six plant cap I'm supposed to stick to. I turned off the weird EECCO amazon blurple I had, and switched the KingLED from just being on veg to having veg and bloom setting on on June 17. The yellowing appeared just a few days later, so I cranked the lights up about 5" higher. I'm likely giving the EECCO to a friend of mine to get him started and then will likely pick up a mars hydro, or see what I can do about building a rig through Ali baba. (anyone with recommendations?) I'm having a hard time telling which light is more powerful or effective because the EECCO info is sketchy at best. I've downloaded the lux light meter app but apparently these aren't too hot for telling quality of LED light? It just really seemed to be adding no value, with all these plants basically sitting in the KingLED footprint.

capncrunch Lots going on - killed the Northern Lights, transplanted the Amnesia X (I know, I know, don't transplant autos), thenpopped out of town to collect some seeds, donated the Durban Poison photo period, and scooped up a bunch of new equipment... which I promptly redistributed like the good lil commie I am (I scored a vivosun 4" inline fan and carbon filter setup, plus a 2x4x6 vivosun tent, and a 1000 watt MH/HPS ballast+bulbs... only kept the HPS and I don't think my co-habitants are gonna be stoked if I fire that up just right now) I accidentally snapped the WW main stem trying to LST her on the 27th but she didn't break through entirely. She's healing the gash right now and it just kinda looks like a halfass supercropping. LD is showing her first white pistils as of the 27th, so I've changed her food to include 1 mL/L Sensi Bloom A+B along with 1.5 mL/L Sensi Grow A+B./ All these plants are drinking about 2.5 L every other day and that's enough to get a steady stream dripping out the bottom. Also, I have no DANG idea how to take pictures of these girls. Any suggestions?

capncrunch whoa, week five!? time simultaneously flies and passes so so slowly. I've installed air filtration in the nick o' time with pistils appearing on two plants now. Vivosun 4", carbon filter plus 190 CFM inline fan with no adjustable speed. Filter is hanging inside the tent, fan is outside tent bolted to a ceiling stud and currently just venting into the room. it's in a straight line with a window leading outside and in the long-term I'm planning on venting everything out through there. The temp and humidity fluctuations are GONE - which I guess makes sense since it's just circulating air throughout the room. I measured my light today and realized it's much closer to the top of the canopy than I thought (this just in: men tend to overestimate the size of things when eyeballing). Is the yellowing under the blurple real? Is the light too close? I've noticed some purples on the petioles of the Lemon Drop. Is this showing a nitrogen deficiency? Girls are all over the map in thirstiness but it's as low as 2.5 L every other day and as high as 3 L a day. There's probably some merit in growing multiple plants of the same strain rather than a shotgun blast of random strains with varying needs eh. Some rambling on lights and expansion: I've been putting in and taking out extra lights, fiddling with too many settings at once to get any consistent kinda data. I gave away the smaller EECCO blurple to set up another grow. I'm up in the air between ordering another KingLED 1500 for this tent (matching lights, each would be responsible for a 2x3 footprint) or ordering the Mars Hydro TS 1000 and using it as the primary light in here and supplementing it with the kingLED. I guess my thinking is if I put in another King, this tent will be a "finished" build with lights, air and filtration... and with flowering just getting rolling, now is the time to crank up the light intensity right? Then, when I muster up the resources in a few months, I can order a KingBrite QB from overseas, get a second tent, and drop in a DWC and have a whole second system. If I get a Mars Hydro TS1000 now, I can get another TS1000 in a month or two, replace the KingLED with it to finish this tent, and move the KingLED to a smaller tent or use it to grow vegetables or something. At $200 CDN and 260w, the Mars Hydro TS1000 and the KingLED 1500 basically cost the same and deliver in the same amount of time... Input requested, plz.

capncrunch This week I added a second King Pro 1500 LED light and am running it with both switches. It has an actual draw of ~260 W and each light now sits directly above a row of plants. I really want to maximize light coverage and get everything I can out of these seeds! Amnesia X didn't really get taller this week but she's certainly thiccening. Pineapple AK has nicely recovered from me SNAPPING HER FRIGGIN HEAD OFF so that's good. Lemon Drop still the biggest and heartiest plant, but White Widow looks like she's finding her stride in flowering right now. Under the blurples, the new growth looks pretty yellow but under white light it's much less visible. Lemon Drop is showing some real purpling on her petioles though. There's also been a couple teeny spots that look like calmag deficiency but overall I think these AN nootz are giving the plants what they crave. I am pretty sure I was bigtime under-watering... been checking out Dr. MJ Coco and his work tells me to step my fertigation game up, so I'm gonna do that - I have vacillated between over-watering and under-watering but it sounds like with Coco and Smart Pots the biggest risk with overwatering is wasting $$ on plant food so to quote the canadian philosopher Drake, "we go'n see" Onward to week 7!

capncrunch THERE ARE GNATS those buzzing little bastards. I have nobody to blame but myself, I suppose... I've deployed Nematodes, yellow sticky insect traps, and killed every one I've seen. Temperature is dipping to 19C (66F) in the evening, peaks at 29C(84.2) After these pics, I gave 'em a few days and did another round of defoliation. We're hummin' right along.