Grow Mediums Blue AutoMazar hydro grow diary - planted 31-08-13

[SmokyD]

Day 30 - oxygen problem, EC issues



Here are the 6 BAM + 4 TD at day 30. I have turned both of the containers 180 degrees to try and achieve even growth that's why the plants directly under the light are a little shorter, but they are catching up. I have one interesting observation and it is a problem with oxygen.

At day 26 I noticed that I let the water level get very low, so I flushed and changed both tanks and connected them with a hose. For a couple of days afterwards there was no growth, and the leaves closest to the light began to show typical signs of overwatering. Stupidly I did not take a pic, but it appeared something like this:



the leaves were pointing down and rigid, and the new growth coming through began to turn yellow, consistent with overwatering. I read that with hydro this means a lack of oxygen in the water.

My hydro units each have 1x 14" airstone, which is 2x 7" pieces connected in the middle. The roots had wrapped themselves around the airstone completely and pulled apart the airstone in the middle, leaving the air to escape out! I replaced the airstone and growth resumed after a couple of days. No harm done, but I will have to find a better way to oxygenate the water in future.

I have increased the level of Aqua Grow in the solution and also added Canna Boost in anticipation of flowers appearing in the next few days.

I have one question from this week: My EC fell, from 1.8 to about 0.8 after about five days. Usually I expect the EC to go up as the plants use up more water than nutes. I assume this means the plants are either using nutes faster than water (is this possible?) or the nutes are collecting somewhere in the system and are no longer dissolved in the water. RH has risen from 40-50% to 65-70% with the change in weather, maybe less transpiration caused this? This is only my second proper hydro grow so I am no expert... can someone shed some light?

Thanks for all the help so far, you guys are a godsend! happy growing

 

[SmokyD]

12/12 vegging anyone?

One more question: has anyone ever heard of someone vegging their autos under 12/12 light, then increasing to 18 or 20 for flowering? The reason I ask is because I am wondering the best way to limit vegetative growth so the plants don't get too tall, this was one idea I thought of.

 

[SmokyD]

Day 38 - Jungle

Some pics at day 38:



Should be pretty clear to all that the plants grew way faster and taller than I was expecting. I have removed the upper shelf in my two-storey grow tent to accomodate the space needed, unfortunately it took me a couple of days to figure this out so the tops are looking very unhealthy. This happened before and I expect they will recover in a few days.

In pic 2 you can see where I topped the Blue Automazar and bent the main stem outwards. Anyone who still doubts that topping is possible with this strain, please behold. My only regret is that I didn't top them again in the third week, the height would have been a bit easier to control.

I have stripped much of the lower foliage away, I will wait a few days and then trim some more out leaving only the upper canopy. Plenty of bud sites on the canopy but they are not looking very healthy, it's early days yet though hopefully things will start to develop when the plants finally stop stretching.

I;m still hoping for a nice harvest from this but I doubt I'll get the 400g I wanted..

The pH remains very stable, I rarely have to adjust it, but the EC still falls with time, which is the opposite of my photoperiods (using the same hydro system and nutes) where the EC steadily rises.

I have connected the 2 tanks so 10 plants now share 50 ltr of solution.

For my next grow I will def need to limit the vegging somehow, my plan to do this is a mixture of topping and vegging on 12-12, if someone has an opinion on this i'd love to hear it! laters

 

[impulse741]

Looks awesome man. Trim as many of the leaves and small bud sites at the bottom of the plants that arent really getting any light, you want it to concentrate all its growth to the areas that are exposed to light.

Thats the one thing i would do different in my next grow, along with a scrog

And no you dont want to run auto's under 12 hours of light, that just not how they work. Someone correct me if im wrong, but to my knowledge you should give them as much light as they will take, without negatively effecting the growth, which can generally be between 18-24 hours (some people claim running on 24 hours of light in vegitation is better with autos). If you want to try minimise vegitative growth, continuously trim your plant and pick off fan leaves that are not really exposed to light, they are wasted energy on your plants that could otherwise be used somewhere else.

 

[SmokyD]

thanks Bam, i'll trim the rest of the excess leaves off soon. I know that energy is stored in the fan leaves so generally I leave them until they shrivel even if they are receiving little light, but I remove any buds that are forming down there in the darkness.

They'll definitely be some kind of scroggery going on next grow. I was caught off-guard this time by the unexpectedly rapid growth (my last auto grow was soil and the plants only reached 60-70cm). I'm never flowering in the tent again either! not that many plants anyway... but i had no choice this time.

 

[SmokyD]

Day 39 - heat stress

I had to cut two top buds off today, they had been too close to the light and were brown and dried out completely.



I have now raised the light again to about 25cm above the canopy.

Recent growth is not very strong and the forming buds a little wispy. The bud sites look a little different to the Kush varieties I normally grow, is everything ok up there?

And what about the deformation in this pic... what the hell is it I never saw that before!



EC 1.6, pH was 6.6 so I dropped some ph- in the reservoir. The plants have not taken up much water since I changed the solution 2 days ago.

 

[impulse741]

just keep on trying to find that sweet spot between the PH and EC. Ideally you want it absorbing a proportionate amount of nutes to water, so as the water level decreases the EC should stay level.

I think the curling on leaves is just generally down to having a warm and dry environment around it, due to that hps drying the air. Those leaves will be absorbing a load of heat, maybe try getting some fans to blow directly on them

 

[CGR]

:stylez rasta smoke:....some good Vibes for you brother

 

[SmokyD]

Day 78

Nothing interesting to report in the last month as I waited for the buds to fill out. The plants got way too tall in the end, they were very cramped and it was difficult controlling the humidity which remained above 65%.

I think they have another 2-3 weeks left. The four Think Different on the right have filled out nicely with the usual fat colas, however the BAM are smaller and not as well developed. Given that both strains had access to exactly the same nutes (the tanks were connected by a hose), and that the genetics cannot explain such a big difference in bud size, I have to conclude that my topping of the BAM probably caused this. All other environmental factors were the same. The plants grew strong and healthy during vegging but I am very disappointed with the bud compared to the TD.

I planted 7x Auto White Widow 10 days ago, I will begin a separate grow diary for this. Yesterday I got my hands on an MS0006 LED (courtesy of Dutch Passion) so I will veg and flower the WW under LED to see how it goes. My intention in the future is to use the LED for vegging and continue with HPS for flowering, unless the WW convinces me to do otherwise.

Photos later when the lights come on

 

[trees4meandu]

Some pics at day 38:

View attachment 281451View attachment 281452View attachment 281450View attachment 281453View attachment 281454

Should be pretty clear to all that the plants grew way faster and taller than I was expecting. I have removed the upper shelf in my two-storey grow tent to accomodate the space needed, unfortunately it took me a couple of days to figure this out so the tops are looking very unhealthy. This happened before and I expect they will recover in a few days.

In pic 2 you can see where I topped the Blue Automazar and bent the main stem outwards. Anyone who still doubts that topping is possible with this strain, please behold. My only regret is that I didn't top them again in the third week, the height would have been a bit easier to control.

I have stripped much of the lower foliage away, I will wait a few days and then trim some more out leaving only the upper canopy. Plenty of bud sites on the canopy but they are not looking very healthy, it's early days yet though hopefully things will start to develop when the plants finally stop stretching.

I;m still hoping for a nice harvest from this but I doubt I'll get the 400g I wanted..

The pH remains very stable, I rarely have to adjust it, but the EC still falls with time, which is the opposite of my photoperiods (using the same hydro system and nutes) where the EC steadily rises.

I have connected the 2 tanks so 10 plants now share 50 ltr of solution.

For my next grow I will def need to limit the vegging somehow, my plan to do this is a mixture of topping and vegging on 12-12, if someone has an opinion on this i'd love to hear it! laters

I'm not sure if I recall you mentioning it, but what are the dimensions of the container the BAM's are in? It looks great considering the fact that your plants are way short on space. If i'm not mistaken, the Blue Auto Mazar's are suppose to be a rather large breed of autoflower (up to 1.5 meters...I believe). On the topic of reducing the veg height, I am having the same problem with one of my 4 auto kalashnikovas (my thread is my family's first DWC). My tip is that it is never to late in the game to tie down branches, tops, etc. as long as you do not hurt the plants in any kind of way (like physically breaking a branch past a 90 degree bend). In one of my last posts is a good pic of how we decided to tie down the one plant of ours that is close to a meter in height. Over all, awesome job Smokey. Happy Growing to all!!!!!