Outdoor Dark Devil - Sweetseeds Outdoor grow

[Wait what?]

It's normal for the bottom fan leaves to yellow and die mid to late bloom, but that varies with strains and harvest times.

I think they look great, trying to figure out how to get on your Christmas list

 

[Dazed]

it's root bound u need more dirt and bigger pot

I would tend to agree with this, happened to me, plant slowly died whatever I did.

 

[Son of Hobbes]

Hey halfnatural, looks like she's coming along for ya!

It's in a 3 gallon pot. I am not trying to disrespect your opinion but I know autos are grown in 2-3 gallon pots all the time and I grew my other auto in a 1.5 gallon pot with no root bound issues and it was a larger plant. I would love some more feedback from other people to see if this is the general consensus though.

I've grown two Dark Devil's myself so far; one was in about... oh maybe a 2 gallon pot or so and the other was more like a 4 gallon or so. Massive difference between the two plants when it came to size. You can grow auto's in any size pot you want; I think what armory was getting at is that if you want larger plants, you don't want to limit the amount of space you have available for that root ball. If you want to grow smaller plants or are confined for space, generally people plant in smaller pots to help control the size. Two to three gallons is a great general guideline for most auto's, but certain strains can benefit from larger pots. There is also a point where the returns on the pot size becomes diminishing (why you don't see a lot of people growing in 55 gallon drums )

Also bro; it looks like in your picture you're several inches down in that pot with the plant; next time around when you're filling your pots (especially with soil-esque substrates) it can be helpful to water them before putting down seed so that the loose dry soil can settle down into the pot a bit. You'd be surprised how much more mix you can fit into a pot when it's not all dry and it let's you utilize more volume of the pot.

You can also take into account that you may have different phenotypes with that strain coming out as well though; you might grow five Dark Devils all side by side in the same size pots but that doesn't mean they will all necessarily be the same size or have 100% identical characteristics.

Have you checked out any of Muddy's guides?

There "The Life Cycle of Autoflowering Cannabis" and "When to Harvest Autos? Your leaves will tell you."

Here's a quick snippet from the first link:

Weeks 4 - 6. The plants are now entering a pre flowering stage. During this time the plants should exhibit explosive growth, often as much as a new set of nodes and 1" vertical growth a day. This is the time when they will gain most of their vertical height. Many people make the mistake of switching from vegetative to flowering nutrients at this point, assuming that since they see flowers it must be the proper time. This is incorrect. If the switch to flowering nutes is made at this time the vertical growth will stop and the plant will put it's energy into producing buds. If you need to keep your plants small, or want them to finish earlier, they by all means switch nutes at this point. But if you want to get the most out of your plants continue feeding vegetative nutes until you see the vertical growth slow and stop. Depending on the strain that will usually be sometime during week 5 or 6.

Weeks 7 - 9. By now vertical growth has stopped and the switch to flowering nutrients has been made. The buds will start to fill out and put on weight, becoming hard and tight. Pistols will start to change from white to brown, orange, red, etc. By now the plants will also have developed a strong smell. Toward the end of this phase the large primary and smaller secondary fan leaves will begin to turn yellow. This is an indication that the plant is moving toward the end of it's life.

And the first post from the 2nd link:

One of the most frequently asked questions is how do I know when my autos are ready to pick? The convention wisdom from growing photo period plants was to watch for color change in the trichomes, or crystals. For an uplifting high, harvest when the trichomes are all cloudy, for more of a stone, wait till a percentage have turned amber. Sound advice, for photos. But autos are a little different. While some strains have shown amber trics, many do not.

So how do I know when they are ready? I watch the the fan leaves. Over the past several years of growing autos I started taking samples at various stages of growth to evaluate the high. I tend to prefer my smoke with a little stone so began to leave them longer than the 8-9 weeks that are advertised. I find that around 11-12 weeks the plants are ripe for me. I also began to see a correlation between the color of the fan leaves, the color of the trics and the high/stone quality of the smoke at the various sample intervals. It seemed that the greener the fan leaves, the more clear trics the buds had. As the fan leaves started to yellow and die off, the trics became less clear and more milky. By the time that all the fan leaves had died off and the bud leaves were starting to yellow, I got the quality of smoke I wanted. At that time most of the trics were now milky with no, or only a few, clear ones. Here are some examples:

View attachment 46420View attachment 46421View attachment 46418View attachment 46419

I've found this to be a very reliable method. It takes about 3 weeks for the fan leaves to die off. During that time the buds will continue to fatten up as the plant uses the energy stored in the fan leaves. So when I see my leaves start to yellow, I wait a week, then begin cleansing them. Two weeks later they will be well cleansed and read to harvest.

Of course there will be other factors such as genetics, lighting, nutrients, pot size, etc. that will effect how long a plant takes. But as a general guide for when to pick, just watch your leaves.

Hope that helps out a bit bro! :Sharing One:

 

[epenguin]

As always, an excellent and detailed reply from Hobbes. I would agree that you could have got more compo into the pot, but IMHO your pot should be ample for the size of your plant. I do not think it is root bound. It does look to have stretched in its early life and maybe could have done with a bit more nitrogen but the girl is looking pretty good and bottom leaves will always yellow and drop off.

The colour of those blooms are awesome bruv, well done.! eP.

 

[epenguin]

ps
My pots for outdoors are not huge, but they do need regular watering. (notice the yellow leaves-natural)

Get stuck into some serious potash fuel for the girls now and your buds will fatten up nicely.
cheers, ep.

 

[Dazed]

Jeez penguin, you're in the UK? You are BRAVE bro!

 

[halfnatural]

Thanks for all of the replies guys it was very helpful. I am not going to reply to everyone's comments but I definitely took careful time to read through and understand the information. There's clearly a lot more for me to learn. I know it is common place for leaves to die off in late flowering, but I thought this was way too early. Compared to my first grow, this one is a much lighter green and has significantly less branching. (I guess those could be due to the diversity of the cannabis strains though).I believe the light green and yellow leaves are a symptom of nitrogen deficiency. I am now almost 100% sure that the yellowing was caused by a PH problem which led to nutrient lock-out. I thought I had created a perfectly pH'd mix of my nutrients once and never bothered to pH any of the new batches I made. I went back and retested my soil and water. The soil is at 6.8-7.0, which is good, but it turns out I've been watering with very acidic water (within the 5-5.5 range). I wouldn't be surprised if my plant hasn't actually been able to use many of the nutrients I have been giving it. I assume this means the plant has been living almost entirely off the soil nutrients? Regardless, I think I have fixed the issue and will hopefully report back with good news in a few days. On a slightly on topic note, is it true that the yellow leaves will never recover? I want to find a reliable way to gauge how effectively I have solved this problem.

I am also a little worried that my slug and Ph problems have doomed my final harvest weight. I really hope that's not true. I was hoping to double my last yield of 20ish grams but it looks very unlikely.

 

[halfnatural]

I came back from a weekend trip today to find a very minor case of powdery mildew on a couple bud leaves. I cut off the infected parts and I think I am going to do a milk/water spray to prevent anything from spreading.

 

[halfnatural]

Here she is day 54 looking really nice. I am wondering what the harvest will be.

 

[VELVETO]

looking good love those dark buds!:drool: