New Grower First auto grow, few questions...

[hydrohermit]

Hi! I have a good bit of experience growing indoor and outdoor soil with photo strains, but I'm moving into a very small place and it gets cold in the winter here, so no outdoors until the spring.

After a fair bit of research, I've decided to get a 5x10 tent and three 600w HPS lights. I already have a 4'x8' 6" flood table. I found a bank with 50 Critical Mass Auto seeds for a little under $200. I plan on using 3 gallon (9" diameter by 8" height) smart pots, with a 70:30ish cocoerlite mix. I'm going to get a 110 gallon reservoir from a tractor supply store. I intend to bottom feed with Humboldt Nutrients three part + a few additives once every 12 hours. pH will be adjusted daily and the reservoir will be dumped, cleaned and refilled once a week. There will be 4 large airstones in the reservoir and I'm going to use hygrozyme and hydroguard to avoid any funkiness.

I had a few questions. I did the math and I could potentially stuff ~40 plants into the table. Would this be too many plants/sqf? Should I just evenly space 32 in the table for 1 plant/sqf?

Will 3x600w be enough light penetration for sufficient yield? I'm used to being able to chop tops and let the bottom finish, I assume that doesn't work out with autos.

Is LSTing an auto ScrOG a good idea, or will it slow down the plants and reduce yield?

Would a top feed drip be a better alternative to flooding? How much of a difference would it make to justify the extra work setting up a 32-40 site drip?

And finally, while I realize it's a bit of a silly question, what's a ballpark figure of what this system could yield?

 

[growbeast]

Someone better suited with your situation will be along soon, just wanted to tell you welcome to AFN and hope to see your grow progress with a thread and pics "AFN smoke out"

 

[hydrohermit]

Thanks! I'll be sure to post a grow journal as soon as everything is up and running.

 

[growbeast]

Ill go ahead and give this a try, buy remember I'm on my second auto grow. As far as light, at least 150 watts per plant is what i go by for optimum results (i have seen many grows on her with less wattage do great)LST is always good scrog is good for allot of strains but not all. Bushier plants with good side branching i would think do better. Never done hydro Don't know personally much about cm auto or its yieldI know this is vague but its what i got for ya. Good luck friend

 

[F.N.]

Where are you buy the seeds from bro that is a really good price for fifty fem autos critical mass too. Regular critical mass gets huge so me thinks it could be a fairly good size plant. I think you are going to have trial an error ahead of you you are going pretty big that is not the norm on here not that it is bad thing it is a great thing most journals are 4 or five plants bro imo not to many peeps treating it like clones I would go with the thirty two and dial yer first grow in with autos and ramp up if you can on the next grow bro

 

[hydrohermit]

I'm buying the seeds from zamnesia.com, I did a bit of research and they seem to be rather reputable. I believe the seeds in question are coming from "Bulk Seeds." I'll probably go ahead and do 1 plant/sqf in the table and selfcross a couple of the others in a closet or something for a good bit of seedstock for future auto grows. Might even try crossing the Critical Auto with some of my stronger photo strains.

I think I'll probably also avoid LSTing and just stick with my bottom feeding, I think the coco mix should wick fine. Still trying to decide if I should go 3x600w or 2x1000w. I feel like the extra spread of the 600s would probably be best, though. Anyone have an opinion on this matter?