New Grower First Auto Grow Journey!

[pher]

Hello everybody at AFN! This will be the start of my grow journal for my first autoflower experience. Not new to growing but its been a while (5+years). Still trying to get back in the swing of things. If anybody wants to know a little more about me, check out my introduction thread here https://www.autoflower.org/f35/where-have-you-been-all-my-life-9139.html Can't wait to see what these autos can do for me!

So here it goes... the first step of the journey :thumbs:

Started my seeds by soaking them in water overnight and placing them in a seedling tray in a nute free mix. I did this because this is how i start a photo grow but i know now that putting them in the trays is not the best way to do it.

I let them grow in the trays for about a week and then i took Muddy's advice and transplanted them into Solo cups. Thanks Muddy! I used a mix of Jiffy seed starting mix, perlite and Pro-Mix. I may have stunted them for a few days when i transplanted but several responded beautifully to it. They have now all bounced back and are starting to put on secondary growth.

I had a few ph problems too but that should all be sorted out by the new ph pen i recently bought. It's an Oakton EcoTester PH2, which is far from the best you can buy, but i felt that it was a great entry level tester and the price was low to middle of the road. $62 from Amazon with free shipping. Thank you to Killijin for the suggestion in his thread, Newbie Tools!

The strains for this grow are: World of Seeds- Sugar Mango Ryder, Delicious Seeds- La Musa, G13 Labs- Auto Blueberry and Greenhouse Seeds- Sweet Mango. I also have two KC Brains- Mango and one Delicious Seeds- Fruity Chronic Juice, both are photo dependent strains.

They were started under an 18w CFL and were moved to a 4', four bulb, T5 lamp with mixed spectrum (two of each). The light is kept on for 24 hours. Two mini fans blowing over the plants to circulate air and stimulate growth. Temps stay between 72-80 degrees and humidity around 40-50%.

Which brings us to now... the babies are all either 13 or 14 days old today! :booya:

I gave half of them their first feeding, which consisted of SeaGrow 16-16-16, SeaGrow liquid kelp extract and Grotek Silica. It was a very light mix and very very light on the 16-16-16. Thank you to Sniper420 for recommending the SeaGrow to me!

My plan is to transplant half to 3gal pots and the other half to 5gals, then place all outside to bask in the sun! I will more than likely use a mix of Fox Farm Ocean Forest and Fox Farm Happy Frog or Original Potting Mix, with some added perlite and extra mycorizae.

Thank you to everybody for taking the time to read this and walking along with me on this part of my journey. Look forward to meeting you all and would very much enjoy any comments, questions, advice or suggestions! I have learned a lot from my short time on AFN and im sure to learn a lot more with the help from the great members here. Thank you all!

I will post more as i get deeper into the journey...

 

[Villain]

Good luck Pher, looking forward to the pics

 

[greenthumper]

Whats up Pher, you might want to think about switching the light cycle to 20/4. I find the ladies always look rejuvenated after some bed time

 

[pher]

Thank you Villian! Nice to meet ya. I will prob post a few pics later today.

 

[pher]

Whats up Pher, you might want to think about switching the light cycle to 20/4. I find the ladies always look rejuvenated after some bed time

Whats up Greenthumper. Thanks for the advice. I will consider switching them to 20/4. I have always vegged my photos under 24/0 and it worked well for me when using the T5's or CFL's. Do autos respond negatively to 24/0?

 

[bgrt]

i think its just that they dont do anything extra for the 4 hours they would be on, so youre basically just saving money and getting the same growth.

 

[pher]

If there is no negative effect to the plant i think i will leave it be at 24/0. If there is a benefit to 20/0 i will definitely switch it up!

 

[Villain]

Whats up Greenthumper. Thanks for the advice. I will consider switching them to 20/4. I have always vegged my photos under 24/0 and it worked well for me when using the T5's or CFL's. Do autos respond negatively to 24/0?

Sounds like I started similar to you, under bulbs first with intention to go outside, my plan was to seed under bulb in 1 ltr pots till sex then re-pot into 10 ltr and out them, what I done was to work out my sunrise and sunset times 3 weeks from starting which was 4.15am to 21.15 and thats how I set my timer for lights, so mine had 7 hrs dark! I kinda got into my head that if they are going to end up outside they might as well get used to the lighting up times from the start

 

[pher]

Villain- when running CFL's or T5's i think its a good idea to give them as much access to the light as possible even if you plan to transplant outside. Fluoro's dont come close to what the sun puts out. Even my t5's running 24/0 is like a flick of a flashlight compared to a few hours in the sun light.

 

[Alter Ego]

I have a gut feeling that all plants benefit from at least a few hours of darkness. I remember reading somewhere that all plants (cannabis or not) utilize and store sugars during the day and "use" the stored energy during the dark hours. I don't know how that ties in with autoflowers though. I would personally just go with the 20/4, 24/0 just isn't natural. But yeah, posts those pics Pher. We all want to see!