New Grower First grow: 2xDP Automazar, 2xDP Think different in a 125/250W scrog

[dirty budster]

This grow log is for my first grow which I harvested in June. I had a couple of things come up during the grow and would appreciate some feedback. I also made a couple of mistakes during the grow and perhaps this will help someone else avoid them.

My setup for this grow was as follows:
Tent: 60x60x120cm (2x2x4 ft) Homebox XS
Fan: TD silent 280/380m3/h running at 150V
Filter: Carbon active 400m3/h
Light: 125W 6500K CFL for veg, 250W 2700K CFL for bloom/late veg
Soil: Plagron grow-mix in 6.5L square pots
Nutrients: TNT complex(veg), bloom complex and phosphorus plus
SCROG net with 5cm squares

The idea was to keep it simple and see what kind of yield I could get with a fairly basic setup.

The first mistake I made was that I bought a 25l bag of soil figuring that would be enough for 4x6.5l pots. However, after watering the soil was compressed and I would estimate there was only around 4.5l or so in each pot. Since I was worried that 4 plants in my small tent would be too much I didn't add any more soil. I think this limited the size of the plants a bit.

I put 2 Auto mazar seeds and 2 think different seeds in a glass of water over night and then into the soil. After 2 days 3 of them sprouted, one Auto mazar never came up. After 1 week of waiting for the Automazar I put a new seed in and this sprouted without issue so overall a 4/5 germination rate.

Day 3

Here I made the beginner mistake of keeping the 125W CFL light too far from the seedlings. It was around 30-40 cm away.

Day 4

This resulted in quite a bit of stretch so I lowered the light to around 10cm and the stretching stopped.

Day 8

Here they are at 8 days and the last mazar also showed up to the party, it was day 2 for that one.

Day 12

The plants were doing pretty well, there was a bit of heat stress since I wanted to see how low I could go with the light. I discovered that anything below 10cm and the leaves would start to curl/taco.

I also noticed that there was what looks like a tiny bit of burn at the leaf tips. It is not so easy to see in the pictures. I think the soil, which has some nutes in it, is on the border of being too hot. It might also have been due to the heat, I'm not sure.

Day 16

to be continued...

 

[dirty budster]

Day 22

Plants had gotten big enough that it was time to attach the screen. I made it out of some aluminium profiles that are normally used for LED light strips. I drilled holes every 5 cm and used 90 degree brass angles to screw them together. After that it's was just a matter of pulling the string through. I attached it 20cm or 8" above the soil, I think this turned out to be a pretty good height.
Around this time I started feeding them 1/8 strength veg nutes and the automazar started showing signs of pre-flower.

Day 28

Started pulling the new growth below the screen. The idea was to grow them in a square where each plant made up one side. At day 25 I switched over to the 250W 2700K CFL. I'm not sure when the best time to switch is? I get twice the amount of light with the 250W but it's not the best spectrum for vegetative growth. At this point I also increased the feed to 1/4 strength.

Day 29

While pulling the main stem below the screen I managed to snap it off almost completely. It was only attached by a sliver of skin. I learned to avoid pulling them below the screen just after watering, it's better to let them dry out a bit first. I patched it up with some masking tape and a tooth pick to keep it stable. I also misted the broken off part with water. After a couple of days it looked almost completely dead but I left there anyway. A couple of days later it amazingly started to swell up and grow again. I realised later that if you wrap a paper towel around the top and keep it wet it's possible to keep it alive while the break heals.

Day 32

The last automazar reached the screen. At this point the growth was quite vigorous and I fed them 1/2 strength veg nutes every other feeding.

Day 37

I had a bit of an accident with the youngest automazar. I made the radius of the bend a bit too small and it snapped sometime during the night. I taped it together and it eventually healed as well. At this point I realised the growth was slowing down and that I would never be able to fill the screen completely. Therefore I started moving all the budsites toward the center since I didn't want to have a hole just below the light. The picture was taken just after a scrogging session so that's why it looks a bit messy. At this time I also started feeding them with 1/4 veg and 1/4 bloom nutes since the stretch seemed to be almost over.

Below the screen it was turning into quite the jungle. I'm not sure if I should have done some pruning there? I did a little bit of cleaning up towards the end of the grow but I mostly left it alone.

Day 40

I was happy that I managed to fill up most of the screen directly below the light. During this week I think I spent around 2 hours a day in the tent moving the growth around trying to find the best position. I also tied down a lot of the shoots with twist ties to keep the canopy as even as possible.

Day 41

A close up shot of the think different. I believe it was suffering from an N-deficiency, would you agree with that? At the time I first thought it was a combination of it being a sativa and new growth.

 

[dirty budster]

Day 43

I thought the strech was over, however the think differents hit a second stretch so I had to do quite a bit of tying down and moving shoots around.

Day 46

The last automazar started filling up its share of the screen. At this point I was watering them with 1/2 strength bloom nutes every 2-3 days.

Day 52

Picture showing which plant is which. I also added a second circulating fan as the canopy was getting pretty dense and I was concerned about mold. But since I managed to keep the humidity around 40-45% it was never an issue.

Day 53

I noticed some spots on the bud leaves on one of the automazars, it's not so easy to see in the picture though. I searched around and I think it was a potassium deficiency. Due to this I had a look at the contents of the bloom nutrients and I thought the PK ratio was quite low. I then realised that the Hesi bloom nutes is split into two different bottles, one called bloom and one called phosporus+(containing only PK). So I started adding in the PK at about 2/5 strength.

Day 56

Plants started budding up nicely.

Day 66

Buds starting to swell up. I was feeding them between 2/5-3/5 of the bloom and PK every 3 days.
In retrospect I should have let AM#2 grow a bit more above the screen. At the time though, I had no idea when they would stop growing so I kept pulling them below the screen.

AM#2 bud showing some frost.

 

[Ronin]

Dirty,
Damn nice first run!
Looking forward to your next one..
Love mazars, beautiful plants.
I hope your enjoying your harvest!

 

[dirty budster]

Thanks man, I appreciate that. The whole grow went well beyond my expectations ,much in thanks to this forum. I have definitely been enjoying the harvest :stylez rasta smoke:

I just started my next grow, doing auto blueberries this time: https://www.autoflower.org/f44/3xdp-auto-blueberry-125-250w-cfl-scrog-grow-24263.html

 

[dirty budster]

Nearing the end of the grow

Day 77

Around this time after having been feeding them 3/5-4/5 strength of PK for a bit more than 2 weeks they started showing sings of nute burn so I stopped that and only fed them 2/5 of the bloom nutrients until flush.

Day 84

The result of the PK nute burn is visible on the think different in the lower left corner.

Day 91

At this point I thought the automazar in the lower right corner would be finished for sure but looking at the trichomes they were still mostly clear. As I was looking for a nice bedtime smoke I wanted to wait until at least some of them ambered up (there were a few amber ones so I knew it could turn amber).

Day 105

The plants are looking a bit rougher than they should due to the nute burn. At this point the trichomes were at least starting to turn cloudy and I probably could have cut them down, at least the automazars. From the think differents there were two distinct phenotypes, one indica looking with fat leaves and short compact buds the other one with thin leaves and longer more slender buds. Especially the sativa looking one could use a couple of weeks more.

Some close-up shots of the buds

AM#1

AM#2

It's not so easy to see in the pics but both automazars got a bit of a purple tinge at the end.

TD#1

This was the sativa looking one, it still had white hairs coming out at this point and the trichomes were clear.

TD#2

This was the more indica looking one that looked closer to harvest. This one also had a wonderful fruity smell that was quite noticable in the tent. It also kept that smell after the cure although a bit more citrusy then.

I ended up cutting down the automazars at day 115 and 117. I let the think differents go even a bit longer to 122 and 129 days. I think I could have cut them down earlier, by at least 2 weeks, but at the time I wasn't sure so I let them go a bit longer. I did however cut down a couple of samples earlier so that I had something for the wait :
I also realised that cutting and trimming, even small plants like these, is quite time consuming. I think I spent around 2-3 hours per plant, although I'm a very slow trimmer. Therefore it was nice to spread it out a bit instead of doing all at the same time.

Next update will be harvest and weigh-in pics.

 

[dirty budster]

Chopping time

When I started the grow I wanted to get at least 50-60g and I was hoping for around 75-80g, maybe even a 100g and after waiting 4 long months it was finally time to cut them down.

AM#1

I tried to get a picture of the trichomes through the loupe. They were mostly cloudy with a couple of amber ones.

I cut down all the larger buds but left the lower sites on for another ~10 days. The plant looked like this after:

I figured there would be a couple of grams there.

Turns out it was quite a bit more than I had expected, dried weight of the left-overs only was around 15g.

AM#2

I had already taken around 10g from this plant while waiting for them to finish so there wasn't all that much left.... :smoke:

TD#2

This plant was below the ballast of the CFL light so it got quite a bit less light. I wasn't expecting that much from this plant but it turned out pretty well. The buds were a bit fluffier but there was nothing wrong with the potency.

TD#1

This was the biggest plant with somewhere around 20 bud sites.

It weighed in at 214.6g wet. After drying I ended up with 54.4g without the popcorn buds, which I left for another week or so.

The final dry weight was:
AM#1 43.3g
AM#2 28.4g
TD#1 63.5g
TD#2 38.7g

Total=173.9g

In the end I was really happy with the results and I got a far better yield than I had imagined. Even though it took close to 130 days for TD#1 I was more than happy to wait for a harvest like this :

 

[Bgrow82]

that is awesome. I started two and one ended up a male and to top it off they were not even autos like I was told. But I'm at day 69 now and its looking like yours just not as many tops. I have been updating my pics in my album. I don't know how too share links and shit but if you want to check them out I wouldn't mind your input.
Thanks

 

[Boogieman]

Nice grow Dirty...:..

 

[no1da]

Jus stumbled on your grow dirty budstar... Respect to you on your 1st grow :Cushty:, i got a similar set up to you as in tent size, cfls, but got 2 automazar and 2 autobluberry from DP.. Wasnt sure autos liked being trained or scroged but you shown me it can be done with good results.. Was confident of putting 4 autos in there but seeing your grow i might jus give it ago.. Can i ask how you watered pots at back while scrog in place??