Grow Mediums Mr and Mrs AutoOtto's medical cannabis Autoflower grow diary

[AutoOtto]

Many would say do it. The CS will produce male flowers and pollen. Once collected you can pollinate another female.

Most only do so, with a new grow, after the strain has been evaluated while growing and is to your liking. There are just so many strains to try before deciding on pollinating.

With a first grow of autos learning how they grow and react to the environment is most important. Most of us, with the exception of the long time growers, are still learning and changing mediums (experimenting) etc. as time goes by.

Yeah, I appreciate, yours, and everyone's advice on this count, and it has made us decide to not get into this at this time. As new growers, we will have our hands full just learning the ropes, and we can save the more advanced stuff for later. Patience, young grass puffer, patience

 

[AutoOtto]

7/1/13 Lost a plant today, the youngest sprout, the Cheese Candy auto. Not going to go into the gory details, but suffice it to say, it was watering accident. An excellent reminder of how fragile young seedlings can be. The first plant we've lost, and I'm sure not the last, but with experience, I'm sure we can keep it down to a very minimal and acceptable level. Continuing with the low ph flush ,and the runoff is getting close to ideal, and I know in the next few days to a week at most we should start seeing some roots stretching for the reservoir and be able to get these buckets a bubblin' and the growth on these plants really jump-started. I think the final room for the autos will finally be complete by the 5th. Photo laden update at that time, will keep posting regularly in the meanwhile.

 

[Roark]

The little experience I have, and have drawn from here and very experienced hydro folks, your right that its okay to let
Move a bit. I have started using discus buffer, it's for fish, added 3/4tsp a week ago to 50gl res. Plants have shown no ill
Reactions and the water/nut solution has been incredibly stabilized. I use hydroton and fought to keep ph from rising daily.
So there you have it. I can get you the brand I use if you want.
Hope that helps.

 

[AutoOtto]

7/4/13: The fourth of July today, got some plans to barbecue and watch fireworks with some good friends later on, but first thing was, of course, first this morning and went down to check on the ladies, and found that there was good news as well as bad news waiting for me. But before I break that down, permit me to give you a little background first.
Now, the day prior, a well meaning friend had dropped by a beautiful, fully vegged Martian Kush from DNA Genetics ready to go into flower:

But, since I would not have my HID lighting up and running for a couple days, I put it under 20/4 with my autos, (not in the final auto room, it won't be complete for a couple days either, here's a couple pics of it painted white from ceiling to floor, though)

and was preparing to build it an enclosure in our eventual photoperiod flower room out of double side black/white tarp and scrog it in the corner, try to get maybe 4-8 ounces off of it. Well, as many of you may have guessed, it turned out to be a Trojan horse, it had some kind of bugs (I haven't seen them) which ate through my little auto that was right next to it, the Superbud, bummer because that one is discontinued or something, it was a freebie, and I've searched everywhere and cant find an auto Superbud seed. But what do you do but take it as another valuable lesson, and move on. I carefully searched the remainder of the plants with a 40x magnification jewelers loupe and could find no bugs, or signs of insect damage, of course we immediately quarantined the MK off in the furnace room (under a standard cfl lightbulb until I can get the MH's blazing in a day or two) And I don't currently have any bug spray, but I figure my buddy can bring me over some, lol Gave them a watering with 1/4 strength nutes for all the established plants (except the Supercheese Express which just popped its seed leaves above the perlite today, seemingly to replace the Superbud, lol

Supercheese Express

The Supercheese and the others which haven't yet sprouted were given ph'd water with perhaps 1/10th strength nutes (there was a little left in the bottom of the can after watering the others and I put the ph'd water in on top of it) And of course, we can't forget the silver lining, as I mentioned, there is good news as well. One of the girls (Northern Lights auto#6) is pushing a taproot into the reservoir area!! Check it out!:

Being first timers, I'm not sure if its ok for me to get this bucket bubbling by tomorrow, or is it critical I do it now? It's the 4th of July, so I might have a tough time going and buying that kind of stuff til tomorrow, will I be ok on that? Will it hurt roots to stretch into a dry res? Thanks as always in advance for your advice on this matter, and have a wonderful 4th of July

stylez rasta smoke

 

[Roark]

As always nice post. Bummer on the loss. I know how that feels, lost 4 of my first 9 then pulled one due to stem rot. Stoked the other girls are well. As for the rooting....sorry no help there. Just keep um from drying out. Here's to exercising freedom!:group:

 

[Musturd]

Hello AutoOttos, just wanted to say high to another growing couple.

Read your thread great posts, great detail, I like your style,

Best of luck with your grow looks like your off to a bangin start. :tiphat:

grow together

 

[AutoOtto]

Just wrote a whole long and detailed diary entrance and although I had the site set to remember me previously, we just got a new computer so it wasn't set to that anymore, and so while I was writing my diary entrance and posting my pics, it autosigned me out (it seems to do that every five minutes unless you tell the site to remember you) Although this has happened in the past and I was successfully redirected, this time, it failed. I have to be up in just a few hours, so no time to do a proper repost, was burning the midnight oil as it was, so I promise lots of juicy pics and updates tomorrow (might not be til late, trying to get the switch flipped on the final autoflower room tomorrow) Here's a pic to whet your appetite, the first plant with its roots in the nutes, next to its bubbling bucket. See you tomorrow!!

stylez rasta smoke

 

[toke]

grows looking great AOttos sorry about the timing out prob, i do all big post in note pad or word then copy and paste here. im a slow thinker sometimes Stones slap and get bumped out i hate when that happens. :thumbs: i see the AOttos have met the M&Ms and we have another tag team. Good job Mates High 5

toke

 

[AutoOtto]

7/7/13: Got the air pump to get the buckets bubbling today. Went down to Petco and Petsmart and priced models and compared pumping capacities and ended up going with

Petco's top capacity aquarium pump:

It pumps at 140 GPH. I think that will be sufficient to bubble all 12 of the buckets I currently have going, just have to go down and grab some 1 to 3 way air splitters at the aquarium shop. Already had one plant, as those of you following the thread know, that has stretched roots down into the reservoir area, so that was a no brainer to get bubbling right away, I hope I didn't leave it without the bubbles for too long, but I misted the root several times a day to try and keep it moist until I was able to go get the pump. As for the others, I simply made my best guess as to which ones would be stretching roots down into the res next, and bubbled our buckets accordingly.

Put fresh clean water in all the newly bubbling reservoirs, about half strength veg nutes, and ph'd down to about 5.8 and lightly topwatered every plant except the NL auto #2 (the only one so far with roots in the res) also with 1/2 strength nutes. Before putting the girls to bed, did one final ph check and was happy to find all the reservoirs tested at either 5.8 or 5.9 right on the money! Can't wait til they all get roots in the res and no more watering! Just weekly bucket changes stylez rasta smoke

7/8/13: A long and wearing day today, but feel so good about what got done! So close to being ready to flip the switch on the final autoflower room. Just installed 3200w of MH in the auto room, just need to go pick up the boards my buddy cut to fit in place of the windows, remove the windows and screw them in place, hook up the ducting and vent fans, and install the two 220 breakers in the free spaces at the bottom of my breaker box and hook up the power (also remove the baseboard heater hooked up to the far wall and steal its power supply for all my 120 stuff I'll be running in that room, it's on its own breaker) and tomorrow morning, we'll take our plastic sheeting, tarp, duct tape and zipper doors and create the auto room door and the clean room in which we'll change to full body Tyvek coveralls each time before entering the finished garden. So excited to see it all coming together, here's some pics of the work we got done today. More to come very soon

Constructed a shelf outside the room for all the ballasts to sit on, punched a hole in the wall to send all the cords for the lights through

1200w in the corner of the unfinished eventual flowering room (will tent it off and flower the Martian Kush here)

Auto room with 3200 newly installed watts!

Here's how much space the ladies have to stretch:

Another update on the way as soon as the switch is flipped. Tomorrow or the next day at the latest. Now, I am going to take a well deserved medication break and once again, thank you in advance for all your wonderful advice and comments, peace stylez rasta smoke

 

[CGR]

GGGEEEss how did i mis you guysHoly Moly first let me say styles rasta ...glad to have you, and might i add, glad to have you, and did i say styles rasta