Top of the day, afternoon or however this finds you AFN! Wound up here searching for a the 420method. This place seemed pretty chill with good information, I was encouraged to share so here I am.
A little about myself: Been growing plants indoors and outdoors for 5 or so years. Started with indoor cannabis in (checks notes
) March 2024, did lots of research ahead of time. Bought a used 3x3 with exhaust that I never used and Mars Hydro FCE 4800. Go the rest of what I needed pretty quickly for automation, except for AC and Heat. I grow in a un air conditioned basement that I can control the lung room. Sometimes I employ basic cheap heaters from the hardware store with integrated Thermostats/Resistors.
Always used autopots from day one with Cannabis. My current grow I have hand watered an organic BAS 3.0 soil autoflower to pretty good success so far. That has been my only hand watering past about day 15. So automation is my thing, I do it in any way possible (within my current budget) because I am lazy.
My first 2 grows I did not understand the importance of genetics and where/how to find them.
Strains: Critical Auto 2.0 - March 3rd seeds in wet paper towel
Media: HP Promix with added perlite about 25%, autopot XL's with air bases but no domes with air pushing through it
Nutrients: GH Trio
General Notes:
When I got the tent the guy gave me some seed supreme critical auto 2.0 seeds, so that is what I grew first in some HP promix with GH Trio. Harvested 81 days later, but apparently didn't record my total or lost it. From pictures looks like I pulled 2.9 ounces for the left and 2.3 ounces on the right plant. I didn't think it was that great, low potency, airy, but it tasted good. Harvested too early, did no training at all because I wanted to learn how the plant grew. Had vegetable plants in there with them and a bad fungus gnat problem (self inflicted by putting cut leaves as "mulch" some organic things shouldn't be done) that I tried to solve with diatomaceous earth. Oh and checking notes plants were overfed like 2.3 E.C right from the start, as high as 3.21 just what I believe now are probably stupidly high numbers. Right plant I also dumped a gallon of solution on it when it was like day 7ish accidental when hand watering and stunted it. I didn't run the air domes but did run the bases but I believe I still put perlite in the bottom of the 6.6 gal autopots.
See some pictures below hopefully semi chronological order of the whole grow:
Anyways, that's as much as I care to write for tonight or about that first grow. May come back in a day or two and try to sum up another grow or two with some pictures for my own documentation & edification.
Lessons Learned:
1. Do some training of some sort to increase yield.
2. Don't overfeed nutrients. (wasn't learned completely)
3. Don't stunt autoflowers, the first 0-14 days are very important before I get automated watering turned on.
4. Do not trim leaves and use them as mulch without some sort of IPM. This invites bad stuff. (I still do this sometimes but a lot more prepared).
5. I thought too much nitrogen caused airy buds. I believe it was more of overfeeding than too much nitrogen, looking back at E.C. numbers that are well above 3.0 now knowing autopots recommends lower rates since it is a constant feed system of 1.4 in veg and 2.2 in flower unless you are running Athena (this came straight from Manny in a AMA on reddit). Supposedly Athena can run higher EC.
This is copied straight from the AMA with manny as I wanted to save this for later.
"I wouldn't say that most nutrients are made for drain to waste but rather the feed charts from those companies are designed with drain to waste in mind. The approach for sub irrigation wouldn't change that much if feeding was intermittent like a lot of conventional drip irrigation. Where our form of sub irrigation differs is that it is a constant feed system. This means the plants have constant availability to the nutrient solution. In instances like these where there is constant availability of mineral salts we need to tone down the strength of our fertilizers. Commonly this means reducing the dosage recommendations by 25% roughly. We do have rough guidelines when it comes to feeding, in the vegetative cycle we want to stay below 700 PPM/1.4 EC, in the flowering phase we will want to stay below 1100 PPM/2.2 EC. (PPM 500 scale)
These are rough guidelines, and many variables can affect the ability of the plants to uptake more, probably the biggest factor in this would be genetics. More than anything when growing new genetics you are unfamiliar with you should start low and gradually increase feed until your plants let you know that they've reached their limit. Good indicators of this are tip burn and clawing of the leaves. Once you start witnessing this you want to pull back on your nutrients. One of the most common mistakes in this system is overfeeding, people commonly mistake this for overwatering or pH issues. If the plant has been exposed to too many salts and is nearing lockout the best thing to do is to feed water only for a couple days then reintroduce fertilizer at half the rate you were previously feeding for the next few days. From there if the plants respond positively, it may be good to decrease the feed about 30% of where you were originally. I often tell growers to catalog what their feed rates are for specific genetics they like to grow that way they can refer back to the information as they rotate those genetics back in.
One other thing I'd like to mention is Athena is a different animal then other synthetic fertilizers I've seen on the market. Generally, growers can feed at a higher strength with Athena without getting into trouble. Guidelines are rough here because I've seen success with Athena at a lot of different rates. Also, recently I've witnessed needing to drop the pH in the tank a little lower than we are accustomed to for proper nutrient absorption with this line in the autopot system. Just be mindful of this when using Athena and feel free to reach out to me directly if you get into any trouble with it."
A little about myself: Been growing plants indoors and outdoors for 5 or so years. Started with indoor cannabis in (checks notes
) March 2024, did lots of research ahead of time. Bought a used 3x3 with exhaust that I never used and Mars Hydro FCE 4800. Go the rest of what I needed pretty quickly for automation, except for AC and Heat. I grow in a un air conditioned basement that I can control the lung room. Sometimes I employ basic cheap heaters from the hardware store with integrated Thermostats/Resistors.Always used autopots from day one with Cannabis. My current grow I have hand watered an organic BAS 3.0 soil autoflower to pretty good success so far. That has been my only hand watering past about day 15. So automation is my thing, I do it in any way possible (within my current budget) because I am lazy.
My first 2 grows I did not understand the importance of genetics and where/how to find them.
Strains: Critical Auto 2.0 - March 3rd seeds in wet paper towel
Media: HP Promix with added perlite about 25%, autopot XL's with air bases but no domes with air pushing through it
Nutrients: GH Trio
General Notes:
When I got the tent the guy gave me some seed supreme critical auto 2.0 seeds, so that is what I grew first in some HP promix with GH Trio. Harvested 81 days later, but apparently didn't record my total or lost it. From pictures looks like I pulled 2.9 ounces for the left and 2.3 ounces on the right plant. I didn't think it was that great, low potency, airy, but it tasted good. Harvested too early, did no training at all because I wanted to learn how the plant grew. Had vegetable plants in there with them and a bad fungus gnat problem (self inflicted by putting cut leaves as "mulch" some organic things shouldn't be done) that I tried to solve with diatomaceous earth. Oh and checking notes plants were overfed like 2.3 E.C right from the start, as high as 3.21 just what I believe now are probably stupidly high numbers. Right plant I also dumped a gallon of solution on it when it was like day 7ish accidental when hand watering and stunted it. I didn't run the air domes but did run the bases but I believe I still put perlite in the bottom of the 6.6 gal autopots.
See some pictures below hopefully semi chronological order of the whole grow:
Anyways, that's as much as I care to write for tonight or about that first grow. May come back in a day or two and try to sum up another grow or two with some pictures for my own documentation & edification.
Lessons Learned:
1. Do some training of some sort to increase yield.
2. Don't overfeed nutrients. (wasn't learned completely)
3. Don't stunt autoflowers, the first 0-14 days are very important before I get automated watering turned on.
4. Do not trim leaves and use them as mulch without some sort of IPM. This invites bad stuff. (I still do this sometimes but a lot more prepared).
5. I thought too much nitrogen caused airy buds. I believe it was more of overfeeding than too much nitrogen, looking back at E.C. numbers that are well above 3.0 now knowing autopots recommends lower rates since it is a constant feed system of 1.4 in veg and 2.2 in flower unless you are running Athena (this came straight from Manny in a AMA on reddit). Supposedly Athena can run higher EC.
This is copied straight from the AMA with manny as I wanted to save this for later.
"I wouldn't say that most nutrients are made for drain to waste but rather the feed charts from those companies are designed with drain to waste in mind. The approach for sub irrigation wouldn't change that much if feeding was intermittent like a lot of conventional drip irrigation. Where our form of sub irrigation differs is that it is a constant feed system. This means the plants have constant availability to the nutrient solution. In instances like these where there is constant availability of mineral salts we need to tone down the strength of our fertilizers. Commonly this means reducing the dosage recommendations by 25% roughly. We do have rough guidelines when it comes to feeding, in the vegetative cycle we want to stay below 700 PPM/1.4 EC, in the flowering phase we will want to stay below 1100 PPM/2.2 EC. (PPM 500 scale)
These are rough guidelines, and many variables can affect the ability of the plants to uptake more, probably the biggest factor in this would be genetics. More than anything when growing new genetics you are unfamiliar with you should start low and gradually increase feed until your plants let you know that they've reached their limit. Good indicators of this are tip burn and clawing of the leaves. Once you start witnessing this you want to pull back on your nutrients. One of the most common mistakes in this system is overfeeding, people commonly mistake this for overwatering or pH issues. If the plant has been exposed to too many salts and is nearing lockout the best thing to do is to feed water only for a couple days then reintroduce fertilizer at half the rate you were previously feeding for the next few days. From there if the plants respond positively, it may be good to decrease the feed about 30% of where you were originally. I often tell growers to catalog what their feed rates are for specific genetics they like to grow that way they can refer back to the information as they rotate those genetics back in.
One other thing I'd like to mention is Athena is a different animal then other synthetic fertilizers I've seen on the market. Generally, growers can feed at a higher strength with Athena without getting into trouble. Guidelines are rough here because I've seen success with Athena at a lot of different rates. Also, recently I've witnessed needing to drop the pH in the tank a little lower than we are accustomed to for proper nutrient absorption with this line in the autopot system. Just be mindful of this when using Athena and feel free to reach out to me directly if you get into any trouble with it."
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