New Grower Zamaldelica express under overdriven t8s

[GrowEverything]

Hi everybody!

I am new to the world of automatics, have grown photos a few times with mixed results. I have historically had a hard time not babying plants to death haha, I’ve learned to tie my hands down and let the damn things grow, which was the big draw for me in automatics, less for me to feel the need to “optimize” haha.

I do my best to be as organic as possible.

So, I am growing Zamaldelica Express from Night Owl.

They are under 2 2bulb 4ft t8 shop lights. They are over driven, and each fixture has 1 cool white, and 1 warm white bulb.

I have 2 plants started about a week apart, the older one is “master nursery gardeners gold potting soil”, which in the northeast is made by Coast of Maine, who make some really nice compost, and is suuuuper cheap. The younger one is in Roots original.

Both are in 3 gallon fabric pots.

Lights are 18/6
-edit> lights were one 24 hours for first week of the first plant being above soil.

Temps 72-77

Rh 45-65

Just giving water now, have given the plant in the gardeners gold a watering with earth juice “assist” because I had issues with peat based solid becoming hygrophobic in the past.



So, these plants look really nice, no signs of deficiency’s that I can see.

My question is really about when to start giving them any nutes. Was hoping to topdress with some worm castings maybe some compost, little compost tea perhaps.

Does that sound reasonable, or does the short life cycle of automatics mean I would be better served using something more immediately available to the plant?

I’ll try to get some pics up soon!

Thanks for reading!

 

[Mañ'O'Green]

Hi everybody!

I am new to the world of automatics, have grown photos a few times with mixed results. I have historically had a hard time not babying plants to death haha, I’ve learned to tie my hands down and let the damn things grow, which was the big draw for me in automatics, less for me to feel the need to “optimize” haha.

I do my best to be as organic as possible.

So, I am growing Zamaldelica Express from Night Owl.

They are under 2 2bulb 4ft t8 shop lights. They are over driven, and each fixture has 1 cool white, and 1 warm white bulb.

I have 2 plants started about a week apart, the older one is “master nursery gardeners gold potting soil”, which in the northeast is made by Coast of Maine, who make some really nice compost, and is suuuuper cheap. The younger one is in Roots original.

Both are in 3 gallon fabric pots.

Lights are 18/6

Temps 72-77

Rh 45-65

Just giving water now, have given the plant in the gardeners gold a watering with earth juice “assist” because I had issues with peat based solid becoming hygroscopic in the past.



So, these plants look really nice, no signs of deficiency’s that I can see.

My question is really about when to start giving them any nutes. Was hoping to topdress with some worm castings maybe some compost, little compost tea perhaps.

Does that sound reasonable, or does the short life cycle of automatics mean I would be better served using something more immediately available to the plant?

I’ll try to get some pics up soon!

Thanks for reading!

Yes that is a valid thought. Organics nutrients need time to become available to the plant and you don't have that much time. Pre-charged soil should hold for 3 or 4 weeks but we see that fail often here. It is a judgement call on what and when to start adding nutrients. It is dificult to add organic at this stage?

 

[GrowEverything]

Yes that is a valid thought. Organics nutrients need time to become available to the plant and you don't have that much time. Pre-charged soil should hold for 3 or 4 weeks but we see that fail often here. It is a judgement call on what and when to start adding nutrients. It is dificult to add organic at this stage?

Basically my question was should I expect these plants to have dramatically different requirements or be more sensitive to feeding than a photo plant?
I have gotten the impression that ruderalis generally are not super heavy feeders, and my (Very limited!)experience has been that sativas are less wanting than indicas. These plants being what they are makes me think they’ll be not too hungry, so I was hoping to get through with compost teas, ewc top dress etc.

I do have quite a lot of Earth Juice grow, bloom, micro blast, and meta k on hand, so I’m only a bottle of Catalyst away from the full original line. However it has been my experience that these are not an instant fix, so with the shortened cycle of an automatic I’m not positive that’s my best bet.

Im tempted to just do compost teas and ewc, maybe topdress with tomatoe tone haha.

 

[GrowEverything]

These are 13 days from breaking the soil on the large one, 5ish on the smaller.

This is the soil the larger one is in, the smaller in Roots original.

 

[GrowEverything]

Day 16 and 7. Some brussel sprouts startin out on the left too
The older one is showing off the bits already!

 

[GrowEverything]

17 days, 8 days

 

[GrowEverything]

here we are at 20 days, started tying down the first plant. I don’t get great light pentration with the t8s, so keeping an even canopy is important.
I have also swapped all the bulbs to bright white tubes.
May add some led side light as things progress.
Seeing a tiny bit of lightening on the older leaves, am going to top dress with Espoma Plant Tone next watering.

 

[Olderfart]

Looking good, very happy plants so far.

 

[GrowEverything]

24 days and 15 days. Also a BlackD.O.G. getting ready on the left. I put the yogurt cup so the soil doesn’t dry up from the fan and get crusty.
Also, I don’t know what I was thinking that these were 3 gallon pots, they gotta be 5 or 7s
Edit:Have not had to water yet, so haven’t top dressed. Yellowing on bottom leaves looks like mag deficiency, claw looks like excess N, but is also only affecting the part of the plant getting the most wind from the fans :/ So not totally convinced there. PH maybe? Most likely going to use plain water and use a PH probe, as I don’t have a ph pen right now, and really dislike dealing with run off water anyway.

 

[GrowEverything]

So this is the yellowing Im seeing.
Only on a couple lower leaves, this is the fan at the second node.
I might be going crazy, but this is right before lights off, I feel like it is less yellow right after lights on. But the plants in their morning also look, idk, maybe velvety almost? Iridescent even, like a less vibrant starling.
Could this be magnesium being used in the day, replenished in the night?
Am I overthinking this? Almost certainly haha
Edit:Also watered with tap water that sat with air stones in it for a few days, soil ph according to my 7$ LHS soil probe was high sixes, not sure if that’s the issue or not, gonna check the ph of the same soil out of the bag, to compare and see if it drifted at all.