Health check NL autos

[hycheese]

i am Nfromnorth of baton rouge would like to talk with u i am not good onthis site features sending pm i had severe injury to head

Hey man, where you at? do I need to pick you up? we good right?

[uncledoug]

Northern Light autos - hopefully short.
hycheese My two girls, Northern Lights Auto from Nirvana are in week 12 and one is 26" and the other 22" measured from top of coco coir. I topped and LST during veg. I'll post a picture if you would like to see.

[hycheese]

forgot to turn off the lights.

[oldjarhead100]

I run lights 24/7 for Autos ,so you should have no worries

[hycheese]

Update: 9 weeks from seed, thanks to uncledoug and a few others who refused to listen to the tripe that you can't train an Auto - I have done some fairly major defoliation just short of lollipopping and a double super crop on the same stem which was pretty big and quite tough to do. These have finally stopped growing and are now staying at 48" from the dirt with the buds starting to fill out.

[hycheese]

Got the seeds from Nirvana, I even emailed them pictures to see why they got so big they replied quickly but offered little explanation.
and the other message got confused, was meant for OJH as Corky is a lobsterman from his area in NewEngland.

[Redwasp]

Dass has always said his got huge. So I think normal.

[uncledoug]

No wonder I don't know him. lol
After we harvest and dry we should compare weight and see if my smaller plants produce less. The small plant is turning cloudy so maybe another week or so.

[Redwasp]

I try to never compare yields with anyone except myself. Unless it is a prearranged, just for fun, friendly game. Yields are so variable that it really doesnt tell you much. But I'm sure others here will compare with you. I know alot have grown that strain. Cant remember how much D.A.A.S.69 plant yielded but if I remember correctly it was alot. But he is very good at growing big plants that yield alot.

And yes PaganRich we are still on for October? Just waiting to see what strain. And I forget are we doing autos? If so can I suggest Auto OG or auto Bubbalicious from MSNL seeds? If you have any suggestions just let me know.

[Redwasp]

I can do some photos. And yeah that strain will be fine. Never ordered from them before though.

[hycheese]

PaganRich you say that you are not set up for autos? with this being my first grow I thought autos were much easier and need less care than photos. Just curious.

[PaganRich]

hycheese morning mate...Good question...I run perpetual harvests so I have a conveyor belt style growing patten using 2 tents; one for veg, one for flowering. Auto`s don`t work easily within that due to the lights needing to be on 18 hrs during flowering. Auto`s in with 12/12`s are restricted bud growth wise by the 12/12 light time frame. Secondly, I started out on auto`s and found them harder to grow though within the last few years there have been big improvements in stabalizing strains and increasing strength and consistency. Also, folks are doing training with them previously thought off-limits and there are a lot of very experienced growers who feel they`re the way forward and I think they are probably right long term. The reason I went to photo was mainly stability of seed strains, keeping my energy costs down, perpetual harvesting and I just found photo`s just more enjoyable and easier to grow. Auto`s helped me on this journey but they can be tricky lasses to grow. I also like to heavily train my lasses and whilst others are really up there in training auto`s, I`m not that inclined. I do recommend the red auto strains out there though. Now those I had lots of fun with, very big impressive colas

[rizcuny]

My northern lights auto are approaching harvest, not expecting much off of them, one plants is half the size of the other, probably going to yield about 1.5 Oz from small plant and 2.5 Oz from bigger girl?

[hycheese]

Just spotted this tonight, using plant doctor it looks closest to "leaf septoria" but I keep my room at 75F@40% and pest free. Me thinks it is light burn but have no room to move them up, I have 2 - 100watt LEDs at 20 inches - turn 1 off? or install a 2'x4' semi-transparent plastic light diffuser? reduce the time from 20/4? or eat it all tonight with eggs?

[PaganRich]

What is the average temp in there and do you have a fan going. I`m wondering if it`s possibly a combination of heat/ light stress. If it isn`t that then it could be a nutes issue but I`d start out by looking at the heat/airflow first. A good lad for these issues is D.A.A.S.69 he really is helpful on these type of questions. D.A.A.S.69 Any thoughts, mate?

[oldjarhead100]

eat it all tonight with eggs lol it looks like led light burn ,so what about bending the plants down you don't have to super crop them just a couple of inches ,or just go with it as is your close enough to harvest that I dont think it will hurt much

[D.A.A.S.69]

Morning hycheese, Nice looking plants, my friend, good job, Northern Lights can get huge, some killer smoke too
But looks like Led bleaching to me, you need to bend the tallest buds out of the direct light, like OJH says, never used a light diffuser, but surely that would help some. If they were mine. I would bend the tallest buds out of the way of the light. Or move them to another place. You surely don't want to burn them up. Good Luck

[hycheese]

Week 10 - LED bleaching? I moved the lights to the ceiling, now at 24", the manufacturer recommends 24" - 40" for flowering. I also moved the older plant out of the box slightly and spun it around 180 degrees as it seems the side next to the reflectex was where the bleaching seemed highest. The somewhat smaller plant on the right is only 9 weeks. I also got some sticky hands that smelled like turpentine, I used some wire to bend the center of the larger plant out from directly under the LED.

I am usually in the house 20 hours a day and seldom smell anything, however, after being gone for 4 hours today I came back to an overwhelming smell reminiscent of homemade cookies with a savory skunk aroma - now I know what you guys have been talking about...

[NAKEDGARDENER]

I’d be so tempted to hang those 100w bulbs over them too lol, those gals making my mouth water

[hycheese]

I have 3 of those CFLs and use them directly over the buds that hang outside the box. I believe they are 40watt/200 watt equivalents.

[NAKEDGARDENER]

What kind of lux and PAR are you getting above them right now hycheese?

[NAKEDGARDENER]

I use four as side lights or to hit certain tops but hey are 75 w full spec, I find the LED ones very effective, going to mount them in a splitter 5 into one light bar for future grows and hang them to fill in shadow, as for the lux well I was wondering about that only because while is only a visual determination I can see that figure surely can’t be high enough to bleach but I know little and but a padawan lol

[hycheese]

I bought my LUX meter long before ever thinking about getting into growing for a quick way to compare outside spotlights I was building with 100watt cobs.

Anyways DrPhoton already explained to me in simpleton terms that a cheap LUX meter doesn't tell the whole story, otherwise my plants would have withered long ago by not getting the suggested 70,000 lux.

[NAKEDGARDENER]

Yeh got the PAR meter arriving Tuesday, figuring on setting up lamps accordingly, DrPhoton has advised me along some questions I had, as a noob I am learning too, and seeing my own op show signs that only the online community can help fix or identify so quickly, back in the day it was just m.h and hps, and a closet when I was back in blighty lol so I’m on a sharp learning curve here but my feet are wet and I’m a Gardener, having the ability to draw from so many resources instantly compared to say pre year y2k is the difference between discreet library reading or finding a grow guide recommended by a “friend” lol. Thanks for sharing your experience, I’m learning all the time. Oh yeh just finished hitting my Jan. Crop of Snow White so I am gabby.

[hycheese]

Week 11 or about 80 days;
What I thought was LED bleach/burn and even though the lights were much too close the problem turned out to be nute lock.

When the plants grew too tall I had to remove my patent pending water runoff metering system to gain some more headroom and just ran to drain outside. Turns out that water usage and runoff are a bit more dynamic than I thought and what was initially giving me 30% runoff at 500 ppm was no longer giving me any runoff and ppm shot to 1200. Had to flush twice to get back on track.

Anyways they seem to be no worse for the wear, between the 2 plants it looks to have about 30 buds averaging 6" and a dozen or more smaller ones.

[hycheese]

Good news, bad news;
A few days ago I was cutting off the lower popcorn buds, all were about 3 feet down from the canopy and fairly new growth, that's when I noticed seed pods. I paper bagged them for a few days then put in my forced air convection oven at 120F for 15 minutes, smoked a fairly small amount in a water bong and got lit pretty good even had a hard time walking with lead legs. The high lasted about 2 hours and fell asleep woke up 4-hours later all refreshed.

Of course, it could be all placebic but a friend give me a joint from a medical dispensary a few weeks ago while I was battling a bout of gout and mine seem more potent, either way, all the big buds are doing fine with cloudy trichs with a smattering of amber, I imagine being so close to harvest that there is nothing to worry about. Funny thing with these auto's even the new buds come out looking like adults with brown pistils and some cloudy trichs.

[hycheese]

Week 13, chopped and hung to dry; may have been a week or so early but had no choice as guests are arriving and need the spare bedroom. Either way, most of the leaves on the bigger plant were already dying off due to what may have been nute lockout. I did a quick trim to get them out of the room and will go back over the next few days to a little better trim job. Got 366 grams from the bigger plant and 380 grams from the smaller one, also got 100 grams of popcorn nugs. The biggest cola is shown next to the coke can and weighed in at 52 grams. Total weight wet with stems is 850 grams or 30 ounces.

My test nugget of 3 grams picked 8 days ago is now at 0.65 grams at 62% rh, or about an 80% weight loss. So after drying my guesstimate is about 160 grams or about 6 ounces from both plants. It is unfortunate that some neglect late in the game probably cost me 50% in yield.

[Toripony]

Nice harvest!  Enjoy!

[hycheese]

I could have done a better trim job but who would of thunk it would have been so tedious, I actually got a blister on my thumb and rubbed the skin off my index finger knuckle that hurts like the dickens. I left a bit more of the sugar leaves on than most but I wanted to bogart those trichomes and even so it smokes quite good from a bong.

Anyways the first plant has been packed and got 96 grams or 3.4oz in 4 jars, they may lose a little more but not much. My 52-gram bud is now at 14 grams so the 70-80% weight loss rule of thumb seems to hold true. I did order some Boveda 62 packs which will be here Monday, I only smoke before bed for insomnia and pain and 1 gram seems to last for a week.

The aroma has turned around 100% from rotten hay to something much more pleasant, not having smelled fresh weed before I don't have anything to compare it to. The second plant looks to be about the same and should get a total of 180 grams (6oz) from both. For my first grow I'll take what I can get even at $100 an ounce, though the next grow will be significantly cheaper now that I paid for the initial equipment.

[D.A.A.S.69]

hycheese, Congratulations, nice job.