Auto experiment

[WeirdWiredWolf]

Any big grows are on hold until we can get our electricity problems professionally diagnosed and fixed. I was going through my stored seeds, and found a small vial of Northern Lights auto...a few of the seeds had mold on the outside (?!). I wiped the mold off, and decided to germinate one for the hell of it. Soaked it in distilled water for 12 hours, then plopped it in a small pot of Stonington Blend about a week ago. She sprouted on the 25th.

Day 1:



Day 2:



Day 3:



Day 4 (today):




My plan is to keep it in the current pot (brown plastic pot, slightly larger than a solo cup), sunlight supplemented with a single grow bulb (maybe, I can find my spare bulbs but the clamp fixture I had has gone missing) and see what if anything happens. Will probably have to rig up a training "frame" of some sort; god knows I have cardboard, zipties, stakes, plant wire and tape around here. I'm not expecting big yields, this was more of a "this is so crazy it might actually work".

[Rik]

Nice! I was considering giving a buddy of mine (who doesn’t grow but loves to smoke) an auto in a small house plant pot that he can grow in his window. I’m interested how yours will go. Good luck!

[dilvish]

Northern Lights loves light. It is one strain that particularly works well on a 24/0 schedule as an Autoflower. It won't produce well unless it gets good UV so regular bulbs won't do much.

[Puglover1]

Hi - When do you increase the light intensity - use bloom & veg lights, or go from 50% to 100%? It's on 24/0 the entire grow? I have two NL autos growing ATM. Thnx!

[WeirdWiredWolf]

Today's update: Things were going sllooooow so I didn't take pics until 2 days ago; now we're cooking with gas (I think). I've been voted down for using any "large" supplemental lights except for when sunlight is literally not an option (being allowed to use one LED bulb intended for seedlings, I'm going to see if I can get a beefier one...hey, it still counts as only ONE bulb, no?).

She's stretching a good deal so I'm going to add a bit more soil. We did find out that we have critters partying on the back porch (we lost an avocado pit that had just gained roots; poor thing was dug out of the pot, split in half and the roots were gnawed off), so no putting this thing outside when things start getting fragrant.

Today's pic:

[dilvish]

if the seedling is stretching it needs more light not more soil. Move it to a sunny window when possible and if not move the LED closer to the plant. You state a 300W LED then it should be at least 18-24 inches from the top of the plant

[WeirdWiredWolf]

The extra soil is to cover more of the stem (support/maximize root area). I'm not using my 300W LED right now; that's what seemed to be causing our breaker to trip and I don't want to use it until we can figure out WTF's going on (right now, it does not seem to be the main culprit but we don't want to make things worse). I don't really have a place to set it up seeing as my tent is packed away, so it's sunlight and one or two LED bulbs for now.

[SoOrbudgal]

LOL " you make perfect sense, i'm keeping up " dig it and good experiment hope the heck it works for ya

[WeirdWiredWolf]

I did add more soil, and ordered a beefier supplemental clip light to hopefully help with the stretching (and that I can probably leave on 24/7 if I decide to; while nowhere near the output/draw of my large panel, it would be more than I'm providing now. Besides happening to choose a light-hungry strain to start with I figured out that the dinky LED bulb I have is approximately useless for anything more demanding than a plain seedling. Is it me or does she look lighter green than the previous pics?

Today's pics:

[WeirdWiredWolf]

Sorry for the lack of updates, but I'm taking on a new position at work and...the rollout/training has been a clusterfuck at best (I can do this, I just need the store manager to get out of my biz and let me do what I do).

Day 31, and looking good. I went ahead and bought an LED clamp fixture which seems to be working well; when there's not direct sunlight I have the plant under that. She's stretched a bit more than I'd like, but eh. First pic is the overall light setup (attached to a chair), next pics in natural light are what she looks like now.

[Puglover1]

I grew an Indica photo to this point in my kitchen using a round LED grow bulb inside the hanging lampshade with black trim in the upper R corner. It was repotted shortly after moving into the closet.

[WeirdWiredWolf]

Things got NUTSO again but I think it's calmed down (promotion at work, only now do I find out that I was supposed to have XYZ done a week ago but my idiot manager never gave me what I needed to make it happen...grrrrr). Day 57, thereabouts. Still under sunlight/the dinky grow light...no the electrical problems have not even been mentioned to our super. My mom and I have been "testing" things so we can have an alternate explanation for how we discovered the problem, and I want her to be the one to bring it up since she's been the primary complainer.

Now I'm starting to question whether this actually is an auto or I really f'ed up labeling my seeds... Either way it's healthy, but it's not getting the light it needs and if she is a photo I don't want to keep the poor thing in veg for too long.