First week growing autoflower

[Rookiegrower710]

I’m growing two autoflower strains for the first time; Northern Lights Auto (Northern Lights x Ruderalis), and Purple Punch Auto (Purple Punch x Old School Skunk Auto) by Royal Queen Seeds; both of the strains im growing are Indica dominant flower.

age of strains: Northern Lights auto (week 1, day 7)
Purple Punch auto (week 0-1, day 6)

I’m using approximately 250-500ml per day and per plant as soon as I see the soil dry up completly. Keeping soil moist but not waterlogged. pH of tapwater is 6.5, and ppm/ec is around 353 ppm/ 0.706 ec with no added nutrients. Im using fox farm ocean forest that has a NPK of 4-1-1. Will begin to feed on week 5-6 after they flip themselves into flowering stage. I was doing 100-250ml of tapwater the first week… heat is drying it fast..

when I begin to feed, 5-6 weeks in. I will be using generalhydroponics floratrio (floramicro, florabloom, floragro) and cal-mag and silica. Using only 1/4 of the reccomended dose, for example; 0.25ml of floramicro, 0.25 ml of florabloom, 0.25ml of floragro…

I will also begin low stress training once I’ve reached the 5th-7th node. I got wire but gonna invest in budhuggers soft wire.

Environment:
Temperature outside tent: 78*F
humidity outside tent: 35%
temperature inside tent: 86*F to hot, gonna invest in a portable ac. My exhaust fan is on though, and im running two oscillating fans to help with the heat
humidity inside tent: 38% currently lower than my ideal which is 40-60%
lighthing distance and schedule: 24 inches above cannopy; and 24 hoursa of light with no trest.

[Rootsruler]

Sounds like you've got some growing skills already. A few suggestions.

Try not to use a set amount of water at each watering. The plant will vary in its water uptake throughout each cycle. I water the entire media regardless of how small the seedling is. Why? You've noted in your post that you understand the importance of the water/dryback process. Why is this important? Cannabis roots are susceptible to root rot so if the media stays too wet too long you run the risk of stressing them out through lack of O² availability and the roots start to die. When you water the entire media you'll notice that the area that dries up first is usually around the main stem. Why? Because the root ball takes up the easiest water it can find which is in its immediate area. Once it sucks up all the water in that area the tap root will shoot new roots looking for more water. If the media outside the root ball is dry the roots the tap shot out will die off. Early root development is key to larger harvests especially with autos where you only have a set amount of time to grow your plant as big as you can before it starts to flower so developing a large root system early on will guarantee a larger, better harvest. Develop your roots and the foliage will follow.

Also, capillary action will spread out the graduated amount of water you are presently giving your plants and evaporate it faster meaning you'll have to water more frequently.

I suggest reading this to all new growers and even some more experienced. It filled in a lot of questions that I had and showed me some new things to incorporate into my grows to make them better and easier.

(4) Watering cannabis explained by Aqua Man | Bud Builders - Making Friends, Growing Cannabis

I would start cal/mag supplementation earlier, like around week 3. LED lighting tends to pull a lot of mag. Silica I would start immediately to start fortifying all the branches and leaf material you'll need to support flower growth.

It looks like you're in a 2 x 2 so controlling temp and humidity are going to be a little trickier than if you were in a larger space. I usually see around a 5° - 7° difference from outside to inside temp differential with lights on. I'm assuming you have the tent in an office or bedroom so a portable A/C is a good idea to get your lung room temp down. Just make sure you don't exhaust your tent air back into the lung room along with making sure the heat from the portable goes out a window along with the tent exhaust.

For humidity control I use an automated humidifier from ACInfinity. I use the T3 model. I can set it to whatever humidity level I want to maintain and the probe monitors the environment for me keeping it topped off at whatever setting I want.

CLOUDFORGE T3, Environmental Plant Humidifier, 4.5L, Smart Controls, Targeted Vaporizing - AC Infinity

[Sixwinds]

Does silica actually do anything? I tried it and noticed no difference in plant strength.

[Rootsruler]

Sixwinds - https://www.royalqueenseeds.com/blog...is-plants-n199

[Bluey]

Good Q. 6. I'm not sure either but I use it in veg and early flower. I also use it when cloning. I think it may help with nute transport and uptake but I'm not sure. I should do a side by side test on it.

[Rookiegrower710]

I watered the whole medium this time and got a runoff off 3500 which I wont be adding any nutes anytime soon. And the soils came in at pH at
6.3 Rootsruler

[Rootsruler]

Don't worry about runoff for now. Your plant is small and the soil nutrition should be ample for its needs.

I like to try and preserve as much of the soil nutrition as I can in case I don't give the plants what they want at the stage they are at the soil nutrition will be there to make up for it. I start a feed program a couple of weeks from sprout so that as I get deeper in to late veg/early flower I don't run into deficiency issues. Basically what's happening is I'm feeding it with easily available nutrient ions while letting the soil do its natural breakdown of biomass into available nutrient ions. Doing it this way will keep enough nutrient available to your plant so that you don't stunt the growth and lengthen your harvest window due to the time the plant spent in recovery mode because there wasn't enough nutrition in the soil to keep the plant healthy.

[Rookiegrower710]

Thanks a lot for your insight. I will begin to use silica on its next watering. Cal-mag will add on week 3, 2 weeks from today. I will use .35 ml of silica next watering, and .65 ml of cal-mag at week 3. On todays watering I did as you said and it made more sense to water entire medium instead of jusy focusing water in the center of the plant.

Im growing inside my closet, and the exhaust air is being exhausted inside the same room which imma see if I move the exhaust outside to my room.

Going foward I will water the whole medium as soon as I see the soil dry up. Imma go ahead an read the articles you’ve shared in the mean time. Thanks big time!
Rootsruler

[Rookiegrower710]

Update

[Rookiegrower710]

Im watering the whole media to promote healthy root growth. And lettong soil dry up completly before watering with a pH of 6.5, with a ppm of 333, and a ec of .666
For food im just adding silica gold which helps with keeping plant strong. With a npk of 0-0-1.3 with solubale potash and soulble silicone. I just add 0.39 ml per gallon of silica gold very low amounts.

The soil has a npk of 4-1-1 and I don’t have to feed base nutrients for like 5-6 week in.

I will add another additive such as
cal-mag on week 3 at around .65 ml per gallon. With a npk of 1-0-0 has nitrogen, calcium, magnesium, and iron

The good thing of ocean forest by fox farm is that its loaded with nutes witg a runoff coming it at 6.3 pH and 3500 ppm which translates to 7 ec

Whatever I dont feed now that soil got my back. I will add floramicro, florabloom, and floragro on week 5-6
At around .25ml of each bottle per gallon.

The reason im feeding early with silica, then calmag, and finally base nutrients is to prevent definciencies
Floramicro has a npk of 5-0-1
With nitrogen, soluble potash, calcium, boron, cobalt, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, and zinc

Flora bloom has npk of 0-5-4 and his composed by phosphate, solubale poyasg, magnesium, sulfur

And finally the last base nutrient
Floragro 2-1-6 with nitrogen, phosphate, soluble potash, magnesium

I will be using with my organic soil general hydroponics nutes.

My problem is the enviornment to much heat at around 87*F and I need the heat to be below 77*F and the humidity is at 41% which imma invest in a ac and humidifier. Since the exhaust air is being extracted in the same room the room temp and humidiyt is at 36% humidity and 80*F

To much to learn about autos but im siked!

[Rookiegrower710]

Bluey I was thinking of using distillate water since my tap water has a ec of .7

[Bluey]

I use rainwater. I struggle with Cal deficiency

[Rootsruler]

It's early so he should have enough cal/.mag in the soil but I would start supplementing around week 3.

[SoOrbudgal]

Hey Monday will be 2nd week of growing whoop whoop

[Rookiegrower710]

Lol 😂😂😂

[Bluey]

I could have sworn it was the 4th week

[Rookiegrower710]

Week 4 I wish… Northern lights auto is 10 days old, and purple punch auto is 9 days old

[Rookiegrower710]

Update; day 9 northern lights auto, day 8 Purple Punch Auto

[Rookiegrower710]

Tomorrow makes day 10 for northern lights auto, 74 more days to go for harvest date, and purple punch auto will be turning 9 days old, making it 61 days until harvest. Both are growing daily so quickly

[Rookiegrower710]

Northern Lights auto day 10
purple punch auto day 9

[Rookiegrower710]

Rootsruler third day after watering entire media. Had to add half a liter of water to each plant; 3 days ago I began to water whole media as you said. Currently using .39ml of just silica as an additive per gallon.

[Rootsruler]

Can't get your photos to come up but from the gallery they look good. We should wait and see how they do but I'm thinking you can probably start feeding them nutrient in a couple weeks.

When you mix your nutrient add the cal/mag first into the water and make sure it's well mixed. Second will be the silicate, also making sure it's well mixed and then your base ferts. This is so you don't precipitate the solution. You'll be feeding right away so not a big chance of that happening but always good to start best practices so when you move into auto irrigation and have a nutrient solution reservoir tank you'll understand how you need to mix the solution so that you don't get deficiencies down the road.

The rule of thumb is you don't want to mix phosphate based nutrients with calcium containing nutrients. This is if you will be housing a solution for an extended period of time. If you're going to mix and feed that same day then you don't need to follow it as much but, again, good practice for when you do get to that stage.

I use 2 tanks and keep them completely separated if I have to leave for an extended period of time.

[Rookiegrower710]

Update: day 11 northern lights auto, and day 10 purple punch auto

[Rookiegrower710]

Day 12 northern lights auto
day 11 purple punch auto

[No3odiesShad0w]

2 fantastic cultivars with fantastic results. Your going to love how explosive the purple punch gets at around day 16. She's going to double in size daily from there. Excellent yielding plant. The northern lights is a great beginner variety. Very forgiving and super rewarding with her dense colorful nuggets that smell of a northern pine forest.

Both your girls are looking fantastic. You are off to a pretty good start. The most important part of an autos life is the first 30 or so days. That will determine EVERYTHING. If she grows vigorously during veg, she'll end up with lots of good possible bud sites.

I would watch the temps. I can see a few spots on both plants that are showing heat stress and humidity stress. Basically it's too hot and too dry. They're in veg if you have a humidifier then pump it to 65% at 85F should give you a decent leaf VPD. That would be the simplest and cheapest way to fix the issue. Cooling the room would be the next best solution but much more expensive. If the VPD isn't within range, the plants can't effectively pull up nutrients. Thankfully the range is pretty wide. Just need to make little tweaks.

Overall, great start 👍 I'm sure you'll be pleased with the results.

[Rookiegrower710]

Tomorrow will be week 2, day 14 for northen lights auto, and day 13 for purple punch auto