Gingerbeard
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The main GWE website has some good pictures of too much fan action.
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SOIL Update (1st grow): Do I water? Feed? Wait longer?
- Thread starter realhuuuman420
- Start date
Rootsruler
New member
Not really. Plants will take up what they need. There really isn't enough readily available nutrition in the soil to exacerbate that condition unless you go really heavy on the nutes. This is an area that there are a lot of different opinions. Much of the nutrition in prepared soils still needs to be chelated to be available to the plant so while the nutrition is there it isn't in a form that the plant can take up readily. This is where your microbial and fungal soil communities will help the most. The microbes will help in breaking down the raw nutrient ion into an absorbable form for the plant to take up. Salt based nutrients are popular because they are already chelated and readily available the moment they hit the soil. One of my pet peeves when it comes to organic vs synthetic fertilizers is once the organic ion gets chelated into its absorbable form it is identical to the synthetically produced one so whatever benefit organic growers think they are getting by using organic ferts is misinformed. At the ion level both nutrients look and perform the same to the plant.
Organic soils are great for outdoor growing as organically maintained soil is great for soil conditioning season over season. Indoor gardeners keep their plants in their media for a maximum of 4 or 5 months. Not enough time to be able to benefit from organics.
In my process I start out with a fresh bag of Roots Organic Original. The soil is fortified, much like yours, for around 5 weeks of nutrition and is OMRI rated as an organic product. I usually start feeding fertilizers to my sprout around week 2 of veg when they have around 2 or 3 sets of leaves. I feed them salt based fertilizers. I use a product called FloraNova by General Hydroponics. I use a 1/2 strength dose during flower but I also don't set up my feed solutions by tea or table spoon. I use PPM(Parts Per Million) in the water as my guide to how much nutrient I need to mix into the water. I can tailor the solution to the stage of growth the plant is in much more easily this way. My thought is I can feed the plant readily available nutrition while the microbial life breaks down and chelates the organically derived ions. If my recipe is short I have the soil nutrition to back me up. I'm sure some of the organically derived nutrition gets absorbed along with what I'm watering in so the plant will level out the nutrition in the soil vs what I'm feeding it. Toxicity issues come about when someone is feeding to high a ratio of NP or K and the high concentration locks out other ions to be absorbed by the root system.
As long as you aren't dumping tons of nutrients into your soil you should be fine. I would suggest you start with 1/4 strength doses and continue upping your solution concentrations by 1/4 each feeding until you start to see the leaf tips burn. Once this happens you know what the plant likes and you can back off a bit so that you aren't stressing it out much.
You may want to try mixing both distilled and tap to dilute whatever is making your soil white. I'm guessing you have a high calcium concentration in your water which is why it turns the soil white. Maybe the mix of the two will bring down the calcium concentration to a tolerable level.
Organic soils are great for outdoor growing as organically maintained soil is great for soil conditioning season over season. Indoor gardeners keep their plants in their media for a maximum of 4 or 5 months. Not enough time to be able to benefit from organics.
In my process I start out with a fresh bag of Roots Organic Original. The soil is fortified, much like yours, for around 5 weeks of nutrition and is OMRI rated as an organic product. I usually start feeding fertilizers to my sprout around week 2 of veg when they have around 2 or 3 sets of leaves. I feed them salt based fertilizers. I use a product called FloraNova by General Hydroponics. I use a 1/2 strength dose during flower but I also don't set up my feed solutions by tea or table spoon. I use PPM(Parts Per Million) in the water as my guide to how much nutrient I need to mix into the water. I can tailor the solution to the stage of growth the plant is in much more easily this way. My thought is I can feed the plant readily available nutrition while the microbial life breaks down and chelates the organically derived ions. If my recipe is short I have the soil nutrition to back me up. I'm sure some of the organically derived nutrition gets absorbed along with what I'm watering in so the plant will level out the nutrition in the soil vs what I'm feeding it. Toxicity issues come about when someone is feeding to high a ratio of NP or K and the high concentration locks out other ions to be absorbed by the root system.
As long as you aren't dumping tons of nutrients into your soil you should be fine. I would suggest you start with 1/4 strength doses and continue upping your solution concentrations by 1/4 each feeding until you start to see the leaf tips burn. Once this happens you know what the plant likes and you can back off a bit so that you aren't stressing it out much.
You may want to try mixing both distilled and tap to dilute whatever is making your soil white. I'm guessing you have a high calcium concentration in your water which is why it turns the soil white. Maybe the mix of the two will bring down the calcium concentration to a tolerable level.
Rootsruler
New member
Yes. Pots that are elevated enjoy better O² exchange in the saturation zone where your tap and major roots tend to end up. I don't do it because I let the runoff reabsorb into the bags. I haven't seen it affect the overall grow that much but if you can do it it is advisable to do it. I'm just a lazy bastard stuck in my ways so I'm probably missing out on some of the plant performance that I could be wringing out of it. Maybe your question will prompt me to do it next time to see if it makes a marked difference!
Rootsruler
New member
Yes. I too am guilty of the same thing. I forget that everyone has a different situation that may not line up with my process.
One of the things I tell growers is that while these plants are resilient being able to keep them in growth mode the whole time rather than in recovery mode part of the time will result in better dry yields. This is why I try and keep them as stress free as possible by keeping them within optimal environmental conditions along with feeding them what they want when they want. One of the things that you and I have to our advantage is the experience of knowing when a plant is happy or stressed and how to fix the issue if they do get stressed.
One of the things I tell growers is that while these plants are resilient being able to keep them in growth mode the whole time rather than in recovery mode part of the time will result in better dry yields. This is why I try and keep them as stress free as possible by keeping them within optimal environmental conditions along with feeding them what they want when they want. One of the things that you and I have to our advantage is the experience of knowing when a plant is happy or stressed and how to fix the issue if they do get stressed.
Rootsruler
New member
BTW...technically an auto is feminized by virtue of its genetics. There are no unfeminized autos! 
Rootsruler
New member
One of the things I've come to realize as I'm looking at the pile of dead 6" fans that I have stored in a box is that there are many ways to skin a cat. I have 4 of the new AC Infinity 2.0 fans and they are great but.....I think I can do the same thing with a lowly box fan.
I have a 5 x 5 and my plan is to hang the box fan, pointed at the ceiling, around 24" off the roof and dispense with the other fans. Why? I like to use the ScrOG method so height is not an issue for me. The box fan will pull air through the bottom flaps of the tent, through the canopy, past the lights and into the area where my exhaust fan sucks the air out along with humidity and whatever other gases the plant expels through transpiration. This will not only facilitate the air exchanges I want but will also help cool the lights and direct the heat towards the exhaust fan.
I've already done a couple runs with only a couple of small fans in the 5 x 5 and saw no issues so I'm not that worried about air movement as long as the box fan is doing its thing.
I have a 5 x 5 and my plan is to hang the box fan, pointed at the ceiling, around 24" off the roof and dispense with the other fans. Why? I like to use the ScrOG method so height is not an issue for me. The box fan will pull air through the bottom flaps of the tent, through the canopy, past the lights and into the area where my exhaust fan sucks the air out along with humidity and whatever other gases the plant expels through transpiration. This will not only facilitate the air exchanges I want but will also help cool the lights and direct the heat towards the exhaust fan.
I've already done a couple runs with only a couple of small fans in the 5 x 5 and saw no issues so I'm not that worried about air movement as long as the box fan is doing its thing.
Rootsruler
New member
Agreed. Autos don't like to be transplanted or messed with much so you have to be really careful you don't stress them out. I would leave the plant where it is and make the best of it.
As far as autos and yields, I would agree with you about the short timeline but I will point out the yields per plant will be smaller because you don't have control of how large you can veg the plant. Will there be extra time in veg versus an auto? Not really. I've noticed most autos go into flower after around week 4. More or less around the same time it takes to veg a photo seed to the point it can be flipped to flower. Flower times are usually shorter with autos but then again there aren't as many flower sites for the plant to have to grow so your yields will be smaller for the most part.
Again, I'm not an auto expert so I may be wrong on some of this stuff but the basic grow info spans both photo and auto grows.
As far as autos and yields, I would agree with you about the short timeline but I will point out the yields per plant will be smaller because you don't have control of how large you can veg the plant. Will there be extra time in veg versus an auto? Not really. I've noticed most autos go into flower after around week 4. More or less around the same time it takes to veg a photo seed to the point it can be flipped to flower. Flower times are usually shorter with autos but then again there aren't as many flower sites for the plant to have to grow so your yields will be smaller for the most part.
Again, I'm not an auto expert so I may be wrong on some of this stuff but the basic grow info spans both photo and auto grows.
Rootsruler
New member
My last grow I used clones propagated from a mother I had going so I shortened my veg time by around 2 weeks. The entire grow took 15 weeks and I dry yielded 4 lbs with 5 plants.
Gingerbeard
New member
Fem and photo will produce more simply by the fact that they grow longer. Harvest a fem at 12 weeks and see what you get. Maybe?
Gingerbeard
New member
Showoff... I mean... real fine work... I mean... damn! Yeah, that's it... damn! Two of those will give me the year and then some.
So 15 weeks plus the 2 for a clone. 17 weeks. An extra 5-6 weeks of auto time would give a helluvan auto.
So 15 weeks plus the 2 for a clone. 17 weeks. An extra 5-6 weeks of auto time would give a helluvan auto.
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Rootsruler
New member
LOL! This last harvest will last me around 6 months and that's with my GF smoking it up like a chimney!!
Rootsruler
New member
I guess the question would be if you grew 5 autos simultaneously to harvest, let's say 12 weeks to chop, how much dry yield to you think you'd be able to harvest? I'm not all that familiar with what an typical auto will produce. I know photos can produce around 3 -4 ozs of dry weight per plant if you just let them grow on their own without any training or special methods. I'm assuming the same with autos?
realhuuuman420
New member
Supposedly, from uhh... well from just looking at the internet, websites like growdiaries, plus the site of where I got the seeds from, a general agreement seems to be one auto should give you anywhere bewteen 50-250g of dry bud.
And quite frankly, if I can get 2x 50g PER YEAR, I need no more. My consumption is low, and it is only for me. If my (future) plants don't produce trucks of the top shelf weed, I won't commit sudoku over it. Literally a couple grams is all I need. Hence why autos (despite their sensitivity), and hence why only one plant in only one very small tent.
But to go back, 5 autos simultaneously, with an experienced grower with all the right tools and enough space? Possibly a kilogram of dry bud? Am I delusional?
And quite frankly, if I can get 2x 50g PER YEAR, I need no more. My consumption is low, and it is only for me. If my (future) plants don't produce trucks of the top shelf weed, I won't commit sudoku over it. Literally a couple grams is all I need. Hence why autos (despite their sensitivity), and hence why only one plant in only one very small tent.
But to go back, 5 autos simultaneously, with an experienced grower with all the right tools and enough space? Possibly a kilogram of dry bud? Am I delusional?
realhuuuman420
New member
Sorry for the confusion! So what I have from BioBizz is only the "Try Pack" - it has BioBizz Grow, Bloom, and Top-Max. That's all. For my next growth, I am getting everything else from biobizz - including soil (which one should I use, the Light Mix, or the Full Mix?), adding CalMag to the repertoire, and ph up/down, just in case.
So repeating again, the soil Iam using for this stunted girl is a cheap shit from the local store. I honestly think I would have been better off just scooping some dirt from outside...
Will put seed in the final pot from the beginning with the next grow! Thanks for the advice. For whatever reason, I thought jiffy peats are the best starter. Well I guess they might be - but not for autos.
So repeating again, the soil Iam using for this stunted girl is a cheap shit from the local store. I honestly think I would have been better off just scooping some dirt from outside...
Will put seed in the final pot from the beginning with the next grow! Thanks for the advice. For whatever reason, I thought jiffy peats are the best starter. Well I guess they might be - but not for autos.
Gingerbeard
New member
I just realized another something with my auto experience. All my auto grows have been from F1 seeds. Phenos have been Jekel and Hyde.
My best recall is my last grow of about 12 ounces from four plants. 320ish watts of light. 9 square feet of space. Filled every cubic inch. Somewhere around 11 weeks from seed-to-harvest.
Those are things to consider, too, realhuuuman420. Grams per square foot and grams per watt.
You were not using BioBizz soil? That pretty much craps on everything said about hot soil killing your plant. Well, remember everything when you go legit. No nutes is good nutes for seedlings. Water slow, all at once.
My best recall is my last grow of about 12 ounces from four plants. 320ish watts of light. 9 square feet of space. Filled every cubic inch. Somewhere around 11 weeks from seed-to-harvest.
Those are things to consider, too, realhuuuman420. Grams per square foot and grams per watt.
You were not using BioBizz soil? That pretty much craps on everything said about hot soil killing your plant. Well, remember everything when you go legit. No nutes is good nutes for seedlings. Water slow, all at once.
Autos is a big word, the time line for autos varies so much, I have grown them that finished in 58 days (and only 18" tall) and other that were still going strong at 120 days (over 4 feet tall). Obviously the longer growth time gives larger harvests, so be sure of how long they are expected to take from sprout to harvest.
Gingerbeard
New member
There's a plus for F1 seeds. The breeder makes no promises.