I’m brand new to this and currently have 5 auto seedling’s coming along, nicely or not I’m hoping you can help with. I suffer from Fibromyalgia and on the day I planted I had quite a bit of brain fog and so forgot to label the pots, but I’ve a rough idea what strains in what pot and will just need to ID them when grown. Doh!
Strains are:
Cali Glue Auto from Cali Weed
Blueberry Bliss from Vision Seeds
Blackberry Kush x2 from Dutch Passion Seeds
Narco Purps from Cream of the Crop
Budbox Pro 3x3 tent
20/4 Light Cycle - it’s cold where I live and still working on getting the temps right at night so I’m doing a shorter night cycle to try and minimise any cold shock - which I think I might have already got a bit, pics to come soon when they are done with their 4 hours sleep!
Under a 250w MH at the moment, lowered to about half the height of the tent. 600w HPS for later.
Soil is Biobizz All Mix and I think the nutrients have been a bit too much so far for the auto seedlings as they have got a bit purple to start but are leveling out to a nice green now. Again though it might have just been due to it being way cooler before from too many fans and too little heat from the 250w so it was hot at the top and pretty cool at the bottom when I believe they like it nice and warm.
As long as they’re not getting down into the 40s regularly, they should be okay. Cool overnight temps will probably give you a lot of pretty colors in flower with that lineup.
Cold at night where I am too. Starting on my 3rd indoor Auto grow.
Grow #2 I switched my 4 hr sleep period during the day. This is my first Fall/Winter growing indoors so I was worried about night temps.
Looking forward to seeing your grow.
Thanks guys! At what point do you set your lights to 20/4 from 24 hours? I had them on 24 whilst seedlings and they are at the later end of being seedlings (I think, about 4 days old. Been busy and fibro has been bad, hence this journal).
I’m hoping that is what the purpling is! They have all just changed from their mostly curled forms to having nice flat ‘tops’ and I have turned each pot so the tops of the leaves are getting loads of light to them, just a gut feeling there not sure if that’s a good thing to do?
@pm1090,
Some may have a different point, but in my first 3 grows, I am keeping lights on for two weeks before I switch to 20/4.
They are autos, so you will even hear of growers of autos keeping a 24 hour schedule through the entire grow.
Others will offer what works for them also.
Hope his helps
Yeah like @Jimhigh66 said, my father does his autos 24-0 the WHOLE grow. 20-4 is super popular also, and a preferred way to grow for many people I follow on YouTube. You’re not running LEDs, so every hour you’ll see a price difference lol. Great to have you share!!!
Lookin good, I used to grow mine 24 hours of light, but that was a good 15 years ago, auto’s have come a long way since then… I suspect that the new auto’s don’t have as much ruderalis in them, they seem to be more potent than they used to be. Just my guess, I grow photocycle now.
Might be easier if you get the pot uniformly moist and put some saran wrap over it, and get your light down a little lower, they are stretching. look healthy though! Best of luck!
If you’re running autos I read that the 24:0 light cycle is best for yield. I had mine on 24:0 for a while when I thought it was still an auto. Might be something for you to think about if you’re concerned about temps lowering at night.
Lights should be about 18-24” away from your canopy during vegetative and flowering stages (from what I was told). I’m also using an LED which makes it a little different. You should be able to put your hand under the light and leave it there comfortably for 2 mins. If it’s too hot for your hand, it’s too hot for your plant.
If you’re growing somewhere cold make sure you insulate the bottom of the pots from the cold. For example. I’m growing in my unfinished basement. I have a shelf my plant sits on so the roots are exposed to the cold. They develop slower when they are cold and that will also effect your yield. You want your roots to be nice and warm.
Don’t worry too much about mistakes, plants are pretty forgiving and you’ve got 5. I would recommend LST your plants so you get an even canopy. I read not to do anything more to autos (like HST or topping) but I think that’s more of the growers choice. I didn’t top mine, just LSTed it and it’s gotten huge! (For reference I thought mine was an autoflower for a long time, so I did a lot of research on autos, but turns out it was photo flower) oh well! You grow and you learn!
Seedlings don’t need nutrients until their cotyledons fall off (once again, so I’ve read). Everything they need is contained in the seed. Be careful about how much nutrients you give your plants and watch your watering. Biggest and easiest mistake to make as a new grower: overwatering. Signs your plant may be overwatered: droopy, hard leaves. It took me months to figure out a system that works for me but I’m sure you will figure it out!
If I’m wrong on any of this, someone please feel free to correct me. I’m still a new grower too so this is just what I’ve picked up so far. Your grow looks good so far. You might run into some watering issues with the size of your pots compared to your plants but I’m sure people on this forum will steer you in the right direction. Happy growing!!
Hmm ok, there is so many conflicting bits of information out there! I need to go with my gut though that I’ve read autos were found in the northern hemisphere originally where they were more used to 20/4 naturally, I don’t like the thought of not giving them any rest at all.
Lowered even further, about 1/4 height of the tent now and could be lowered further I need to hold my hand relatively close until 2 minutes under would cause any slight burn. Got em all (bar one I think) raised up off the floor which was only just done yesterday so lets see how that helps. Hoping now that they are closer to the light they’ll start growing outward a bit more !
Ruderalis is the auto gene in your autoflower, it is from the Genus Ruderalis which is a cannabis Genus. It grows in the extreme northern hemisphere, i.e. Alaska region. The summers up there are basically 24 hours of daylight. However that strain of cannabis has zero cannabinoids that get you high, it does have a gene to make it flower in a set timeframe because of the short summer and growing temperatures suitable for cannabis. So it starts the flowering process within just a couple of weeks of germination in order to get pollinated and make seed in time to survive to the next summer. It will flower “automatically” even with 24 hour a day light. Some feel it flowers better with a short night cycle. Mine flowered just fine with 24 hour a day light.
Welcome to the forum. Autos will run on any schedule. I have never tried more than the 18/6 I go with a 14/10 in the summer and a 18/6 in the winter. By biggest plant was grown on a 12/12 all the way through. Most of my autos now run on more of a 12/12 since they always seem to be with flowering photos.
I do think you will find these do want at least some type of dark time. I see most of my growth in that period. Just my 02
Ill be sticking with 20/4 and seeing how that does them
A question for future - I had my 600w HPS on before I set up the 250w MH and the ballast was HOT AS! I know ballasts are meant to get very hot, I read digital ballasts run much cooler and thought ‘Great! I’ll get one of them!’, turns out thats what I have?
Is this really digital as opposed to electronic? How do I keep this as cool as possible when I am running the 600w, if I can’t find an effective way to cool it I don’t think I want to leave it on for more hours than I need to so it’ll be 18/6 if not.
This. Your babies look awfully wet. They don’t need a lot of water right now and it’s better if you water away from the seedling itself. Too much moisture around the base of a seedling can cause what’s called damping off. Try watering away from the seedling so there’s a 2"-3" diameter circle around your seedling that isn’t getting directly watered. The soil will wick moisture toward the roots and the roots will expand more, searching for water. I would add a little soil to the ones that stretched to help them stand up too.
Thanks mudman, someone told me I needed to keep all the soil wet today, shows you the misadvice out there! Luckily I know thats wrong, those are actually drier than I had them before, and even drier still.
Another mystery seed has sprouted in the same pot as one too haha so this should be interesting, no doubt unfortunately some might not survive but if they do I’ll get another socket for the 250w and put them under that somewhere else.
I just read the part about watering further out makes the roots expand more looking - AWESOME! Root growth has definitely been slow it took about a week to get the sprouts to start moving
Lights all back on, since moving the lights way down I’ve noticed for the first time moisture at the top of the tent, feels quite wet actually when I am opening the top flap to my budbox, but I think they are loving it… the leaves have went from looking very droopy to pretty horizontal, maybe even some slight rising of the tips?
But yeah mainly just want to see about the jump in humidity in there
