Good evening. I have been looking through this thread, am about 14 pages in, and am loving the info on autos. I recently became unable to adequately keep up with my usual grow due to some health problems (nothing fatal, numerous big musculoskeletal issues with lots of pain and several surgeries in my future). I ending up unplugging everything to leave to the spider mites I had missed.
I have always (past 10 years) grown photoperiod Northern Lights (Seedsman) from regular seed (clones from feminized seeds seem to stay close to preflower more than from regular seeds for me). I have a 3 x 6 foot flowering chamber, painted white, about 7 feet tall, with 2 Mars Pro II Epistar 160 LED lights suspended on adjustable ropes, big 6" vent fan exchanges into room, and window AC of room runs to keep cool. The lights are suspended side by side instead of end to end. I usually grow in two 10 gallon grow bags, one plant under each light, in FFOF with extra perlite and some lime. If they need anything more before finishing, it's fish emulsion. Oh, and I also sit the grow bags on a layer of hydroton that is in a big black (mortar?) tray to catch excess water and so I can bottom water if wanted. I'm putting what I'm planning below - and wondered whether anyone might have any advice on anything that would/could be better without plowing up and planting over TOO much. Thanks in advance!
My wife, daughter, and son in law are able to help and are going to start a new grow for me/us. To get some flower faster, grow more than one strain, and be simpler for beginners I'm guiding through their first grow - I decided to grow a few autos. I just put the seeds in water today (floating on top of surface in shot glass) and am waiting on germination. One each of Daydream, Lemon Pie, Purple Lemonade, and Purple Punch - Daydream was freebie from Dank, remainder from Fast Buds seeds. I am going to put them in coco pellets I have readied and, once they root, directly into finishing pots. These are 5 gallon pots that I plan on putting two in each tray under the old setup (AFTER they clean it out and set off a Dr Doom in the flower chamber and one in the room to be certain).
From reading on here, I have decided to use soil as follows - my usual FFOF/perlite/dolomite lime on bottom two-thirds, Happy Frog/perlite top third, with coco pellet tucked straight into it when roots begin to show. I have gleaned from reading that it looks like 20/4 light cycle will be what we use, and have seen to not stress them anything beyond minor LST. Probably just bend top over from what I've seen from others. That's all I can think of now, what do y'all think?