1st Grow - Autoflower - Nute/Schedule ?'s - Grow Log

Hey there... I've set up my first grow and am getting ready to actually put some seeds in the "ground". I have come up with what I think is a good schedule and I'd like some people to tell me how terrible it is, lol.

This is from my grow log at Grow Blog | Log for my first grow ...Thanks!...


Alright so, I've decided to go auto flower for a few reasons on the first grow. Mainly because I might need that bedroom in 3-4 months, hehe. I have a few dif strains but the breeder info all says 75 day from seed and 60-65 days after germination. So I have based my schedule off this time frame combined with various info and advice I've found on auto flowers.
I'm actually going to just use the FFOF with just PH'd water in a few plants, others will have FFOF and a diluted version of this schedule, and others will be on Advanced Mix 4 with full on feedings.

I know already that when it comes to nutrients its best to go from experience rather than some chart. But since I have 0 experience, I've combined all the info I've gathered with a feeding chart to give myself a basic outline to work from. So without further adieu...
*Using GH Flora Series. Nutrient amounts are in ml/gal. All water and nute mixes are PH'd(not sure if using filtered or distilled yet). Light cycle is 18/6 start to finish.

• Seeds go in saturated Jiffy pellets in humidity dome
• After 2-3 days later - Turn on T5 light (good height for light?)
• Water as needed over next 5-7 days
• Once seedlings are looking healthy, transfer to 4" pots that contain the Black Gold mix. If possible, keep in humidity dome.
• Water once after transfer, saturating potting mix.
• 2-3 days later when it needs water again, feed:
  • 1ml Rapid Start
  • 1ml Diamond Nectar
  • 2ml Flora Blend
• 2-3 days later - Feed same mix as above. Remove T5 and turn on 400w @ 4ft above plants.
• 2-3 days later - Water as needed
• 2-3 days later - Transfer to 3 gallon Air-Pots. Lower 400w to 2ft above plants. And feed Week 1 from FS chart:
  • 1ml FloraGro
  • 2ml FloraMicro
  • 1ml FloraBloom
  • 2.5ml Rapid Start
  • 2.5ml Diamond Nectar
  • 1ml Floralicious Plus
  • 5ml Flora Blend
• 2-3 days later - Feed same mix as above
• 2-3 days later - Give water only

At this point we should be right around 2 weeks(12-18 days) after germination. From here I change the schedule to weekly and try to feed 3 times per week, in a cycle of: Nute Mix, Nute Mix, Water Only...

• Start of Week 3: (it's Week 2 from the FS chart)
  • 5ml Gro
  • 4ml Micro
  • 1ml Bloom
  • 2.5ml Rapid
  • 5ml Diamond
  • 1ml Plus
  • 5ml Blend
• Week 4: (Week 3 from chart)
  • 5ml Gro
  • 5ml Micro
  • 2.5ml Bloom
  • 2.5ml Rapid
  • 5ml Diamond
  • 1ml Plus
  • 5ml Blend
• Week 5: (Week 4 from chart)
  • 4ml Gro
  • 4ml Micro
  • 4ml Bloom
  • 1ml Rapid
  • 2.5ml Diamond
  • 1ml Plus
  • 2.5ml Blend
  • 2.5ml Flora Nectar
  
  

From here I break the weeks down into feedings...

• Week 6:
  • Feed 1: (Modified Week 5 from chart)
    • 2ml Gro
    • 4ml Micro
    • 5ml Bloom
    • 2.5ml Diamond
    • 1ml Liquid KoolBloom
    • 1ml Plus
    • 2.5ml Blend
    • 2.5ml Flora Nectar
  • Feed 2: (Week 7 from chart)
    • 1ml Gro
    • 4ml Micro
    • 6ml Bloom
    • 2.5ml Diamond
    • 2ml Kool
    • 1ml Plus
    • 5ml Flora Nectar
  • Feed 3: Water only
• Week 7:
  • Feed 1: (Week 9 from chart)
    • 4ml Micro
    • 8ml Bloom
    • 2.5ml Kool
    • 1ml Plus
    • 5ml Flora Nectar
  • Feed 2: (Week 11 from chart)
    • 2.5ml Micro
    • 8ml Bloom
    • 1ml Plus
    • 5ml Flora Nectar
  • Feed 3: (Week 12 from chart)
    • 10ml Flora Kleen
    
    
• Week 8 - Harvest: Water only

for some reason I cant edit my post, but its not jiffy pellets fyi, its jump start.

wow! you have put a lot of thought into this! have you bought all those nutes? so sorry i don't mean to be a bummer but is all this necessary?

what i mean to say is is all that nute stuff necessary? the more i grow the less i stress about nutes and the less i use. if you have good soil and good water you might not need all those nutes.

Hey Al Gore,
Congrats on setting up your first grow. I can tell you have put a lot of research into growing. You will have an awesome grow. You have a couple options for germination. Either lightly spray a paper towel, food the seeds in it and put in a zip lock bag. Or use woolite cubes. You need to make sure the woolite is sitting in water. The cubes will make sure it does not get too much moisture. Now once you get a rooted seedling. Use the general organics go box. It completely changed my grow and it has a wonderful selection of yummy stuff for her. A full cap from the GO box nutes is somewhere around 10 ml. Water your plant and wait until the soil is getting dry. Don't be afraid to feel around in there a little for moisture. The schedule depends on your soil and pot. I have a great soil mix (Justright mixed half with vermiculite 420 mix) and a 15 gallon pot. I am only having to feed it 1 gallon per week. I do a rotation of feeding water and then I feed nutes then back to water.

Don't over water the plant. That's a newb mistake. So is over feeding it nutrients. The GO Box has a schedule on the side of it. Follow that schedule exactly.

Btw I see that you already have nutrients. I'm not sure why you wanted to make up your own schedule. If you had time to type all that out I have no doubt you did the research as to what the plant best needs. Do a test. Use your schedule on one plant and the instructions for the nutes on the other.

Glhf

Hey guys, thanks for the responses and advice. I have indeed put a lot of time into this, its sort of been a long time dream to have growing as a hobby. Right now I'm waiting on seeds so I have time to sit and obsess before actually getting started.


First a few of questions...

The city water here is terrible and I don't wanna mess with an RO setup, I plan to just buy gallons from the store, should I use distilled or spring or what?

After the seedlings start to grow, what is a good height for the T5 light? It can go anywhere from right on-top of the 8" high humidity dome, to about 2 feet above it.

Also, You give germination advice, I've read about a few differnt methods but I was just gonna stick the seeds down into some saturated JumpStart (peat) pellets, are you saying I should use a more involved method?


And to just sort of ramble a bit and answer some of yours....

I needed to make/modify my own schedule because these are 9.5week autoflowers, they have about a 4 week shorter cycle and they veg and flower at the same time, so I was trying to figure out what to feed them when. Most of what I've seen on forums, people say they put them on bloom nutes as soon as it starts to flower, but I read elsewhere that it's important to support veg growth till at least week 6, as you will get bigger yeilds that way. etc.

I considered using the GO vs the FS "box" but on the advice of friends I went with the FS as I don't entirely care if it's considered 100% organic. I'm glad to know you've had good luck with it tho, perhaps I will experiment with it next time.

And yea, as you guys figured out, I've already bought lots o stuff, I have a bit of an online shopping addiction so yea, lol.

I realize I put in somewhat strict schedules when it comes to feed/water, and with auto and good soil I can just feed em water, and plan to do that with half of the plants, the rest I'm sort of playing around with, keeping in mind to use a light hand with the nutes.

As far as over watering/feeding, from what I've read basically just stick your finger down there and if it's dry then water. I figure they will need it at least once a week early on, and at least twice later on. I laid it out with 3 per week but tried to leave room for essentially skipping feedings. I still want to be able to ramp them up so I can at least give 1 good feeding of full on bloom nutes before I start to flush so I'm thinking in the last 3 weeks or so to feed them very small volumes of mix per day, so I can ramp up the concentrations over a few days without putting too much actual liquid in there.

I wonder if I should ask to have this moved to the Autoflower sub topic I just read about, lol.

tekdc911 said:

only things issues i see
2 transplants?
plant directly in the airpots with a party cup amount of seed starter like fill your pot around a party cup take it out and fill the hole
when you water your seed/seedlings only water the pocket of seed starter and try not to soak the pot down drowned auto's grow slow and eventually stunt out

there is really no need for feedings of any kind to be honest for 3 weeks or so
not just the fact that the plant doesnt need it its the fact that any burn/ stumble at this point will dramatically affect yields

i have a thread in the auto section " noobs guide to getting down with auto's " the first few weeks after germ are covered in more detail
understand that i try not to parrot information and most my advice is from first hand experience


there is also another thread you would have to look for it in the autoflower section

advanced autoflower tips tricks and secrets or something like that has alot of useful info on it
any questions bud feel free to message me or what ever if i have time then to help if i dont i will respond when i see the message

Click to expand...

Hey there, I actually read your thread last night, And I will look for the other one you suggested. Thanks!

That is also very good advice on planting directly into the air pots and to keep the water in the "inner pocket". I've actually considered this very carefully. Because I want to very actuality control the air temp, RH, and grow medium temperature during the first few weeks, If feel that using the jumpstart dome with the pelletes and heat mat is the best for sprouting them.

I considered going st8 to the air pots after that and skipping the 4" pots. And I may just do that on some of them.

But I had a few reasons for this "intermediary" transplant, and they may be totaly unfounded.

• First, as you pointed out, I don't want to water a 3 gal pot completely full when the plant will only even have access to a fraction of it.
• Next because if they are in the air pots, the T5 light can only be a max of about 1.5 feet above the rim of the pot, also if they are in the 4" I figured I could turn on the 400w a week or so after they start to grow and it would be a nice 4 ft above the tops of the seedlings.
• And lastly, I have several different 4" pots but all of them are porous and/or degradable(cowpots, cocoliners, "pulp" pots, etc) so the entire pot can be planted in the 3gal ones, or I could easily cut them off without disturbing the roots much, etc.

Feedback appreciated! Thanks!

i transplant all the time
it just makes things alot easier on your first few grows to eliminate stress as much as possible
so your time can be spent learning a plant / growth
not working through issues that were self induced
if you can get dialed in enough
eventually its set it and forget it

tekdc911 said:

i transplant all the time
it just makes things alot easier on your first few grows to eliminate stress as much as possible
so your time can be spent learning a plant / growth
not working through issues that were self induced
if you can get dialed in enough
eventually its set it and forget it

Click to expand...

I see. I am fairly familar with transplanting, even from large planter style pots or plastic cups where you have "loosen" up the root ball some.

I agree with you tho, def don't want to stress these babies out, esp with autos as I know the first 3-4 weeks are key to a good yield, etc.

I think I've decided to pretty much experiment the shit out of this grow but don't wanna waste a bunch of time any money so I'm using seed starter mix in the 4" pots instead of going str8 to nutrient rich soil, once they really start growing I have various plans in place... 2 are going into str8 up ffof, only water / 2 are going in black gold, only water / 2 are going in promix bx full on nutes / and the other 2 are going in advanced mix 4 with a very lite hand on the nutes.

While I have your attention still, lol....

What sort of water should I use all around? Looking for something I can just get at the store in gallons.

In the early sprouting stages, how high above the seedlings should the T5 stay?

Thanks!

dont get me to lie'n on water bud
the well's out here are artesian its perfect range and got some goodies in it

8-10" or so is fine for seedlings with t5 / cfl's
if they stretch a bit you can just bury the stem when you transplant
its not so much the transplant that hurts its the fact that ruderalis has weird roots there sideways
and very aware of the space theyre in if it becomes accustomed to that pot size it will try to hurry up and bloom
if you make the roots work for water at first youll get some massive roots

Coincidence is funny sometimes. I had never heard of an artesian well until last night when they were talkin bout em on a TV show I was watching so I looked it up, now today you make a comment about em and I know what it is! lol.

I've only lived here in CO for about a month now so I have no idea where to aquire quality ground or river water. 10 years ago I lived in Fairbanks and you could fill up jugs with river water for free on the side of the bridge. I'm sure there is something like that around here, given I can see The Rockies from my house, but yea. I'm just gonna buy whatever "spring" or "mountian" water they have at the store I guess. The city water I have here is def not gonna do the trick, smells of chlorine and the house is 100+ yo, not tryin to feed my plants bleach and rust, hehe.

I also read on here somewhere about the root thing last night, the "core" tends to grow at a 45 deg angle right? And people use that to judge when to do something if I remember right, when the root hits the side of the pot.... ahhhh too much info to remember sometimes, lol.

So perhaps I should take your advise and just put the fuckers in some seed mix in the center of the air pot. Talking about the air-pots, I wonder how the auto roots will react to the air-pruned nature of the air-pots. Should be an interesting postmortem on my grow.

ya the roots dont make much sense until after youve grown a few
when they feel constricted / low on space vertical growth stops pretty much and transitions to flower

theyve adapted to living in thin layers of soil / perma frost / rocky conditions

they enjoy air pots from what ive seen
never tried them i have to dwarf my plants as it is due to space issues