Christmas Batch AF AF47 Lowlife

Last of 5 seeds.
Soil 1/3MG (baked at 250F in foil bags on bbq), 1/3worm castings, 1/3 pearlite. Soil was watered with several gallons of water to leach and saturate. Then planter was allowed to drain well.
Seedling planted on 10-11-2010. Extremely good watering.
2 gallon pot with geofabric liner
Havent added fertilizer
Did add about 7.5 mils per gallon Earth Juice High Brix Molasses. This is about half the recommended dose of 15ml per gallon.
I also added a spike of soil tea from my last grow to make sure of a good inoculation.

Seedling 10-14-2010


Seedling 10-17-2010


Plant 10-24-2010, she got molasses today.


This is my ghetto-balcony-outdoor closet-cfl-autoflower-grow system. Keep in mind I'd like to drop the 63Watt Penetrator LED grow light down along the inside of the grow space. The Penetrator will supplement the power wavelengths of the CFL's. While the CFL's supplement the other wavelengths. The only problem is I don't have the 275 dollars for the light right now. Maybe Christmas.

I've decided that with the fortified MG and the worm castings. The next watering is only going to get CaMg and a half-dilution of molasses and two drops of superthrive. I wont be adding NPK fertilizer for at least another two weeks. Note: first dose of fertilizer set to 200 ppm balanced NPK. Keep lights within 2inches at all times.

October 25, 2010
Age of Plant 14 days.

NLNo5 said:

October 25, 2010
Age of Plant 14 days.

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I'm looking forward to seeing sex by 21 days. She seems pretty short for 14 days. I've got 1(68W)2700K and 2(19W)5600K. They are about 6 cm away from the plant. Anyone think she looks a little bit stunted.

are those lights hanging vertically over the plants or more horizontal hanging over the plants? i would advise you to get a few y splitters and use them to hang your lights more horizontal over your plant/s, if they are just hanging over them vertically like it looks like from in the pics your wasting almost all of your light because the sides of the bulb are where almost all its energy is put out.

darkdestruction420 said:

are those lights hanging vertically over the plants or more horizontal hanging over the plants? i would advise you to get a few y splitters and use them to hang your lights more horizontal over your plant/s, if they are just hanging over them vertically like it looks like from in the pics your wasting almost all of your light because the sides of the bulb are where almost all its energy is put out.

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Rock on dude. I'll make some adjustments.

NLNo5 said:

Rock on dude. I'll make some adjustments.

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Ok so i re-arranged my hanging lights to get them horizontal like darkdestruction420 suggested. And I came up with something called the firefly configuration. I'm still adjusting to the new positioning of the lights, things need to be shifted a little bit. Overall I think I've just drastically improved my setup. There is obviously a lot more light on the plants with the bulbs horizontal.

Here is the FIREFLY.

October 28, 17 days from sprout.
I've got my first 5 lobed leaves. Plant still short and fat. But the leaves are angled upwards for a good sign. Color is good. I'm guessing she's getting a decent set or roots right about now. She hasn't had water for 4 days and the planter still has some weight to it. I'll probably water her within the next 2-3 days with a 200ppm balanced NPK. No sign of sex yet.

October 30, 2010. 19 Days from sprout.
Two sets of 5-lobed leaves now. I'm hoping to see some signs of sex within the next few days. This plant has 6 full nodes in 3 cm stem length. The 5th and 6th nodes are 5 lobed leaves.

I'm guessing she's not stretching because she's getting enough light? The leaves are starting to get thick and robust so I'm guessing she's getting enough N also. I haven't feed the plants anything but some light molasses.

I'm dying to give her some grow nutes and some superthrive. But she's not going to need water for at least 2-3 more days, planter is 2.7kg and I don't water until 2.5kg.

Overall I'm really happy with the plant so far, she's got nice shape and good color.

NLNo5 said:

October 30, 2010. 19 Days from sprout.
Two sets of 5-lobed leaves now. I'm hoping to see some signs of sex within the next few days. This plant has 6 full nodes in 3 cm stem length. The 5th and 6th nodes are 5 lobed leaves.

I'm guessing she's not stretching because she's getting enough light? The leaves are starting to get thick and robust so I'm guessing she's getting enough N also. I haven't feed the plants anything but some light molasses.

I'm dying to give her some grow nutes and some superthrive. But she's not going to need water for at least 2-3 more days, planter is 2.7kg and I don't water until 2.5kg.

Overall I'm really happy with the plant so far, she's got nice shape and good color.

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I did a little research in superthrive and it turns out there is no significant effect using Superthrive. Something about how the plant makes it's own vitamins and doesn't need the extra B vitamins. I'm still using it even so...It makes me feel better.

She got watered this morning 10/31. Hasn't been watered since 10/24. It took 7 days for her to loose 1kg of weight. She's officially 20 days old. Seems to be vegging out pretty well. Almost 7 nodes and 3 sets of 5 lobe leaves. I'm thinking this one is going to be stocky. The stem is nice and thick.

This is what she got in her water tonight.

a few drops of Superthrive in 2 liters of feed water
Balanced NPK at 100ppm
1/4 strength molasses
Mg,Mn,Fe supplement (1/4) strength
A few drops of root stimulant
All made up with 400ppm tap water and balanced to 6.7 pH. (Nitrogen, Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium and Magnesium all have optimum availability around 6.7pH).

Prior to watering I gently loosened the top 2 inches of soil and then poured in 2 cups of worm castings and evenly mixed the top coat. I needed to bring the level of the soil up a few inches and wanted to do some light fertilizing with the worm castings.

I watered the plant(see above feed list) using a gentle spray delivered from a small Hudson sprayer. I watered evenly across the entire top soil in small 200ml increments to ensure a slow percolation rate. I let the plant sit for about 5 minutes between doses. Finally after sitting for a while about 100ml leached out the bottom of the pot. I drained the plant well and put her back under the lights. I'm expecting a boost in growth over the next few days. I might have to raise my lights a little bit.

I think its a light feeding but pretty balanced considering she got a good dose of high conductivity tap water.

October 31, late.
I've been looking at other posts growing auto AK47 using CFL. After a little bit of research I've determined that this growth at 21 days is stunted. I've got more primary node sites than other plants I've seen but all my branches are too short to support secondary nodes. So overall less total nodes on my plant when compared to others. I suppose there is no need to worry as I'm not really changing anything from the last grow, except the lights are much more effective this time around. This may just be a slow pheno because all the other plants I've seen show sex before 21 days, but my plant is looking nowhere near ready to show sex.

She showed sex on november 1. She got a dose of bloom nutes and light molasses today. The plant is very short, about 7 cm above the soil. Looks like a miniature auto.

I'm thinking it's heat stress. I wanted my CFLs close to the plant but I'm going to have to back them off about 6 inches to let the plant cool down. Apparently with the ambient heat so high the fan is not doing much.

NLNo5 said:

She showed sex on november 1. She got a dose of bloom nutes and light molasses today. The plant is very short, about 7 cm above the soil. Looks like a miniature auto.

I'm thinking it's heat stress. I wanted my CFLs close to the plant but I'm going to have to back them off about 6 inches to let the plant cool down. Apparently with the ambient heat so high the fan is not doing much.

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I checked out the temps with the lamps about 4 inches away from the plant 5pm. Humidity is 62%low and 79% high. Temp is 82F low(night) and 91F high (day). That's in my outdoor grow closet.
Indoors with the air conditioner on at 6pm, Humidity 49% and Temp 81F.

Kind of gives you and idea it's hot and humid in the tropics.

I've decided to have my lights off from 12pm to 4pm at the hottest parts of the day to help keep the temps down. She's in bloom now. Seven sets of 5 lobed leaves. Humidity is high for MJ ranges between 60 and 80 percent.

NLNo5 said:

She showed sex on november 1. She got a dose of bloom nutes and light molasses today. The plant is very short, about 7 cm above the soil. Looks like a miniature auto.

I'm thinking it's heat stress. I wanted my CFLs close to the plant but I'm going to have to back them off about 6 inches to let the plant cool down. Apparently with the ambient heat so high the fan is not doing much.

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Measured plant today and she's showing 9 cm tall. That's two centimeters growth in the last two days. Showing bud sites all over the place. I'd say she's definitely fully into flower now.
Checked the temps today 81 low and 93 high. Humidity range was 61low and 79high. Wowza that's pretty stressful.

November 11

Plant is 30 days old today. I guess I'm celebrating her birthday.
She's 10cm tall today, still blooming strong. The undergrowth seems to be active and she's been consistently putting out 5node leaves. She's starting to look like a short fat Christmas tree. The leaves have an incredible green to them and she had her first load of high P bloom nutes last week. So I'm going to dose her again with the high P and let her ride out on the nitrogen she's got in her.

Something to note about this strain is there are three different smells I've observed from the last three plants I grew. The first plant was fruity smelling, the second plant was spicy smelling and this plant smells bitter??? anyone experience this before?

I figure this is 30 days old and shes been in bloom since first pistils were observed on November 1st (10 days).

Still premature though. She looks like she could use another 45 days. That's 75 days from sprout on October 11. That puts her ready right on Christmas....give or take a week.

Temp 82-91, RH 58 to 79
She got water and molasses only today, well watered.

November 15, 34 days old.

Still has some pretty good water weight in her from the 11th. It will probably be another 4 days before I water her. Note to self, she gets 200ppm bloom nutes and a light compost tea with light molasses.

She is going to be a low yielder IMO. I've just planted DNA Sharksbreath. I'll be vegging her at 20/4 until the AK47 is ready, then I'll put the Sharksbreath on 12/12.
Photo below 34days from seed Lowlife automatic AK47.

November 17, 36 days old, 17 days in bloom.
She's transpiring fine, leaves are nice an cool. She's got a good shape and plenty of vigor. The minor and intermediate leaves are nice and green. Fan leaves starting to yellow. Leaves heavily clawed especially at the top third.

Anyone see any problems? I'm a little worried about the seemingly early onset of yellowing and the heavy clawing but the transpiration and vigor seem to be a good sign also. She's been strictly on bloom nutes(5-45-19)(Open Sesame) and molasses for the last 17 days (every other watering). My nutes have been pretty low each time, well under 400ppm TDS. Any input welcome.

I repotted in the same pot with about 4 inches of new soil in the bottom of the pot. I also watered her with some algae/molasses tea. She got some calmag the next day due to lightening in the leaves, purpleish stems, and upward clawing.

Hey man, plants look pretty good so far. I'm on my 5th grow, first journal, check it out below if you want. My stuffs gonna be ready for christmas as well, so i'm very excited. One thing I wanted to point out about your yellowing leaves is that depending on how close they are to your soil/substrate, splash-back from watering may be the reason. When growing weed or vegetables that aren't vine types they recommend trimming the bottom sets of leaves that are within like 1-3 inches above the soil because these normally die from the splash-back of watering/nutes getting on them. The micro-bacteria in your soil is great for roots but it will clog and kill your leaves as well as nutes/fert. that isnt designed to foliar feed can do the same thing. Trimming these off ahead of time prevents stress on the plant and wasted nutrients trying to repair them. Hope this helps, couldn't really see if any others were yellow besides the bottom, if they are then this probably isn't your problem. Take it easy, Peace.

I water using a small hudson sprayer set at low pressure (just a few pumps). My fert solutions do get on the lowest 3-lobe leaves but not those 5-lobe yellowing fans. My soil splashback seems to be minimal since the watering spray is so soft(very low pressure in the sprayer) there is not any backsplash. The medium and large leaves all seem to be slightly yellow, but the minor leaves have a nice green to them which is a good sign that the bud's are getting the attention. I'm used to giving my plants a lot of N and this time around I cut the N back and boosted the P hoping to see a better yield. This is probably why I'm seeing the shift in tint. The other thing is, she's 6 inches tall this time around and the previous round with this strain (same bag from Lowlife) gave me a plant that was about 15inches tall. This one has an acrid pungent smell whereas the previous grow was a real calming spicy smell. WTF ay! The plant before that was from the same bag and she was a nice passion fruity smell. WTF ay! This is looking like a strain with a few different phenos. Maybe the auto AK47 is still working out the kinks. I have to say the fruity was a happier high and the spicy is a deeper more contemplative high. I thing the two should be grown separately and then ground and smoked together 50/50. I'm not sure i like the acrid pungent smell of the current grow. She literally smells like she poisonous. Maybe she'll be dank. Now I'm getting real excited about this grow.

I stopped using superthrive because of all bunk about it. this plant is half as tall but she seems to be blooming just fine, she seems real fucking happy to bloom. She's been getting some algae and some molasses too.

I'm ok about it she seems to be blooming well and her leaves are always nice and cool and moist. It's just a matter of time and then spark, draw, hold your breath, exhale slowly, BAMM!!

The high is pretty good. comes in waves and gently diminishes over the course of about 2 hours. Real good for thinking and writing. Not at all good for sleep.

By the way thanks for the post. I was getting kind of lonely all by myself here in this journal.