Is This the Down Side of 12 / 12 Lighting with AutoFlowers When Used at Tent Fillers?

I recently completed a "Mystery Tester" Grow for Irie Genetics (Rasta Jeff) where I ended up pulling 3 males from my 5 testers. Sucky Odds I know.

Because of this, I threw in a couple of Auto-Flower plants (Purple Haze Auto & California Snow).

They lived the first 53 days of their life on 12/12 lighting. Once I harvested the tester plants the new AFs and are now in 20/4 lighting.

I took these pictures on Day 57. They are only 6.5 and 7.5 inches tall with no real lateral branching.

Even so; they are just about all flower from the ground up.

If you have used AFs as tent fillers, did you have a similar experience?

My guess is that they will go 80-90 days, so there are at least another 3 weeks to go with 20 hours of light a day.

I'm not complaining, but just curious if this "can" be the norm?

As a tester for Irie, I expect to run Regulars a few times a year, so I like the idea of throwing in AFs to fill the tent back up. The good news is he is developing Feminized Regulars, but you nevery know what you are gonna get when you Test. Maybe next time I'll get lucky and get those Fems.

I hate to say it but you have more problems than light cycle

More info would help, soil medium, nutrients, type of lights, distance to light, etc. ?

Cheers

My guess is from hot nutes and hot lights too early.

They were fed the same nutrients as the two Irie Testers as they were flowering out, at about 2.6 - 2.8 Jack's 3-2-1.

They are in AutoPots using Coco 70% and 30% shared between Perlite and Vermiculite. By the way, these are the same AutoPots that the Irie males were in. After I got my results back from Farmer Freeman, I yanked the males, made a hole to fit the new plants and sent them into Coco that had been running hot for 4-5 weeks.

Quality of lighting is no issue, although it may have been to hot early on, when I had both of my Mars Hydro SP-3000s on them.

One was over the the Irie Plants maintaining 40-ish DLI, and I tried to keep the other light over these fillers somewhere around 30 DLI when they were younger. However, at their very youngest I may have not kept them closer to 20 DLI.

I'm pretty meticulous when it comes to VPD and DLI, but I admit I may have hit them with the enviromental Hammer of Thor coming out the gate.

After I pulled out the Irie plants to dry on July 7th, I washed out and sterlized the AutoPot rez and they are now running on a very clear mix of Jacks at (Part A) 3.6g, (Part B) 2.4g and Epsom at 1.2g, which runs about 2.2 E.C.

They are supplemented with SLF-100 (for the previous two weeks only), Mr. Fulvic and a monosalicic acid.

I stopped adding Tribus this last gallon of nutes added. That SLF is probably freeing up quite a bit of nutrients doing its enzyme-y thing. Since they only have a couple of weeks to go ... I am only going to add RO water next time I raise the Rez volume to ensure gravity is doing it's part getting the water to the plants. It won't be a full-scale flush.

Judging by the mineral "crust" around the bottom of my AutoPot fabric pots, there's probably enough food in the coco for another full run.

This was my first AutoPot grow, so I have plenty of lessons learned for what I put in the reservoir. Nothing BROWN. Recharge and Photsynthesis Plus typ products need to go directly into the fabric pots. I know this now. Otherwise, that tank gets nastier than a 3rd-world toilet.

It won't matter this time because of the Grow Dot Challenge. The nutrients will be slow-releasing (finger crossed) and RO water is all that will be in the tank ... maybe some enzymes to help with the soil later.

In the plants defense, they are budding up nicely. I won't get much, but what's there sure will be pretty.

chuckeye said:

I hate to say it but you have more problems than light cycle
More info would help, soil medium, nutrients, type of lights, distance to light, etc. ?
Cheers

Click to expand...

A pleasure to see a detailed reply, thank you !

Sounds like you threw the kitchen sink at them, hard to say exactly what the interaction is between each additive..

EC does seem to be a little high but they don't show typical signs of nutrient burn....

I see a lot of cute auto flowers on the forums and very generally speaking it appears the stunting starts at overwatering at transplant.

Haven't used auto pots for many moons (or coco) so I can't say if that applies here.

Good luck on your second auto run, depending on the strain they are capable of respectable yields !

My last Gorilla Glue auto was ~ 44" high and 11 grams short of a pound.

ProMix HP in 3 gallon fabric bags and Mega Crop one part with a dash of Bud Explosion during flowering.

Cheers

Thanks Chuckeye.

This was only my 3rd grow and each time has been a little different. Started out with BluMat watering, then switched over to AutoPots.

Once I dial in what I like, I'll stick with one for a while.

This next grow was supposed to be using 5-gallon buckets with the GrowBucket inserts. But, since my wife an I have a cruise close to the potential harvest date, I want to make sure I can water while gone. So, I'll go back to the AutoPot where I can ensure water is there for a week.

It's the Real Grower's Challenge, so the nutes are Grow Dots and they are already in the pot. I should be fine if I don't get Amber before I leave.

Thanks for the input. I may start my Grow Diaries here. This place seems to generate good feedback and people are quick to help.

As for details, here is a snapshot of just a week of the data I collect and monitor. You can see in the VPD column that I was having issues with a humidifier, but got it resolved.

chuckeye said:

A pleasure to see a detailed reply, thank you !

Sounds like you threw the kitchen sink at them, hard to say exactly what the interaction is between each additive..

EC does seem to be a little high but they don't show typical signs of nutrient burn....

I see a lot of cute auto flowers on the forums and very generally speaking it appears the stunting starts at overwatering at transplant.

Haven't used auto pots for many moons (or coco) so I can't say if that applies here.

Good luck on your second auto run, depending on the strain they are capable of respectable yields !

My last Gorilla Glue auto was ~ 44" high and 11 grams short of a pound.

ProMix HP in 3 gallon fabric bags and Mega Crop one part with a dash of Bud Explosion during flowering.

Cheers

Click to expand...

It may only be 8" tall (or so) ... but the Purple Haze is a looker.

ExNavyInSTL said:

My guess is from hot nutes and hot lights too early.

They were fed the same nutrients as the two Irie Testers as they were flowering out, at about 2.6 - 2.8 Jack's 3-2-1.

They are in AutoPots using Coco 70% and 30% shared between Perlite and Vermiculite. By the way, these are the same AutoPots that the Irie males were in. After I got my results back from Farmer Freeman, I yanked the males, made a hole to fit the new plants and sent them into Coco that had been running hot for 4-5 weeks.

Quality of lighting is no issue, although it may have been to hot early on, when I had both of my Mars Hydro SP-3000s on them.

One was over the the Irie Plants maintaining 40-ish DLI, and I tried to keep the other light over these fillers somewhere around 30 DLI when they were younger. However, at their very youngest I may have not kept them closer to 20 DLI.

I'm pretty meticulous when it comes to VPD and DLI, but I admit I may have hit them with the enviromental Hammer of Thor coming out the gate.

After I pulled out the Irie plants to dry on July 7th, I washed out and sterlized the AutoPot rez and they are now running on a very clear mix of Jacks at (Part A) 3.6g, (Part B) 2.4g and Epsom at 1.2g, which runs about 2.2 E.C.

They are supplemented with SLF-100 (for the previous two weeks only), Mr. Fulvic and a monosalicic acid.

I stopped adding Tribus this last gallon of nutes added. That SLF is probably freeing up quite a bit of nutrients doing its enzyme-y thing. Since they only have a couple of weeks to go ... I am only going to add RO water next time I raise the Rez volume to ensure gravity is doing it's part getting the water to the plants. It won't be a full-scale flush.

Judging by the mineral "crust" around the bottom of my AutoPot fabric pots, there's probably enough food in the coco for another full run.

This was my first AutoPot grow, so I have plenty of lessons learned for what I put in the reservoir. Nothing BROWN. Recharge and Photsynthesis Plus typ products need to go directly into the fabric pots. I know this now. Otherwise, that tank gets nastier than a 3rd-world toilet.

It won't matter this time because of the Grow Dot Challenge. The nutrients will be slow-releasing (finger crossed) and RO water is all that will be in the tank ... maybe some enzymes to help with the soil later.

In the plants defense, they are budding up nicely. I won't get much, but what's there sure will be pretty.

Click to expand...

2.6 EC - 2.8 EC? There’s most of the issue. Even 2.2 EC is way too much. Less is more.

I thought the reason for AutoFlowers was 18/6 or 24/0 so you can cycle in the same room? If you want to run 12/12 get photoperiods.

Maybe I wasn't clear in my setup.

When this started I was growing photoperiods but had to yank 3 males once they were known (thanks to Farmer Freeman).

I had open slots, but by then I was in 12/12. I've read all over the innerwebz that Autos would do moderately (get by) in 12/12. So, I threw them in there with an attitude of "whatever happens ... happens."

My post (questions) were to others who may have used Autos as fillers until the photoperiods are harvested, and then return the lights to a more ideal 20/4 once they have the tent to themselves.

I knew there would be a reduction in yield, but it was better than leaving the slots open and growing nothing.

Just curious if my outcome was similar to others who may have made the same experiment.

This winter, I'll run photoperiods again and if I have to pull males again I'll toss in some Autos, whether I have flipped from 18/6 to 12/12 just to see if this outcome was normal. I just won't use my expensive seeds.

Eventually, I'll get around to growing Purple Haze Autos and California Haze Autos the right way.

calvin.m16 said:

I thought the reason for AutoFlowers was 18/6 or 24/0 so you can cycle in the same room? If you want to run 12/12 get photoperiods.

Click to expand...