Starting plants/seedlings with the autopot system

Hi,

I'm just wondering after I've germinated my seeds, and they have sprouted, when I should transfer them to the autopot system for automatic watering?

I am planning on starting the plants/seeds in small rockwool cubes in the dark until they have sprouted above the surface, then put the cube into a bigger (4-6") cube. I then thought about putting this cube into the autopot pot (maybe with pebbles in the bottom to raise it off the bottom of the pot so it doesn't get too wet) until it starts to grow bigger. I would then fill the pot up with coir and put the plant/cube into this and leave it growing. Does this sound right to you or should I think about doing it differently?

I also thought about using soil as I think it has better capillary action to draw up the water. I could then pre-soak the pot filled with soil and put the seed, that has sprouted in rockwool, into the soil. Surely if the soil was wet before potting the plant it should have a sufficent amount of water/nutrients to keep it growing?

I have read LOADs about growing weed but it's the first stages that I'm shitting the most with this autopot system as I don't want to over/under water the poor buggers!

Any help is sweet!

Anyone? Basically all i need is a simple guide to starting plants with the autopot system under eco lights.

Bumpety de bump bump...

Please help, it is for a worthy cause

My routine =

1: Soak seeds in tissue until they have sprouted a root.
2: Transfer to 1 inch cubes
3: Once they pop out of the top of the rockwool, I put them straight in my nursery room which has a 125w blue spectrum cfl.
4: Once the 1st root pops through the bottom of the 1 inch rockwool cube put them into the larger (3 or 4 inch cubes)
5: Once the 1st root appears under the 3-4 inch cube I would be happy to transfer them to the NFT tank, but I usually hand water for a few weeks, due to my rotation method (which gives me a finished crop every 4 weeks), so my babies spend roughly 4 to 5 weeks under a 125w CFL in the nursery.

I would say 100% be careful of over watering, getting the balance just right seems to encourage excellent root growth and leads on to a bumper crop later on.! Mildly moist is more than adequate, I am pretty sure you can set the output off the auto pot system.? So just be very conservative with it, a seedling in rockwool can go quite a few days without any water, just taking the moisture from the rockwool, once they get a bit bigger they will start sucking up the water like crazy.! My current 4-5 inch tall babies suck up 120ml+ each a day.! greedy sods...lol

I have never grown in soil or coco, so cant help with that, but maybe you can pick some useful info from my tried and tested methods, sorry if it's not exactly the replied you wanted, but since no-one else has bothered, thought I would have a try.!

Thank you so much for replying, it's much appreciated! So you wouldn't recommend putting thr newly sprouted 1" cube straight into the autopot system, instead rather let it grow with manual watering until it can suck up the water from the autopot tray by itself?

So would the soil/coir/rockwell get wet in the autopot pot if i were to leave it soak for a day before transferring the seedlings to them, or would that be too much water do you think? I think you are right in saying that the aqua valve is adjustable in the later version of the autopot system.

If i were to follow your method, how long (typically) does it take for the roots to show through the bottom of the bigger rockwool cube and should i use nutes or just standard water? They will be under a blue cfl (eco light) setup.

Cheers!

Another thing, how good would my results be when flowering with 2 x 200w ecolight bulbs in the red spectrum? I have a sodium as well but I would rather not use this if I can help it to reduce costs and heat.

It's bump time, ooossssh!

Anyone, no one?