Hey there folks!
Erm…
Can I still do some lst on these autos, or is it too late? Should I just leave them be??
I’m feeling like I should try, (some are really tall and some are still pretty short, comparatively) but I don’t want to mess with them if I don’t need to. There are a whole Lotta bud sites on some of these.
I’m so tempted though. Seems like it might do them good. I just don’t know. My first grow!!! Gahhhh! Many buds.
Thanks!
I’m just curious, I see your intake ports are closed, do you have an intake fan or something? Also I know this isn’t what you were asking but the plants in the 4th and 6th picture look very overwatered. Wait till the pot is almost completely dry before watering again.
As for the LST, it’s hard to say but I personally wouldn’t do any LST to an autoflower. LST can/will stress the plant resulting in slightly stunted growth, and autos need a lot of growth time to get to maximum yield.
Ultimately it’s up to you, but I wouldn’t. 
Edit: just looked at your journal and see you have one of the vents open.
Do you know the temp and RH in the tent? I just feel like with a tent that big you might need more clean airflow so you might wanna open up some more vents. Also do you still have the plants laid out around the tent perimeter? The best place for a plant is right under the light as this provides the highest amount of light. Here is a chart to demonstrate what I mean.
Thank you for answering!
Okay I thought as much, with the autos. Thanks.
I have two vents open, out of four, the one in the “front,” and one on the opposite side in the “back.” I have an AC Infinity fan going on in there on auto. Currently the temp is 74° and the humidity is at 44°, though I’ve been trying to regulate at about 80° and 50-55% Rh, as was suggested.
They are always in the tent, but they are within in a larger room that I use as a “lung” room, to be able to regulate conditions as needed, and open the door if it gets too hot (which it already has been lately!) as it seems needed.
I have two small fans on them, and yeah, I do water them every day (or every other day) though I try to do so as little as possible. (I hardly have any runoff at this point still.) I’m trying to keep them at a dry/ watered cycle, as much as seems needed.
I have six autos, and six photos, in the same 4X8 tent.
Here are pix of the vents I have opened.
What about when I finally let my photos (same tent!) go into flower? Shut the vents every night, to avoid light leak?
I’ll get the guideline and post all of my more detailed info here in a sec… if that helps!
(Back of tent)
(Front vent)
Yep I haven’t opened any of the other vents yet… wasn’t sure if I should!
& plants are all directly under the lights. About 2/3 of the tent being utilized at this point.
Wondering if I should maybe even lower them a bit.
What strain, seed bank or bag seed:
Autos: ILGM Super Autoflower Mixpack, 2 Gorilla Glue, 2 Girl Scout Cookies Extreme, and 2 Bruce Banner.
Method: Soil, etc:
Soil, started out with Fox Farms Happy Frog in solo cups, topped off with Fox Farms Light Warrior, now in 7 gallon fabric pots with layering of Fox Farms Ocean Forest on bottom, then FFHF & FFLW on top, in a “bowl” formation
Vessels:
Solo cups, to start, then will repotted into 7 gal fabric pots
Ph of water, solution, runoff:
N/A
PPM/TDS or EC of nutrient solution:
?
Indoor/outdoor:
Indoor, in 4X8 tent after seedling stage
Light system:
Three HLG QB288 V2 RSPEC & SLATE 2 TRIPLE boards
Temps; Day, Night:
A steady 72° in the house, trying for 80° in tent
Humidity; Day, Night:
44 - 55%, usually
Ventilation system;
AC Infinity Cloudline S6, cabon filter & upgraded controller
AC, Humidifier, De-Humidifier:
Yes
Co2; Yes, No:
No
Seeds placed in water 3/1/21
Seeds in soil 3/5/21
Seeds (first 3) sprouted above soil 3/6/21
ALL (6) Seeds sprouted! 3/7/21
Photos:
Given to me as small clones, in Cana Coco, fed with Jack’s 321. In same tent now as the autos.
OH, & Photos at a steady 5.8 - 6.0 Ph. Trying my hand at growing two very different things at the same time. (Lol.)
Not my idea, at first, but here I am anyhow.
Would like to learn how to keep them ALL alive and thriving, if possible!
P.S…
No intake fan.
Disclaimer: I am no expert. I don’t know everything. But what I do know about I will give my opinion about. Keep in mind, there are many ways to grow, and varying opinions, but this is how I would do it if I were you.
I didn’t know anything about Light Warrior till I looked it up, but it seems that it is a very light soil, hence the name lol. It is best used for seedlings, but I have never seen a plant have issues with Happy Frog. I have seen some people say Ocean Forest can be a bit too hot for seedlings, so some start in Happy Frog then transplant to Ocean Forest.
Ocean Forest is a hot soil (a lot of nutrients in it). I personally use Happy Frog. Lots of others here use Ocean Forest. I’m curious as to why you used to many different kinds of soil??? Especially the Ocean Forest on the bottom, as I feel like by the time the roots really get down there, most of the nutrients that were in it are gone… I think you may have over thought it a bit here. Just stick to Happy Frog or Ocean Forest, following the guideline of starting in Happy Frog then transplant to Ocean Forest maybe.
For pH when growing in soil, you should shoot for 6.5. This is the optimal pH for the plant to absorb macro and micro nutrients. This chart here will help to understand the difference. You can see that at 6.5, most of the nutrients are in the green zone. Obviously you can’t get them all in the green zone, but this is the closest you can get. Also I just noticed that chlorine is on here too, and at 6.5 it is pushed into the yellow zone, meaning if there is any chlorine in your water, it won’t get absorbed as much!
Also, should look into getting a TDS/EC meter too. It is a good thing to have to diagnose problems, and take nutrient measurements before feeding. I recommend the Apera EC20. What are you using to test the pH? I recommend the Apera pH20. Or you can just grab an Apera multifunction meter, which is kinda what I wish I would’ve done…
On the subject of TDS/EC… EC is Electrical Conductivity, TDS is Total Dissolved Solids. Pure H20 has almost no electrical charge. If you use an EC meter to test the electrical conductivity a water sample, you can approximate the amount of TDS in the sample. What this means for us is we can gauge how pure the water is that we are using for our grow, allows us to ensure that we are giving our plants the right amount of nutrients, and can help diagnose possible nutrient issues in the future.
I am assuming that this advice was given in regards to using a VPD chart like this one below?
I personally don’t follow it and I know some folks here use it and some say its not necessary. I am of the later group… I don’t know if it matters and I don’t have the facilities to be able to test it for myself… It just seems like more of a hassle to me to keep up with it. I know it is possible to get it pretty dang close, but I just can’t be bothered. Don’t get me wrong, I still check my RH and temps, but I just make sure nothing is really high or really low. My tent sits at 74 F - 82F and RH 38% - 60%. RH is only high right after I shower. High RH during flower can lead to mold.
How big are these fans? Can we get a picture of them and their placement? For a tent your size you might need bigger fans. Don’t water every day! Trust me. Just give them a good watering, then let them dry. I promise they won’t be harmed! It is recommended to get around 10-20% runoff. Got to get the salts out of the soil.
Yeah I should have remembered this… I have this issue as well since I am using that type of intake… I haven’t really figured this one out, but mine is in a closet so I can just close it if I need to turn the light on so I haven’t put that much thought into it.
Maybe, I am not the best with lights and light distance… Especially since you have HLGs. I will say it would be a good idea to keep a tape measure on hand near the grow space to test distance though. Light distance will change as the plants grow too, meaning with a seedling you can keep the light further away or dim it. As it gets older it can handle more light.
Also, are you feeding these girls nutrients? If so, what is it?
No biggie in my opinion, though you could close your intake vents and use an intake fan with duct on it at a bend to reduce light leak. There might be a better way to do that if you get an intake fan though
@Eagles009 @MaD-VapoR @Covertgrower Anything you guys see that I missed? Sorry for tagging y’all if inappropriate, but I sometimes feel bad coming into a topic and just dumping knowledge making it a 2 sided (1 sided at times lol) conversation… Just trying to get some more opinions in here!
LST can be done anytime as long as you are gentle and the branches have enough flexibility to them. I personally “adjust” the branches throughout the grow. I usually top and begin training early (3rd or 4th node).
Not much to be gained by starting LST on a plant that late in flower. LST gives you more potential bud sites and keeps the canopy even for best use of available light.
Zkittles in the background is getting squeezed. LOL
Very nice sir!
I think you pretty much got it all. It’s up the plants now.
Thanks, all! I truly do appreciate the input.
Yep. Looks like I’ll just be leaving those autos alone since they are so far along now. May come back for some advice about the photos, later. (Which I know very little about. They were gifted to me and I hadn’t planned on doing these all at the same time, but, well, I’m in the middle of it, now!)
@Dankloud thank you for all the effort & tags in your reply post… as for the different soils, I just heard from someone on here to do it with that method, since they’d tried it, and it seems to work out great. Just FF in the solo cup, topped with a little LW on top (an inch, maybe, for the seed?) straight in with the sprouted seed, and finally into the bigger pot with OF on the bottom half. Mostly, they do seem to be thriving pretty well for my very first grow, just looking a little bit like Christmas trees at this point. Lol. And no, no extra nutes at this point, and I’m guessing I may not need any. ? Going to watch the watering a little more closely though. Thank you for that. I do get happy with the watering can.
But yeah it’s a lot of soil. Seven gallon pots. They’ve grown considerably since I re-potted them, though! Its been intriguing to see just how fast. I’m wondering about being able to re-use any of this soil for my next ones.
I do try and get a much airflow in there as possible, but I am definitely going to have to figure out the vent/light situation when the time comes to put these photos into flower, as this tent is in my upstairs bedroom, where it gets pretty hot in the summer.! So… Yikes.
Yep I’m using the Apera 20. Haven’t ph’d the autos, at all, haven’t seemed to need to. Just using well water, for those. Will check a bit of the runoff soon though just in case.
Have been religious about the ph of the photos, though. They are at a steady 5.8-6.0 rate with the Jack’s and a little ph down, it seems. They are doing a little better since the transplant as well.
But that’s a lot of great info there, I’ll re-read it a few times to see if there’s anything I’ve missed.
@HMGRWN Wow… those plants look amazing! Will take a page from your book on my next auto grow! Those are beauties. Just lovely. Thank you for sharing. Would love to see them when you are ready for harvest.
@Covertgrower I believe you are right. 
They are doing pretty well, all things considered, so I guess they’ll just be allowed their natural course at this point. They seem happy, overall, they are just different sizes/heights. Thus, my concern with the light distance.
You guys are all amazing, looking forward to learning more.
Off to see which plants need some care this morning, and will take more photos later! This is so exciting and new to me. I’m pretty psyched I’ve been able to grow anything at all. Hahaha.
Oh, and I do have a scrog net I threw in the cart when I bought my exhaust fan… I’m not sure if that would be of any use here either, but I have it just in case I’d like to fiddle around with that.
Will probably experiment with the lst/scrogging more later. Would be interested to see how that might go, with autos, in the future. (Just not thrilled about the idea of working around it, but I’d like to learn more about all of that.) Would definitely like to see everything at the same height. But… I am where I am at this point.
Just thoughts.
Going to measure the distance from the lights and take a couple pix of my fans in a while.
So to be honest, I would go for photoperiod strains if I were you… Autos have a mind of their own and will flower when they want to. Typically around 30 days, but you can have late/early bloomers. I feel like a lot of new growers think autos are easier to start with since they flower by themselves, but in reality autos should be more of an advanced grower thing in my opinion…
Let’s say you make a mistake and stunt an auto during veg. Well now you lost that time that it could’ve been growing and can’t get it back. With a photoperiod, you can simply veg longer to make up for the lost time. I feel it’s also easier to keep track of flowering time with photos since you can just start counting flower time as soon as you flip your lights.
Ah this makes more sense. I was picturing an inch of OF at the bottom lol. Personally I still feel like this is all still excessive, and it all has to do with nutrients. I know you said you aren’t using any nutrients, but you should and you will need some at some point with those soils… None of those soils will carry you through a full grow. Which is also why I think mixing a bunch of FF soils is pointless because then you have no idea about how long until the nutrients are depleted… This is where a TDS meter would come in handy too, which would allow you to test the runoff water, giving you an approximation of how much nutrients are left in the soil. But if you say, use Happy Frog or OF all the way through, you know roughly how long till you need to add nutrients. HF is 4 to 6 weeks I think and OF is 6 to 8 weeks I think.
Yup that’s cannabis untrained! There are things you can do to help with that like “topping” the plant which consists of letting it mature to a point where it has like 4 - 6 nodes or so, then you cut off the top new growth. This redistribute the growth hormone to go to 2 new tips that will form near the cut as 2 new “main branches”. Lots of ways to train a plant. This is only one of them.
Make sure to water till you get a good amount of runoff.
With those soils the nutrients would be gone long before your next grow.
I’m a little confused. How are you checking your pH? Also, you said you are using Jacks? What exactly is it? I use Jacks 321 for my plants.
Yep, I’m also using Jack’s 321, but just for the photos so far. I Ph the solution before watering the plants. (& I have to Ph it down quite a bit, since it’s well water.) I get to to between 5.8 & 6.0.
The plants all seem to be doing pretty well today! No I still don’t have a tds meter, but I’ll be getting one soon. I haven’t fed the autos anything else yet. They sprouted on March 5th, I believe it was.
After I repotted the photos, they just started shooting right up! I think I’ve got everything pretty much dialed in now, but I’ll be working a lot more with these photos as I go and learn. I know that are all going to end up taking a lot of space, so I’ll likely have to do some sort of training with those.
I’m guessing I need to get started on that pretty soon. They aren’t in flower yet, but as soon as autos get big enough, I’ll flip them and give them a lot more attention.
Man. Who knew twelve tiny seedling could turn into something this big, so soon! The hard part is going to be the wait.
The autos are the the back, photos in the front.
Thank you for your input! Been busy the last few days here. I appreciate it!
