Ok, so I had 8 of my original banana kush auto seeds left over from my first grow. Since I now have a 4x4 to play in also I decided to drop 6 seeds. Yep, the banana kush auto’s. I also dropped 2 chocolope photoperiods in cups this afternoon. Those are going into my 2x4. It needs something to do also. Since I am growing in coco this time vs a soil grow last time, I should be seeing a lot of difference between first grows plants and this grows plants.
On to the setup: the 4x4 is sporting 2 - HLG 260wRSPEC V2’s and a 6 in cloudline exhaust fan venting outside. The exhaust fan is also being controlled with a night/day temp controller. The plants are going to be in autopots. The auto pots have the air bubbler in the bottom. The coco has been rehydrated, rinsed and double buffered then mixed with 25-30% perlite. There is a layer of perlite in the bottom not quite covering up the bubbler. Then a finish fill with coco.
Now onto the nute line: this time around will be Jacks 321, silica and fishsh!t. It will get about a 1/2 teaspoon of molasses per gallon along with it’s feeds. Trying to make this grow simpler. Looking like I won’t have to use ph up or down this time either with the silica additive. One less thing in the water and I count that as a good thing.
I don’t have pictures of the other 3 because they popped there heads out of soil and went no further. They haven’t died, but neither have they grown. That last picture is of that one finally getting off of it’s dead ass and doing something. I dropped another seed in each one of those 2 other cups a couple of days ago and the new seedlings have popped there heads already. Maybe these will make a go of it.
Haven’t given any of them names except the one on the right. It’s being dubbed 'ol yeller. It came out of the ground yellow and has stayed yellow. I am spraying some foliar spray on it that’s supposed to help green it up but so far no banana. a day and a half of this foliar spray 3 times a day and it ain’t budging off that color yet.
I am not sure about molasses in autopots. If you have a circulating pump or wave runner in the reservoir, which is recommended, the molasses may foam up. I use Bud Candy from advanced nutrients for the carb kicker.
Three autopot spring pots in my 32x72" closet. Maybe an inch to spare
thanks for the tip on the molasses, I will check into that for sure. I use only about a 1/2 teaspoon per gallon anyway but I will make sure of that before I set them in the autopot trays. And the autopots in trays sounds like a good idea.
Recently there was a post recommending against using molasses in a hydro set up. I don’t recall what kind but I know it caused problems. I don’t know if the same hold true with a small circulating pump in an autopot reservoir but thought it worth a mention.
Use of tray - I found out the hard way wondering why water was dripping through a ceiling. It was not bad because I do not fill the reservoir. I don’t fill it because pH drifts up out of range after a couple of days.
I plan on using maybe a gallon, possibly 2 gallons initially until I learn to trust this system. The tent has a fairly deep nice tray in it for spillage. It would take more than a couple of gallons to overflow that. I purchased all the items necessary to install a halo system in the tent for a top down water feed but decided that I didn’t want to deal with setting the plants up high enough in the tent to prevent a syphon effect from it. I know you drill hose and put drains on the pans underneath the plant trays and then you got to install a sump pump into a collection barrel or whatever you decide to use. Just decided that if I had to leave for a while the halo system just wasn’t going to do it for me.
I didn’t think you could overwater in coco. Well. apparently you can. I was watering twice a day and the plants just seemed to stall. I’ve cut back to one watering a day for the time being and they are starting to take off again. I will be getting the base and valve portion for these auto pots in place sometime next week. Just letting them grow a little first to get roots towards the bottom so they can start sucking it up at will.
Speaking of 'ol yeller, if it does turn out to be a she, and she should since it was a feminized seed, I will be able to say that I have officially smoked weed from a yellow banana plant!
Also think I figured out something else about this coco. When I originally hydrated it, double buffered, rinsed and then filled my pots with it I didn’t check runoff. I did this morning transplanting my 4th plant. What I found was that the ph was about 7 and the ec was .8. I made up 3 gallons of nutes ph’d just a little low and flushed the pot out with it. Runoff was exactly perfect after that. Should have done that with the other 3 also but I think they are sufficiently flushed now as I am getting good numbers on there runoff’s now. Probably common sense to others, but just never occurred to me to do that and from now on I will flush a final pot full of coco with ph’d nutes
You are more than welcome to hang out here. My last grow journal had a lot of room left in it for folks. This one does too. Let’s see what 'ol yeller does.
Reference your pic with the watering hoses going in the coco. Do you have something that fans the water out when it leaves the tube or is it just a stream? Seems like the medium would not saturate if you had the hoses off to the edge? Is CoCo that absorbent to pull the fluid to the other edge of the planter container?
Your hoping to grow 7 plants? What is the final container size you will reach in Gallon size? If these are auto that planter looks what 3 Gallon? Going to be interesting with the various strains how you will manage the canopy heights. I am sure you got some tricks you want to give a try. I think this is going to be interesting.
Those watering hoses you see are temporary. They are going into a halo drip system. It’s a round sprinkler head that goes all the way around the plant. Those help keep my hands out of the plants and they are all fed from a tank with the same nute concentration. They are connected to a pump on a timer. As said, they are only temporary until the plants are ready to be bottom fed by the autopot system. Those halo rings will come out. Some of the coco in the corners at the top are drying out but it’s not going to hurt anything I don’t think. Nothings trying to feed from there.
I was attempting to grow another 6 banana kush plants in that tent but some are lagging way behind and then another 2 plants (photoperiods) in a separate tent. I will place buckets under the ones that are going to need it to get them closer to the light source.
Those 4 plants in the pictures are in there final pots. They are 3.9 gal autopots. I grew my other plants in 3 gal fabric pots so these should be plenty big enough and it’s all going to be bottom feed in another week anyway.
