I'm going to be growing 4 indoor autoflowering plants so far this is what i have for the soil: - 4 five gallon buckets - seed starting pots - bag of sulfur (2.5 lbs) to lower PH level if needed - bag of iron (2.5 lbs) to raise PH level if needed - bag of bone meal (3 lbs) - earth worm castings (15lbs) - Perlite http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001V6WXEI/ref=ox_sc_act_title_4?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER - can I use dirt from outside and mix it with worm castings, bone meal and perlite? or should I invest in bagged soil? for the grow room i have: - grow tent that's 32in wide and 5ft tall - four 45W CFLs (6500k lumens, daylight balanced, white) - Three 55W compact fluorescent 2700k warm white spectrum (3200 lumens) < the box that the light came it says it's equivelent to 200Ws - 8" in-line duct fan (500 boosted airflow CFM, 210 free air CFM) to blow onto the plants - another fan to blow circulate the air - thermometer - Do I have enough lights? if not, what type should i get? Brief notes I have on the different cycles: (I have more notes on all the cycles, I am just looking for feedback on what I have and if it's right or wrong) Seedling Cycle - place under soft white lights *** should I add one 2700k light? - 24 hours of light a day - keep temp at 77F Vegetative Cycle - add 2700k lights *** should I add all 3 lights? - 75 - 78F (lights on) 5-10F degrees less when lights are off - @ 4-6in tall, transplant into bigger pot - soil about 1in away from bottom leafs - 20/4 light cycle - top the plants --- cut tip of plant above first set of leaves Flowering Cycle - takes around 8-10 weeks - 12/12 light cycle - change lights to HPS (if I get a HPS light by then) if not, use all lights - harvest when trichomes are half amber/half cloudy - *** Do I need more lights for this cycle? Or is what I have enough lighting? Other - pH level should be between 6.3 - 7.0 - 5000 lumens/sq ft Other questions/concerns: 1. How should I go about mixing the soil? I have read that i need about 1/3 of the soil to be perlite but i'm not sure how much worm castings, bone meal, sulfur and iron I should add? 2. Do I need different soil for each cycle? 3. I do not have a pH meter and i'm too cheap to get one, will I be all right with out one? also, are there any ways to tell if the pH level is low or high other than using anything? if there's anything else that's crucial to growing strong plants or anyone has advice i'd love to hear it all thank you
I'm am not a expert grower by any means so I'll give you my opinion and you can take what you want from it.. As far as the soil is concerned I would invest in some Vermisoil, Fox Farm, Roots Organic ECT and build off of that. If your tent is 32' by 32' by 5ft then the 4 pots should fill most of the foot space and you should consider doing a SCROG because of hight. Your lights will grow plants but I'd suggest looking into a hps/mh digital hood and ballast. You could do a complete grow with a hps bulb and get 10x the quality and quantity. You can just do 16/8 veg 12/12 flower. Soil is normally forgiving in terms of PH. If you buy a quality soil such as Vermi or roots organic you shouldn't have to worry too much. Your plants will show signs of nutrient deficiency if your PH levels are off. Sent from my iPhone using Grasscity Forum
I agree with OG about the lights but if you are growing autos I would be careful about training too much. I learned this the hard way, although I did make some pretty big mistakes. I am a huge fan of scrogs but I would be very careful about scrogging with autos as a scrog is all about timing and autos make their own time.
great, thank you! i was going to look into a hps/mh light later on when i have the money to spend on it, but for now I only can gett CFL's and i wasn't sure if i had enough of them or I should get more
I use 1 part peat, 1 part *compost, and 1½ parts perlite with good results. That's your base. Bone meal, kelp meal, blood meal, rock dust, lime, iron, sulfur, etc are amendments, most soil recipes call for 4-6 cups of meals and 4-6 cups of rock dusts (GRD, dolomite) per cubic ft, don't know about iron or sulfur, never used it myself. The *compost you add can be a combination of EWC, humus, manure, or whatever, as long as it's fully composted. The benefit to using multiple sources of compost is increased biodiversity, nothing wrong with using ewc only though. You don't need different soil but you might want to feed them with teas or by top-dressing for best results. I use 1 cup of dolomite lime per cubic ft to buffer ph, and never worry about ph after that. This "buffers" your soil so that if you add something that drops the ph, the lime will counteract that. This is complimented by the peat base, which has a high cation exchange capacity. The entire process is self-regulating, you don't have to adjust ph during the grow. Wasted $150 on a ph/ec meter that I never use, lol. Don't need one with organics. Use as much light as your exhaust can handle. When I run autoflowers I think of it as a race to get as much growth as possible before they start flowering, started my auto seedlings under 1kw. You can never have too much light, as long as you can get rid of the heat. IMO, the more money you spend on CFL, the more money you'll be throwing in the garbage when you get your HPS. If you're cool with that then get daylight spectrum for veg and soft white (2700k) for flowering. Good luck!!
that was really helpful, thank you so much when I get an HPS light, could i still use my CFL's with it? maybe not all of them but a few just so theres more light?
Sure. You can use them whenever you want with whatever you want. I stopped using them because I realized how inefficient they are. I was running 400w of cfl for ~27,000 lumens. Then I switched to 250w hps for 28,500 lumens. CFL are best suited for cloning and short periods of veg growth.
wow very nice, how many plants do you grow with 250w hps? and can you use hps through out the whole grow?
Leds although not as great as mh/hps but doesn't hurt your electric bill nearly as much. Leds can be expensive though. Let's Smoke About It.... http://forum.grasscity.com/index.php?/topic/1320164-Sade's-First-Grow-Green-Crack
I grow 1 plant at a time with 250w. If you use good genetics, and put half an effort into it, then you can harvest 6 oz per plant no problem. I also grow 4 plants under 1,000w, yielding the same results. 5-6 weeks veg from seed, about 4 from clone. edit: yes, you can use HPS from seed to harvest with great success.