Alright, here we go. Last (first organic) grow was mostly a success. I'm trying to cram in one last indoor grow before it gets too warm, so I'm trying autos for the first time. Of course, right away, things are not going according to plan, lol. I was going to do two Twenty20 Manhattan's that I got for free, but one of them just didn't look right (crazy deformed seed) and I had a feeling it wouldn't pop. The normal looking one popped at 36 hours or so. The weird one didn't. I left it in a cup of water for another 24 hours and it still didn't pop. Assuming it was a lost cause, I started an LSD 25 I actually paid for. That one popped today, but guess what...the weird seed I left in a cup finally popped today after like five days under water, Wtf! The plan was to grow two in a 30 gal with BAS Oly mix. Now I suddenly have a 3rd I don't know what to do with. I guess I could stuff another pot in there. Also, my soil has gone at least slightly hydrophobic, despite me keeping up a cover crop. When digging holes, it was surprisingly dry, but also got runoff on a gallon of water. Hoping it'll get back to normal over time. I certainly have enough mulch. That shit is several inches deep!
Amended plan: I just put the late popped Manhattan in the same 10 gal Coco Loco I just harvested from. I turned over the top 4-5 inches and mixed in a cup of 3-5-2 Craft Blend and a few handfuls of rice hulls. Most of that top layer was piles of composted mulch and castings and not the original soil mix. I did a slurry test on soil deeper down and it was 6.2, which seems pretty close to right on the money. I'm not sure what sort of results I'll get in there, but I was curious and didn't want to go to a ton of trouble breaking open fresh bags of stuff to mix soil. Hopefully I don't get right out of the gate with deficiencies, lol. I'm thinkin that craft blend has time to break down, as autos like a lighter mix anyway. By the time they are ready for it, the amendments will be available. That's the plan anyway.
Quick update...I'm back to two Weirdly enough, the funky Manhattan seed is doing just fine. The LSD25 popped and got above soil, but the stem looked weird and the cotyledons didn't want to turn up to the light. I let her go and it looked like she might try and pull through, but the true leaves that followed were twisted and mangled looking. After almost two weeks, I said to hell with it and put it out of its misery, lol. I think it maybe suffered from some sort of partial damping off. Not enough to kill it, but severely stunt it. The roots were like an inch deep after two weeks. This is a first for me. Kinda bummed. I could have put the other Manhattan in the big pot and not had two things to water. Oh well. Moving on.
You guys ever have any weird leaf reactions with aloe? Watered with 1/4 tsp of aloe powder per gal yesterday. Spritzed some on the leaves, as I typically do. Never had an issue before. Today, one of the two has a rough texture to the leaves, with some white, maybe kinda yellow speckling. Of the two plants, it is a little closer to the light and the light over it is turned up a little more. I also noticed it's praying to maybe an unhealthy degree. Backside of leaves look perfect. Only effecting the top side. Can the aloe cause more significant lensing effects? Is this light burn from water droplets? I've never actually seen that happen before. Lights on temps are 78 with 68-70% humidity. Other plant looks fine. Edit: I'm starting to think it's just a light intensity thing in general. I turned up the panel over this one yesterday. Just a smidge, but she was seeing 24k lux, which might be a bit much for this early. I backed it off to 20-21k. Really wish I had a par meter.
Yep. Few hours after dimming the lights, the leaves aren't pointed up unnaturally anymore. Had nothing to do with the aloe. I assume the 20/4 light cycle means you can't push them as hard with light intensity?
Correct. With longer light cycles, DLI is higher, so light intensity needs to be lower. Some people I see are able to really push their autos but I think they're generally doing more hydro and may have higher temps + CO2. Light intensity is one of the things I struggle with the most coming from photoperiods - I really want to push the light intensity but I always ends poorly for me. I don't think OS (whose plants are exemplary!!) uses too much light. His COBs are only putting out 50 watts each! We all notice with autos that if light intensity is too high, we start to see weird "nutrient deficiencies" (not true deficiencies so don't try to amend!). Usually backing lights off helps with this. I believe the seedling problems (which I have been experiencing a TON of lately) are due to too high of light intensity for one, but could also be related to other environmental conditions (for me: humidity).
Thanks for the info Regarding the seedling, this is the first one I've had this happen with, so I'm going to treat it as an anomoly for now and not change how I do things. The seeds started with the lights fully dimmed and maybe three feet up. I've had other mishaps in the past, but this is the first one I've ever had that became a legit seedling and then didn't make it. Previous mishaps involved drowning seeds, cooking seeds with a heat mat...you know, the usual rookie mistakes, lol. Never had one die once above ground.
Gotcha. Yeah auto seedlings can be finnicky and sometimes they just don't do what we expect. Hoping it's just a fluke!
Pulling up a chair. You had me at cover crop. For your future aloe needs, grow your own aloe plant. Chop a couple stalks, throw them in your blender with some water, then water into soil.
To add to this: if you water using a chapin sprayer (for that nice, slow soaking!) I recommend straining through a coffee filter. Otherwise those small bits of aloe will clog the sprayer.
I gotta say, I'm already looking forward to going back to photos, lol. I feel this pressure to do everything perfect because I know flower could start any day now. They're already in the window of time they supposedly will show first signs of flower, even though they're barely past what I would consider seedling stage. It stresses me out I know autos are small, but it seems hard to believe they'll turn into full flowered and finished plants in another two months. I think I just really enjoy growing monstrous plants haha.
I bet you will be surprised how fast they grow once they take off. If you want to grow big autos, there are plenty of strains that get huge if that’s what you are looking for. If that LSD 25 is still in the running, that has potential to be pretty good sized. Cheers Os
Hopefully. Looks like I slowed down the older Manhattan pretty good with the light burn. Top node looks weird and it's been workin at it for what feels like an eternity. It doesn't want to unfold. Leaf pair closed up like a clam shell. Lower secondary branches are growing normally, thankfully. The younger one still seems on track, but super squat plant so far. Very tight node spacing. It's barely off the dirt. The LSD25 is the one that died. All in all, it's been a rough start, lol. I definitely miss having time to correct mistakes. I'm just gonna do my best and see it through.
I am with you there friend - stunted or slow autos can really be disheartening. Especially with the relative ease of photoperiods. But man, when you get it right, autos are amazing and grow as fast as…well…weeds! Keep giving it the old college try. Everything you learn here you can apply to photos for even better grows in the future!
As you're growing in "living soil", I felt that this example from SoHum might shed some light on what's possibly going on with your newly planted auto' seeds. Try the "Cyclops" planting method outlined in the link. It's the same as the "nested" soil method that @Organic sinse turned a lot of us on to for starting our auto seeds in our nutrient rich media mixes. Seed starter mixes have much lower nutrient availability. I've recently performed an SME test on my own soil mix after one cycle in a 4 gallon pot. EC was 1.7. This is way too high to successfully germinate autoflowering cannabis. "Using 100% SoHum Living Soils® for planting autoflower genetics IS NOT recommended. Young autoflower plants are hyper-sensitive to microbial nutrients and the elevated microbial levels in full strength SoHum Living Soils® can cause preliminary plant stunting. Autoflowering plants have smaller root mass than regular photo-sensitive plants and young plants can experience nutrient burn without the proper planting technique." Autoflower Best Practices
Yeah, my soil is definitely too much for autos. I did dig a hole and fill with starter soil, but either I didn't dig it big enough or the surrounding soil was still too much once it grew into it. I've been chopping and dropping cover crop in there for months while my photo flowered, so nitrogen in particular is probably quite high. She's very, very dark green and growth at the tops looks swollen, with down turned tips. It almost looks like over-watering, but my gut tells me it's nitrogen excess. Not much I can do about that now. I might just go water only the rest of the way and hope for the best. The larger of the two is growing quite fast now, so I might get one decent plant out of it. The squat one actually doesn't have any leaf issues, but it's hilariously short. Like, maybe four inches tall with pre-flowers...it might gift me with a gram or two, lol. I'm thinkin that might just be genetics. I dunno. In conclusion, yeah, I'm going back to photos as soon as I can, haha.
This fall I tried dropping the volume of my seed starter pocket down to a pint from 1/2 gallon. As soon as they grew out of the pints worth of seed starter at about 12 days, they started to overdose. 4 strains were culled, two survived but didn’t quite thrive like they should. I think if you run em a little dry and reduce light a bit it helps them survive the overdose. Cheers Os
Yep, sounds about right. My usual starter cups are 20 ounces and that's the size hole I made, so a little more than a pint. Guess that's not enough! I was thinkin I may be over watering, and lights are dimmed as far as they go after the burning incident, so I've been going longer between waterings anyway, so I guess I'm doin what I can.
That’s the right triage. For me, that was the first time I’d ever tried going small on the seed starter. I just didn’t have quite enough for my normal routine…and it cost me. But I learned that especially on fresh made soil, I really do need that extra capacity of seed starter. Cheers Os
