My first grow northern lights autoflowering

Hey danny, been on vaca and my Chemdawg has finished curing which makes me forget what I'm doing But I scanned around on here and I saw several questions that went unanswered so I'll try to breeze through a few of them.


I think you mean Flora Nova, not supernova??? Nova is a one part grow / one part bloom formula. Use the grow until you see pistils (you already did) then switch to the bloom formula. Then you would run 1 week transition formula where you use both, then switch completely to the bloom formula for the rest of your grow. Go to the GH website and look up Nova simple drain to waste formula, it will give you the strength. But their timeline is for photoperiod plants; shorten the timeframe of each of their steps to accommodate your auto's. For example, make each week 5 days in your formulation.
I'm concerned your plants are not much taller by now. I would expect them to have stretched to 18 - 24" by now and be ready for tying down. These plants need to start growing.You mentioned organic somewhere. If you are truly using an organic soil mix you are going to have to deviate and rely upon your nutes for the majority if not all of this grow. Reason being, true organic soils need at least a couple months to percolate & develop a good colony of beneficial microorganisms.
Or you may have started with a true soil-less medium that has no nutes? Again, rely on your nutes in that case. Just remember what melkor said about keeping them weak at first. I'd recommend 5mL of bloom formula per gallon of "feed water". Use as much of that as needed to get about 20% runoff from each pot - say a quart runoff for each gallon poured in.
Feel the pot weight. When it starts to dry out it will get light. This watering should be straight water. Wait to dry again. Now you can go back to the nute formula, or my personal favorite, the third feeding should be with molasses (blackstrap - about 4 to 5 tablespoons to each gallon of water. Then start over.


More following.

 

Yeah, frankly I think 20/4 is better than 24/0 simply because it gives your equipment a rest and heat is easier to control. I don't think it makes enough positive to go 24/0.
18/6 at the end? Hmmm, not a bad idea. I wonder if auto's would frost up like photo's do if you gave them a few days of constant dark before the harvest? Anyone with experience on that ?

 

PUBIC HAIRS !!!!! White, wet, glistening pubes. What every boy will kill for

 

You REALLY need to run some photoperiod plants to learn everything you can about growing. Auto's are really more problematic than regulars, so you've started the hard way. But you have the right idea, with auto's you could have half the tent starting and half the tent 1/2 done, so every 30 - 45 days you're harvesting.
But really, don't worry about that for now. Concentrate on getting your dirt right, understanding what your nutes are doing (or not doing), how to train, all the things you need to become competent with. Or if you want to go hydro. I've done both and I like hydro more, because I know EXACTLY what my plants are getting. No question if the organic mix is ready, or if I have too much salts built up, etc., etc. I don't begrudge anyone who runs dirt, I'm proud of my organic pals, I just think that playing around with worm poop and bat do-do is funny


THEN you can think about perpetual harvests and all that shit that can actually become like work if you're not careful

 

Transplanting interrupts the plant's top growth in order to to recover from the shock of transplanting. Once the roots start growing again the top growth continues, but until then growth freezes, but age continues. Simply, you lose grow time.
If you can do it without disturbing the root ball it can be done with less impact, but really, why bother? Start in the same size container you want to finish in and don't worry about it
Likewise with topping, it can easily cost you a week or more before top growth continues. General consensus among auto breeders and specialists is don't top. Plant recovery time is too much lost. Figure 60 days (?) to finish, six days recovery is 10% lost. Topping recovery can take more than 6 days so you're probably losing more like 15% of your grow time.

 

True, all true, it helps the taste. It's mainly the nitrogen buildup that causes a harsh taste & make the material pop & spit while you smoke it. And a plant can hold a certain amount of nitrogen in its leaves, stems & buds. But once you stop feeding it forces the plant to use those stores & results in (a) the leaves dying [nitrogen narcosis] and (b) a better taste. The flush helps this process finish by physically washing most of the stored salts (N, P & K) from the soil so there is no more for the plant to take up.
And true, organic growers don't need to flush, the whole relationship between plant and soil works differently. Connoisseur smokers claim to be able to spot an organically grown bud from the first toke of the smoke. But IMHO it's all relative. If a plant has not been fed to extremes, and during the latter stages of bloom you have rolled off the nitrogen, except maybe for what's in your micronutrients, the effect on taste is going to be much less and flushing is going to be less important.
But at the end of the grow, nitrogen is just not going to help you. And a good flush is also not going to hurt you. So why not??? Won't hurt a thing and it probably IS going to help. Just how much depends on your grow habits. You got nothing to lose.


And BTW, it's not for hydro only, it's more so for dirt. But most hydro growers (me included) flush as well. I don't flush for 1-2 weeks because I know how to roll off the nitrogen. I can get by with 3-4 days & have mellow sweet bud to smoke.


Oh yeah, someone mentioned hay weed - that fresh cut lawn grass smell. And another Bud said that's from the cure (or lack of to be precise. The hay smell is caused by decomposing chlorophyll in the buds. A good cure removes moisture from the plant (quickly at first), and slows this down to give all the chlorophyll time to evaporate. Continuing the cure dries out the rest of the bud and allows the natural oils in the plant to come out and improve its taste and aroma. Two to three weeks is about minimum, whereafter it only continues to improve with age.


But curing is another topic for another day. You need some steroids for your plants. Got any blackstrap molasses? If you don't go get some, it's cheap. And tell me exactly, what has your watering / feeding interval been for the last couple of weeks? We need to make those babies stretch.

 

AND now that I've totally hijacked your thread lets figure out why your girls aren't growing. My last post I asked to get a full accounting of your feed schedules and contents. Let's see what else we can learn.
-Your tent is 2x4x5 tall with two 300W LED's (guessing you will actually be getting about 200W actual per light due to the LED efficiency). That should be plenty for a 2X4 plant canopy. How close to the plants are they hanging?
-Where is your tent located, i.e. in an air conditioned environment? Do you have any ventilation into or out of the tent? What's the temp inside at the start middle and end of the lights-on cycle? If you don't know, find out A cheap aquarium thermometer - the glass tube kind with the little red bulb on the bottom - is very accurate. You just have to remember to look and record the temp.
-What is the soil you are using and does it have any nutrient value listed on the bag?
-What size is your container?
-Have you picked up a container full of dry dirt so you know how much a plant weighs WHEN IT IS TOO DRY? All of your pictures look dry, that worries me.
-How often do you water? How much? An earlier post I advised to get 20-25% or more run off whenever you feed/water. Are you soaking the soil but not waterlogging it; and then waiting for it to dry out significantly (but not bone-dry) before the next water cycle?
-What are you using for water - city tap water, well, RO? If it's city, how shitty is it? Do you know the hardness? If you don't know take a pint to your hydro store and ask them to check the ppm and pH for you.
-Are you checking pH of your water / nute mix after you have mixed them? (do you have a pH meter? - if no, get a bottle of GH reagent drops, about $8. This is accurate enough to keep you out of trouble until you decide you like doing this and can invest in a meter. Do you have pH up and down to adjust your water & nute mix before using it?
-Do you have any pictures of your girlfriend? The really good kind? I may work cheap but I ain't free
Let's get busy and figure this out. I hate to see anyone's first grow go south, or just end up with a couple of buds. Given the proper controls and the right info, you should be cranking out some more serious volume from these girls. I'm consistently doing 5-7 oz in my 2X2 party tent with a single 250W HID. You should be able to do that and more. Let's just take the time to decode what's gone south on you.


I'll check back in a day or two to see your answers, then we can get to work.

 

Yep, lot of questions, but this is the thought process you need to go through when trouble shooting your grow. Let's take a look at what is not, or may be, your issue.
Sooooo, tap water, you probably don't have any calcium or magnesium deficiencies, plus it's pretty early in your grow cycle to start seeing that. Cross that off the culprit list. Small problem, you ARE going to have chlorine which can interfere with the good & natural things that want to go on in dirt. Easy to fix - draw your water a day or two in advance and let it sit in an open container. The more surface area the better (a rectangular rubbermaid type container is better than a bucket). If you have an aquarium pump lying around with a big airstone put it in the water & let it run. These should evaporate the chlorine.


pH 6.5 for dirt is good. BTW, a little trouble shooting trick - check the pH of your runoff each time you water with plain water. Track this over time. The actual value is not as important, you are watching for the pH value going down. That's a good indicator you have excess fertilizer salts building up in your soil. Dilute your nutrient formula in the future until the runoff pH starts going back up. If you are seeing leaf tip burn in conjunction with this, stop feeding and use pH'ed water only until the runoff pH starts normalizing.


Foxfarm ocean forest - this is a big problem. Not the soil brand, it's fine. It's your timing. They advertise this as ready to grow, no need for nitrogen additives, but the active ingredients are worm poop, bat dodo and fish and crab lips and assholes. All of these ingredients need TIME in the soil with natural teas and/or carbon additives (read sugars) to get your beneficial organisms going to create the symbiotic relationship between soil, roots, natural nutes and plants. Beneficial bacteria and fungi like endo and ecto mycorrhizae. Translated - you really need to start these soils a couple of months ahead of schedule and start "treating" them to jump start all the little buggys that makes this shit work. Until that happens your plants have nothing to eat.
FoxFarm recommends you DON'T need a nitrogen based fertilizer, instead use their "...Big Bloom® Liquid Plant Food to encourage strong branching and a sturdy, healthy growth habits" (quoted from their web site). But BigBloom contains the same nutes as your soil, still no real nitrogen content. You need nitrogen.
So for now, screw the directions, they aren't working and your plants aren't growing. Prepare a mixture of 2mL FloraNova Grow and 2mL FloraNova Bloom per gallon of water [2.5mL is 1/2 teaspoon, close enough for measure] If you look it up on GH's website, this is their drain-to-waste formula for the transition growth period. You are technically past that, but we need to get your soil conditioned and get something your girls can eat now. Read NITROGEN, phosphorous and potash. Mix as many gallons at this strength as you need to thoroughly drench each plant container with 20% runoff, and use it now. Hurry.


Next, go to WalMart, any nursery, even the hydro store and pick up a bottle of SuperThrive. This is a vitamin and mineral based product with hormones that encourage healthy root development. Add 1mL per gallon (20 drops) into either your nute formula or next step in the diluted molasses mixture.
Speaking of molasses- while you're waiting for your next watering cycle get some blackstrap molasses. You can use this every time for the next watering cycle after the nutes. But it's most important to get this moving now to get your soil jump started. Here is a link that explains what this does http://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/soil... Use about 2 tablespoons, dilute it best you can in a quart of hot-to-touch water, then dilute that quart enough to complete a full gallon. Use this for your next watering. This stuff will make you work, expect to have to shake the crap out of each gallon. It really helps to have your girlfriend help with this, and you can shoot a video while she's shaking. There's a cult in California that does this once a week.
The third watering will be straight water, then repeat the cycle - nutes - molasses - water. Come to think of it - for now, until we see your girls growing, alternate between your transition FloraNova formula and the molasses / SuperThrive. Skip the straight water as the 3rd cycle for the time being. We'll add that later when the babies start to grow.


Light height - this is a BIG problem & your plants DO NOT love where your lights are hanging - they are not growing. I forget the exact science measure, but a light "beam" will lose approx 50% of its strength over one foot. Maybe not that extreme but it's bad. You want your lights as close to your plants as you can get them without causing leaf burn. Once my plants are started and growing healthy, I run my 400W HID at 12"; and my 600W at 14-15". And HID's run hotter than your LED's.
Hold the back of your hand at about 8-10" below the light. If after a minute your hand is not warm move it closer. You want your hand to feel the warmth, gently, but not get hot - THEN you have the right distance. If your hand bursts into flames you should have moved it sooner. Rub some dirt on it.
6" duct fan - is this the cheap type that sounds like the fart fan in your bathroom? Light duty blades mounted in a cheap flimsy cylindrical aluminum tube? One of these is OK for pulling air out of the tent, and passive air intake through the open vent will be fine. Just be sure the vent stays wide open and doesn't get blocked. But the flimsy duct fans won't "push" air through a carbon filter for odor control. You need a centrifugal fan for that, matched to the carbon filter. Regardless of the fan type, keep it running while lights-on. 80-85 is good enough, don't go higher though.


20/4 light is good and 5 gallon smart pots are great.


OK dannybro, that's all I see for now so the ball is in your court. If you do these things you should see a big jump in plant growth. My only worry is that they may have gone too long and have been seriously stunted - enough that an auto strain won't fully recover. But let's be positive for now. I know these things will help, and its a 50-50 or better chance this will turn you around completely.It's going to take a couple of watering cycles to see results, so start this regimen the sooner the better. My vote, get the superthrive now and use it with your next feed of FloraNova. Then the blackstrap. Then we watch and see. I'll be watching the pic's and will let you know when to quit the transition formula and go straight bloom. I'll be checking back on ya in a few days.

 

Nice info bro

 

What a great guy for all that info

 

Totally agree he knows his shit. Defiantly lower those lights man.

 

Sweet, 15" is an improvement (that's what SHE said, anyway....) but you can still get a lot more out of these. Excepting for the little 4" baby, I pretty much believe it's toast. But you have nothing to lose so let it go along for the ride with the others. Just find a stool or strong box to sit it on so it is closer to the lights / equal to the height of your other plant tops.


How do you tell when it's done? Several indicators:
The first is usually the hairs on the buds start to die. This is pretty reliable although not 100% accurate. Some strains of northern lights, some kush (my old hawaiian kush cross pictured in my avatar) and others I can't remember - oh yeah - matanuska thunderfuck) to name a few, the hairs really don't die off that much.
The second is that the leaves will start to die off. First the big lower fan leaves (these are the humongous leaves growing out from the main plant, each one on its own stem like an old church "fan" handle), then up toward top of the plant. Second stage is the little finger leaves / sugar leaves that grow directly out of the body of the bud.
But the generally most accurate method is with a microscope to examine the color of the trichromes (crystals / frost) on the plant. The cheapest way top do this is with a little hand help unit from Radio Shack http://comingsoon.radioshack.com/illuminated-micro... $9 USD / affordable. Take your scissors and cut a sugar leaf tip or calyx corner about this big or smaller o place it on a white background, place the microscope over it and focus. The trichromes will look like little glass mushrooms; observe the color:
Clear is not ready. Cloudy is pretty much there amber is getting past prime
But you have to view this subjectively as in reality you're going to see all three colors at the same time. Look at the averages. This has an affect on the potency of your smoke as well.
All clear definitely means you are too early and the potency will suffer if harvested now.
Clear to cloudy means it's getting there, and this stage tends to result in more of an "up" high.
Mostly cloudy with some amber showing is where most people shoot for to start chopping.
Lots amber tends to result in more of a couch lock high and is definitely when you wait no longer to chop.
Fine point of consideration - the trichromes turning amber is a result of them starting to degrade; waiting too long and the potency starts rolling off. And a caution on leaving your plants up too long - this technique is actually used by some breeders to create feminized seeds. If you leave a plant up too long it eventually will force most females to create little hermie flowers - they look like a miniature banana growing directly out of the bud. So another reason to not wait too long for too many amber trich's.
Good idea on the sterilite; but is 20 gallons a little big? That's 160 pounds full, and a lot to handle. How many gallons do you use for a complete watering? Get as close to that as possible. Reason being, mix your nutes in the container rather than in individual gallon containers. And only mix enough for one watering as your formulas will change with the needs of the plants.


Final helpful hint until you post more pic's and we see more growth (which you WILL see if you follow the nute regimen I gave you earlier). Several of your girls are ready to begin low stress training (LST). Remember our earlier dialogues; you don't top auuto's, you tie them up and bend them over. Now a lot of girls wont admit this, but most really enjoy being tied up.And auto's LOVE it. Look up my old buddy's posts by DNorris. She's the 50 Shades of Green Bondage Queen and some of her stuff will amaze you. Plus she's cool - Chuck Norris is her brother and he's afraid of HER..


The principle is to bend the plant over, starting about 1/3 above its base, so that by the time you are 2/3 up the trunk, you have created a right angle in the trunk and the rest of the plant trunk can be trained to grow parallel to the ground. This formula is approximate, you need to go by sight and feel mostly.Assuming a 15" plant. Start with some good string - surveyor's / lineman's cord or even the fat sisal packing cord used for tying packages. Form a loose loop ABOUT 4 - 5" up the base of the plant and tie that to a tent post so it won't move. Go about 8-10" up, form another loose loop around the trunk, and pull to bend the plant trunk over a few inches. Tie or clamp down the other end of the string to anything anywhere it will hold that bend in the plant trunk.
You need to go slowly with this, just a few inches per day. Bend, clamp, wait, come back tomorrow and do it again.Before you're done you might have to tie off the upper part of the bend to the side of the tent again so that subsequent and higher bends are working the length of the trunk. In a few days you should have your 90 degree bend. Then, every few days, the top tip should have grown a few inches, trending back upward. Tie that down too.
The fine point of LST - plants contain a compound that encourages the tallest point of a plant to grow with more vigor than the rest of the plant. By training the main trunk / top to be LOWER than it's lower / secondary branches, those branches receive this compound and they in turn try to become the dominant branch / top leader. With a secondary round of LST to each side branch, you can train them lower so the lowest side branches try to catch up. The secondary ties are simpler, only one per branch. Before you know it, you have created a plant with 10, 12, even more "top colas" and your yield has gone up about 6 X what you could expect from an untrained plant.
Next question - what if it breaks when you bend it? It's kind of like when you were checking light height and you hand caught on fire - you should have moved it sooner Real answer - go slow.Complete this over several days. And if it DOES break, eat a popsicle. The kind with a stick. Use this as a splint and securely wrap a gauze strip around the stalk and stick. It will wilt for a few days but should heal and be fine. With photoperiod plants instead of auto's, what you just discovered is called super cropping. You don't WANT to do this on auto's, but point is, if it happens just fix it and go on. The sun will come up tomorrow and the plant will be fine.


Soon as the Mrs gets back from the grocery I'll post a pic of my current Kalishnakova Auto that's due to start coming down today. That will give you a general idea of what you're after, and equally important, should motivate you to finish the training. I mean, really, you're gonna shit when you see this baby. And the crazy part, my previous Northern Lights / Big Bud auto was bigger than this one


OK danny bro, going to slay some dragons now. Catch up with ya later. You got work to do.or you get no more free advice

 

OK Boyz 'n Gurls, more info for the GOT team...


I walked you through the LST process earlier today, in case it wasn't clear, I'm posting some pic's for you that should clear up any questions, and maybe motivate you to NOT throw away the instructions before you try to assemble the parts


Here's a pic of my Kalishnakova-Auto growing in my little 2X2X5'3" party tent. This was taken on 5/24 and shows the completed LST process. The complete LST to this day took place over about a week. If you zoom and and drag around the pic you should be able to see four LST's






And here are the beginnings of the results six days later on 5/30. Note that the second LST up from the base of the plant has been repositioned on this day to go out and up, holding the trunk in place so the remaining two LST's can continue bending the upper part of the plant more toward horizontal. The 3rd and 4th LST's are continuing to bend her over. She's already starting to fill out, and If you listen closely, you can hear her moaning and starting to talk dirty

 

Continued, Here's the results two weeks later on 6/13. OK, this one was taken in portrait orientation & looked fine on my picture hosting site. Dunno whassup wit dat shit. So work with me & turn your monitor over on its side or tilt your head over.
In the two weeks since the last shot you can really see all the side branches, even the lowest bottom ones, have caught up with the rest of the plant. The main terminal leader is still being trained but I'l letting it turn upward now too. Results - a nice, even canopy with a shit-ton of top colas instead of just one.






And here's today, 8/1 She's gone a lot longer than the breeded said. I love breeders but they all say all their plants will finish in 30 days from seed, will yield 2 kilos under a 23 watt CFL, and are 30% THC. This one has done all she's going to do. I'll take all the top colas tomorrow, give the bottoms another week to get some color, and they will come down.
Just a side note, I took the center cola out earlier this week. It was dead center under the cool tube and I was afraid it would bleach out. It was 14" long. Took a quick count, and there are at least (16) top colas in the 12" - 14" range. I may have missed a couple too, some of them have fallen over in the picture & you can't see them.

 

Last but not least, here's the cover shot. Nothing the others haven't shown, I just liked the framing in this one the best.
(Insert emoticon here of a guy humping a supermodel's leg - that would be me)




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She's not moaning anymore, she's just screaming, "F@#$ ME HARD !!!