Auto kush and blueberry grow report

I love reading grow reports to get info from growers on various strains so thought I'd do my bit and return the love by sharing my own experiences.

Been curious about the lowlife auto hybrids so thought I'd try the blueberry and the kush. Ordered 5 regular seeds of each with the aim of doing a grow to check out the strains and produce seeds for possible future grows.

Location is Scandinavia and setting this up on my South facing balcony. Too far North to grow non auto strains all the way to harvest in natural light. Using coco and clay pebble mix as medium, will be using bionova nutes when the babies are ready.

Unfortunately 2 of the blue seeds were crushed on arrival. A brief email exchange later, I'm assured that replacements are on the way.

Did the ol' wet tissue germination. The kush seeds responded really quick. Within 36 hours 3 of them have a good bit of root out and have been put into pots out in the sun. No volume printed on the pots, guessing they're about 2l or so. Will be tranplanting them into larger (approx 6l by guessing) containers when sexed.

The remaining kush seeds appear to be cracking, as do a couple of the blue seeds.

Stay tuned for further updates. If anyone else is growing these strains, come compare notes.

More to follow

 

Quick update:

The remaining seeds developed roots soon after the first ones were planted so they went into pots a day after the first ones. Nothing to see above the coco yet.

Picked up my Bio Nova coco AB nutes today, got some nitrozyme and superthrive coming in the post. I highly recommend nitrozyme, first time I used it was with some young NL plants and within 24 hours of a medium dose, they were showing signs of undernurishment. I had to bang the nute levels up to 1.5x the recommended max dose to satisfy the babies even though they were only a few weeks old!

Superthrive is a new product for me, a friend who has been doing large scale projects for some time recommended it.

Still waiting for the 2 replacement auto BB seeds, should arrive next week and will be about a week behind the first batch. So at the moment, I have 5 auto kush and 3 auto blueberry in pots.

Also been working on the rest of the garden. Planting a load of legal plants on the balcony for cover and for food. I like to grow useful plants, edible and smokable

 

Two replacement BB seeds arrived today, put them germinating on tissue wetted with water + few drops of nitrozyme. They're going to be a week behind the others now.

So far 1/3 BB and 4/5 kush have popped above the coco. Planning on constructing a greenhouse/tunnel out of bits of wood and plastic sheeting for increase in temp (will be getting a bit cool in 2 months, close to harvest time) and some more privacy. Also have a few legit plants out on the balcony to provide some cover for the really interesting plants.

Have given the plants their first feed using 1/10th strength coco nutes and a few drops of nitrozyme. So far, looking like normal healthy seedlings.

Have read that these strains can be slow to take off then suddenly they take off, so not expecting much growth for the first couple of weeks. Going to concentrate on developing the rest of my garden and start piecing together my indoor grow, which I plan on starting in a month or so.

 

OK here's how its going:

4/5 Kush seeds have popped about a week ago and the seedlings are at the stage were they have a pair of single blade leaves and the next set is just about showing. 1 of the blueberry seeds is also at that stage with another 2 BB seeds just having made it to the surface.

Been slowly ramping up the nute levels. Every time I increase the nute levels, I give it to just the blueberry seedling first, in case its too much. That way if I overfeed, I only lose I plant. I wait 6+ hours to see if the test plant has an adverse reaction before feeding the rest with the higher strength feed. From my info the BB is more nute sensitive than the kush.

Also have a 90W LED light which I was planning on using for propogation and veg with my upcoming indoor grow. Curious to see how well it performs (not used it before) so I've taken one of the kush plants and banged it in a wardrobe indoors with the LED light. Interesting to see how it performs compared to the others in natural light.

I get direct sun on my grow area from about 9am - 4pm ish which is good, but I've read that these auto hybrids need all the light they can get. If it looks like the LED is better than my natural light conditions, I'll move these bad boys/girls indoors. Been pretty overcast here recently

Pics to come once there's something worth 'graphing.

That's it for now.

 

Hi namewasdallas,

Still in the seedling stage atm. Here's a couple of snaps though

 

Which seedbank did you get the blueberry seeds from, namewasdallas? I take it from the pics that you've got an outdoor grow going on somewhere. What latitude are you at?

 

I'm somewhere round the 60 degrees North mark. Means I get long days but the sun isn't very powerful, which is why I'm comparing natural light vs LED light. Thinking of getting a CFL in with the LED. My research tells me that the spectrum of the blue LEDs I have is good but the red ones are not at the ideal wavelength. Maybe a red cfl would be a good addition. LED is currently on 18/6 which I've read is the optimum for these auto strains.

Will also be getting a 400W mh/hps light on the go soon for future projects. If auto strains are worth it, have a veg/auto box with LED and cfl combo and then a hps bloom box for the non auto strains.

 

Good luck, greenmeany. Keep us posted of the progress

 

Good to see ya, ddf. Look forward to reading your reports. What stage are you at?

 

OK, been a while, time for an update.

These little dudes seem to be growing really slowly. I've read they are slow right at the beginning but they're now about 3 weeks old and look about half that age from other photos of auto dwarf strains. I think that they aren't getting enough light. The ones outside were growing faster than the indoor ones under the LEDs so I moved them back outside when I was positive of this.

I'm not expecting to get much smoke off these plants. What I'm now planning on doing is using this grow to make some seeds for future grows. I've ordered a 400W HPS/MH system which should be with me within 2 weeks (its not coming directly, a friend oversees is ordering it for me and forwarding it here [for an extra layer of security and grow kit is f***ing expensive here]). At that stage the autos will be half way through their life and will have fallen way behind their max potential. Oh well, I'll bang them under the 400W and see what I can get.

Also going to start germing my seeds for the next grow soon. Too many varieties to choose from though, which one to go fooooor? My plan is:

Finish building a grow box from a wooden frame and plastic sheeting, approx 1.5m - 1m surface area, at least 1.5m high (1.5m = about 5ft, 1m = about 3ft) Prob cover the inside with mylar.

Light is 400W MH for veg, sodium for bloom. Ballast is digital, not used these before but all my research tells me that they're worth the extra bit of £$€. Using an aircooled reflector with an extractor which I'll be running through a carbon filter to combat any odour as I live in a block of flats. Not sure if carbon filters can be used with extraction of really hot air straight off the lamp, something I need to check up on. If not, have a separate extractor for the odour reduction.

Planning on using coco nutes and substrate in big ass pots. Going to either SOG or preferably SCROG to get max possible yield from the 400W available. Grow space will be rectangular, not square so the SOG/SCROG will take place in the middle under the HPS/MH, leaving room at the edges for some auto dwarves for a quick bit of smoke under aux lighting (LED and CFL)

So not got much hope for yield off this grow, but I have living plants still and should be able to make seeds. With the price of these seeds, it will still be worth it and plus I have some knowledge about the (lack of) sun power at this latitude and the power of my LED light. I'll put up some pics of dwarf dwarves soon, not been able to for a bit. Not much to see though

Looking forward to getting my next grow up and running, will be starting a new thread for that.