White widow autoflowering advice

S

shiva

Well-Known Member
Hey all,

Just looking for any useful advice on my new autoflowering white widow feminised grow as have never grown autoflowering before.

For the record, I'll be starting germination today. My grow room is ready and I will hopefully be growing 4 plants. I have 2x200w envirolites and a fan blowing fresh air from outside into the grow room and over the stems constantly. The soil has been ph checked (6.5) and tap water is bang on 7. My soil is a high hydrogen mixed with 25% perlite / 25% vermiculite, which has been successful for me previously on standard grows.

Temp for germination is currently 84 degrees, please advise if I need to lower this for the main grow once the seedlings are under light.

My main question is what size pots I should use for a short grow like this. Apparently 7-8 weeks start to harvest...

Any useful advice from anyone with experience of autoflowering can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Shiva
 
Supersport

Supersport

Member
I like big pots if you have room for them, 5 gal ot 7 gal, I think you need to come down a bit on your temps mid to upper 70's works for me in the Deep South
 
S

shiva

Well-Known Member
Supersport said:
I like big pots if you have room for them, 5 gal ot 7 gal, I think you need to come down a bit on your temps mid to upper 70's works for me in the Deep South
Click to expand...
Will come down on temps once I put them under light... Keeping it high for germination. Thanks for the tip though!
 
bf80255

bf80255

Well-Known Member
shiva said:
Hey all,

Just looking for any useful advice on my new autoflowering white widow feminised grow as have never grown autoflowering before.

For the record, I'll be starting germination today. My grow room is ready and I will hopefully be growing 4 plants. I have 2x200w envirolites and a fan blowing fresh air from outside into the grow room and over the stems constantly. The soil has been ph checked (6.5) and tap water is bang on 7. My soil is a high hydrogen mixed with 25% perlite / 25% vermiculite, which has been successful for me previously on standard grows.

Temp for germination is currently 84 degrees, please advise if I need to lower this for the main grow once the seedlings are under light.

My main question is what size pots I should use for a short grow like this. Apparently 7-8 weeks start to harvest...

Any useful advice from anyone with experience of autoflowering can offer would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

Shiva
Click to expand...

pretty much the same as growing photos except they start and finish faster
oh and 7-8 weeks seed to harvest is a lie man expect at least 80 days 2-3 gallon pot should be optimal anything more will be a waste and anything less may not be enough
 
S

shiva

Well-Known Member
bf80255 said:
pretty much the same as growing photos except they start and finish faster
oh and 7-8 weeks seed to harvest is a lie man expect at least 80 days 2-3 gallon pot should be optimal anything more will be a waste and anything less may not be enough
Click to expand...
No probs... Just bought 4 x 3 gallon pots so all ready to go now. Will expect 80 days so all good. Thanks for the info!
 
S

shiva

Well-Known Member
Also, with my previous grows I've never used additional nutrients. The high hydrogen soil mixed with perlite and vermiculite helps to keep the natural nutes in the soul for longer. Bearing in mid my soil mix, would anyone recommend additional nutes for an autoflower short term grow or, like my previous experience, is it likely to cause chemical burns to the leaves? If a feed or nutrient source is recommended, what would you recommend? I only used the smallest amount previously on a standard grow and it burnt my leaves so stopped and allowed them to grow naturally. Until I have the best harvest I can off the strain I bought, I'm likely to remain sceptical of autoflower though have seen some amazing results posted in these forums.
 
burner89

burner89

Well-Known Member
What breeder are they from? I've grown a few WWA from Pyramid. My grows have all been outside though.
 
bf80255

bf80255

Well-Known Member
shiva said:
Also, with my previous grows I've never used additional nutrients. The high hydrogen soil mixed with perlite and vermiculite helps to keep the natural nutes in the soul for longer. Bearing in mid my soil mix, would anyone recommend additional nutes for an autoflower short term grow or, like my previous experience, is it likely to cause chemical burns to the leaves? If a feed or nutrient source is recommended, what would you recommend? I only used the smallest amount previously on a standard grow and it burnt my leaves so stopped and allowed them to grow naturally. Until I have the best harvest I can off the strain I bought, I'm likely to remain sceptical of autoflower though have seen some amazing results posted in these forums.
Click to expand...
what type of medium are you growing in?

you mentioned your using a high hydrogen mix with 25% perlite and 25% verm? im not farmiliar with any high hydrogen soils and to the best of my knowlege I thought a high hydrogen environment created a very low pH environment ( not ideal)

look up K.I.S.S method and maxibloom, super cheap and effective
 
S

shiva

Well-Known Member
bf80255 said:
what type of medium are you growing in?

you mentioned your using a high hydrogen mix with 25% perlite and 25% verm? im not farmiliar with any high hydrogen soils and to the best of my knowlege I thought a high hydrogen environment created a very low pH environment ( not ideal)

look up K.I.S.S method and maxibloom, super cheap and effective
Click to expand...
To be honest, I'm using an identical mix that i used to produce the shivas you can see on my Journals, links below as I it seemed to work well and without using nutes - it seemed to keep the ph really well balanced previously so I have no real concerns over that. I'm constantly checking the ph levels of the water etc so we're all good there. The perlite and vermiculite aid retention of natural nutes in the soil as mentioned before and also good drainage. I'm a total newb really - this is only my 3rd grow and I'm not expecting amazing results as am only using low lighting.... I have a 200W Blue spectrum Envirolite and a 300W dual cfl, but wanted to see how well it would perform with an auto flowering strain. My grow room is just big enough to contain 4 x 3 gallon pots and is a plain white box basically which i made myself from white Melamine wood. It has fresh air being brought in constantly from outside and temps are about 75° on average.

The good news is all 4 now have 4 small leaves and proportionately strong stems from what i can see, but I still have doubts about how big they will grow in this short grow time frame.

Anyway, thanks for the advice. Will the nutes aid growth in terms of growing them bigger over short time frames? I know nothing about nutes at all unfortunately!
 
bf80255

bf80255

Well-Known Member
shiva said:
To be honest, I'm using an identical mix that i used to produce the shivas you can see on my Journals, links below as I it seemed to work well and without using nutes - it seemed to keep the ph really well balanced previously so I have no real concerns over that. I'm constantly checking the ph levels of the water etc so we're all good there. The perlite and vermiculite aid retention of natural nutes in the soil as mentioned before and also good drainage. I'm a total newb really - this is only my 3rd grow and I'm not expecting amazing results as am only using low lighting.... I have a 200W Blue spectrum Envirolite and a 300W dual cfl, but wanted to see how well it would perform with an auto flowering strain. My grow room is just big enough to contain 4 x 3 gallon pots and is a plain white box basically which i made myself from white Melamine wood. It has fresh air being brought in constantly from outside and temps are about 75° on average.

The good news is all 4 now have 4 small leaves and proportionately strong stems from what i can see, but I still have doubts about how big they will grow in this short grow time frame.

Anyway, thanks for the advice. Will the nutes aid growth in terms of growing them bigger over short time frames? I know nothing about nutes at all unfortunately!
Click to expand...
well its important to know what is in that mix before you start applying nutrients to it or at the very least test your runoff and see where your PPM's are.

(if you have any questions feel free to ask we were all noobs at some point)

perlite is for drainage and vermiculite is for retention

do you have pics of your setup?
 
S

shiva

Well-Known Member
bf80255 said:
well its important to know what is in that mix before you start applying nutrients to it or at the very least test your runoff and see where your PPM's are.

(if you have any questions feel free to ask we were all noobs at some point)

perlite is for drainage and vermiculite is for retention

do you have pics of your setup?
Click to expand...
You're speaking non-noob speak to a noob.... "test your run-off and see where your PPM's are' - ?? *scratches head... looks blank... looks at floor... looks up, still looks blank!*.

Please explain - that's my first question! :) I've just posted pics to my Journal for this grow.... see link below:

http://rollitup.org/Journal/shiva.2643/

Be ready for the questions as this grow progresses!

p.s. just had a look at your pinkie pie grow log - love that shot of your leaf all lined up... previously when i harvested my shiva, I through all my leaf away. Is there something I can do with the leaf from this auto flower grow once complete in order to get a high from it?
 
bf80255

bf80255

Well-Known Member
shiva said:
You're speaking non-noob speak to a noob.... "test your run-off and see where your PPM's are' - ?? *scratches head... looks blank... looks at floor... looks up, still looks blank!*.

Please explain - that's my first question! :) I've just posted pics to my Journal for this grow.... see link below:

http://rollitup.org/Journal/shiva.2643/

Be ready for the questions as this grow progresses!

p.s. just had a look at your pinkie pie grow log - love that shot of your leaf all lined up... previously when i harvested my shiva, I through all my leaf away. Is there something I can do with the leaf from this auto flower grow once complete in order to get a high from it?
Click to expand...

hahaha no worries bro, well your medium(the dirt your growing in) has salts and stuff in it, when you run plain RO (reverse osmosis) treated water with a PPM (parts per million) of 0 through your pot the water that comes out of the bottom is called "runoff" once you see about 10% of the water you put in running off (into a container) youd take your TDS meter and test the runoff, that will tell you the PPM of the runoff and help you calculate when and how much nutrient solution to use.

RO always has a PPM of 0 because an RO filter strips water bare of everything.

PPM= parts per million, how many solubles (minerals) are in the water. most municipal tap should be 200-400ppm but it can be higher if you have shitty pipes or a well.

TDS Meter- a little stick like device you can buy at a hydro shop ( kinda pricey) to test the parts per million dissolved solids

of course all of that is not necessary but will help you dial in your grow to more exact specs, I would suggest you get some nutrients and a pH pen before you get a TDS meter, pH is way more important and can fuck up a grow pretty quickly.


lmao I hope my answers help :)

Yes actually, the leaves that have crystals (trichomes) on them can be saved and dried and processed to extract the THC and make all kinds of stuff like edibles, hash, dabs you name it.
 
bf80255

bf80255

Well-Known Member
just went through your grow log. (why dont you post pics on this thread?) looks good so far, how old are the seedlings now?
 
S

shiva

Well-Known Member
bf80255 said:
hahaha no worries bro, well your medium(the dirt your growing in) has salts and stuff in it, when you run plain RO (reverse osmosis) treated water with a PPM (parts per million) of 0 through your pot the water that comes out of the bottom is called "runoff" once you see about 10% of the water you put in running off (into a container) youd take your TDS meter and test the runoff, that will tell you the PPM of the runoff and help you calculate when and how much nutrient solution to use.

RO always has a PPM of 0 because an RO filter strips water bare of everything.

PPM= parts per million, how many solubles (minerals) are in the water. most municipal tap should be 200-400ppm but it can be higher if you have shitty pipes or a well.

TDS Meter- a little stick like device you can buy at a hydro shop ( kinda pricey) to test the parts per million dissolved solids

of course all of that is not necessary but will help you dial in your grow to more exact specs, I would suggest you get some nutrients and a pH pen before you get a TDS meter, pH is way more important and can fuck up a grow pretty quickly.


lmao I hope my answers help :)

Yes actually, the leaves that have crystals (trichomes) on them can be saved and dried and processed to extract the THC and make all kinds of stuff like edibles, hash, dabs you name it.
Click to expand...
Ahhhh that helps a lot. I have a ph testing kit and a moisture meter which I've used to date.... All useful stuff, seems like you know your stuff when it comes to nutes and feeding!

Temps I'm my grow room are mid to late 80's.... Would you say this is too hot and will cool the seedlings at the size they are? Not quite a week old currently. I switched off the 300W dual cfl earlier after advice that 500W was too much light for 4 seedlings in my size grow room. Any advice welcome.
 
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