First time with autos

[ED-209]

I got a couple of freebie Auto seeds, so thought I'd give them a crack. I had three seeds of two strains mixed, so not certain on what I've got - but fairly sure one of each given the differences in morphology:
1. Dutch Passion Orange Bud Auto fem
2. FastBuds Strawberry Banana Auto fem

The thing is, they've gone 7 weeks since sprout and still only early stages of flowering. They've been showing sex for a while, and have started to change branching structure - central stem hasn't been topped and only has recently started to change branching pattern. A quick glances on the breeders site suggests they are longer to harvest than other autos... I'm just unfamiliar, and without the normal flip moment, hard to gauge where the plant is at. I'm expecting a fair bit of stretch from this point over the next 2-3 weeks.

Just curious for comments and feedback. Both are in 5 gallon fabric pots with a 70/30 coco/perlite mix, auto irrigated 3 times a day, using H3ad's formula and a few additives.

The plant on the right had some lockout issues and is still recovering

 

[Bullfrog]

looks like its gonna be a full tent
Ive never ran h3ads formula but I actually thougt about it recently coz I had to buy 5 liter bottles of bloom and micro because the hydro shop i go to is fuckin useless. didnt have any 1 litre bottles. I swear they never have what you want.
do you run the same mix to week 6 flower then just drop the micro ?

 

[ED-209]

looks like its gonna be a full tent
Ive never ran h3ads formula but I actually thougt about it recently coz I had to buy 5 liter bottles of bloom and micro because the hydro shop i go to is fuckin useless. didnt have any 1 litre bottles. I swear they never have what you want.
do you run the same mix to week 6 flower then just drop the micro ?

I started with it 10 years ago when I first started hydro. Things have changed a lot, but I found it works well and is simple. I've since shifted to using Green Planet Micro and Bloom which is essentially the same as the General Hydro Flora products, cheaper and easier to get here. I've usually run the micro fairly late into flower - I think the idea of dropping it early is maybe based on older thinking, At least, I'd rather keep running some N later into flower and see how it goes and reduce closer to harvest. I try to judge by reading the plant rather than sticking to a firm schedule and depending on strain. Running it all the way hasn't been a problem for the most part, in fact, I've notice issues with trace elements when I did drop it too early

 

[Bullfrog]

yah that makes sense. i almost shifted to gp3 also. the npk numbers are exactly the same so it would be an easy swap over.
probably gonna take me a couple years to use up what ive got now though .
also sorry but I dont know fuck about autos
ive never bothered with em. maybe one day .

 

[ED-209]

yah that makes sense. i almost shifted to gp3 also. the npk numbers are exactly the same so it would be an easy swap over.
probably gonna take me a couple years to use up what ive got now though .
also sorry but I dont know fuck about autos
ive never bothered with em. maybe one day .

Oh yeah, it's a lot to go through now you're set. I don't use a heap, lasts no worries.

Yeah I didn't care to look at auto seeds - but got these as freebies and of course couldn't say no. Don't have the setup to do photos and do scale, so this is perfect for the short term. Nice to have the chance to try them out. If I knew I'd have no worries getting seeds back, then I might have got some just to have in the kit.

 

[afghan bob]

If they're autos mate, u don't worry about flipping, just keep blasting em on 18/6

 

[Bullfrog]

yah I know that much . thats about it though.

@ED-209 what do you use for your irrigation ? halos ?
im making one right now in prep for my current grow. just trying to get the flow even at each ring. takes a bit of fucking around. I do prefer the simplicity of just growing one plant

 

[ED-209]

If they're autos mate, u don't worry about flipping, just keep blasting em on 18/6

I've got these going on a 20/4 cycle, under 2 SF2000's. Running around 40 DLI. I've seen people ask similar questions and if changing light schedules does anything - seems not, just gotta let them do their thing. Just concerned about their potential size. Most pics I'd seen on autoflower plants, were faily small.

@ED-209 what do you use for your irrigation ? halos ?
im making one right now in prep for my current grow. just trying to get the flow even at each ring. takes a bit of fucking around

I've used halos in the past, but for this grow am trying out the Netafin Netbow dripper instead. They are a lot cheaper, and look to have much more stable and reliable flow rates. They are fixed flow rate - unless you use adapters. Makes setting up the schedule not too bad since I can calc the rates etc.

For my previous setup with the halos, I had taps on each which helped control flow. What I found was that I needed to do pulses of irrigation - so say 2 mins, pause for 2 mins, on again for 2 mins etc, per event. Helped regular infiltration given the more harsh flow of the halos - which I had drilled out a bit since mine weren't great. So you definitely need a timer with a seconds function and can do multiple programs/schedules. I got up to doing 7 events a day, so that was something like 20-30 programs... I dunno maybe there was a better way. Now with the Netbows, I run them for a set time in one go and then off. Simple

 

[med180]

Looking healthy. I'm new to autos myself, mine are in 20l dwc only started slowing stretch and setting flower around 61 days

 

[ED-209]

Looking healthy. I'm new to autos myself, mine are in 20l dwc only started slowing stretch and setting flower around 61 days

Oh gee, that's a long veg. I've normally grown in 3 gallon bags before - so I wonder if the extra root zone means it was happy to veg longer? Same with the DWC, it isn't really restricted in the rootzone. I'm not unhappy about it - should mean a better harvest. I just hadn't expected it.

I was using this Dutch Passion grow diary as a guide - mine were keeping pace, but just kept veging and are much bigger. Oh well, it's a fun project this. Got things set up nicely to be able to monitor and control more than I have previously