AKGramma's Perpetual Grow

[TorturedSoul]

I'd go with a multi-faceted attack. Removal - by hand, by a strong spray of water if feasible, and at least two different commercial mite-killing products (and, of course, the usual several treatments so as to be assured of killing both the ones you see now and the ones that'll be hatching from eggs in the near future).

If the medium allows for it (IOW, not something coarse like 1/2" expanded clay balls), maybe a good layer of diatomaceous earth on top of each and every plant's container to carve those little SoBs up after they hatch and are crawling to the plants, lol.

I hate those critters. And I would NOT assume that they are confined to that particular grow room, either. Treat every plant in your house (or at least add a layer of diatomaceous earth to each one). For that matter, do your carpets too, your yard, whatever you can. And then start hosing yourself off from the waist down before you enter your home (every time) right up until harvest. And I hope you have better luck than I did last time I had an infestation. I think, that particular time, that if I'd have burned the place down... that there'd still have been mites everywhere.

 

[AKgramma]

I do have three types of mite killer, one Safers, which I use on veg, soap and cooking oil mix, and neem oil and dish soap mix. They were so infested, I had to use the neem, as the soap/oil treatment just pisses them off.

And I agree, short of burning the trailer to the ground, they're always going to be around. I even caught the basterds trucking up and down the stems, Like a truckers' convoy! So every one, including the seedlings got soaked down good. I ran my fingers through the leaves, and colas to work the stuff deep inside.

I will definitely be showering long and hot tonight and the clothes go right into the washer. I feel yukky!

 

[AngryBird]

Im glad you caught it and went to war. stick some cinnamon in spray water too that hate that. rosemary and eucalyptus too.

 

[AKgramma]

Im glad you caught it and went to war. stick some cinnamon in spray water too that hate that. rosemary and eucalyptus too.

Does that kill the adults and eggs, or does it just repel them, and they go infest some other part of the house? Not trying to be sarcastic here. I really want to know.

 

[TorturedSoul]

I forgot to mention that they extract pyrethrum (a natural insecticide) from the Dalmatian chrysanthemum (Tanacetum cinerariifolium). IIRC, they pulverize the plant and get the substance from the seed cases (flower heads), but if memory serves (your guess is as good as mine, lol) in less than toxic dosages it still provides a repellent effect, so I would think that just having several of those plants in and around your grow room ought to be helpful.

It's much more common to see synthetic chemicals which are based on pyrethrum these days than the real thing, but it's still an oft used insecticide. It's probably the most effective natural one, is a broad-spectrum product (acts on all insects), is (IIRC) the most commonly used one in certified organic gardens, and is highly unlikely to cause issues with people or other mammals unless they ingest relatively huge amounts of the stuff (or, I suppose, soak for several hours in a bathtub full of it, lol). It is also very biodegradable and decomposes rapidly upon exposure to light (so I would not expect it to be retained on buds even if used late in flower). It's harmful to fish, though (but you probably don't have too many of those in your grow rooms ). The plant itself looks like a daisy (to me).

It's mainly grown in Kenya, but is sold around the world both as plants and seeds. IF you are interested but cannot source it reasonably locally, send me a PM and I'll hook you up with my exotic aromatic / culinary / dye / medicinal / ceremonial / repellent / etc. greenhouse of choice. Just don't tell anyone who mentioned them to you, because they're only about 375 miles from my house and I'm a little paranoid :rolleyes3 .They carry the above, a few related varieties (some of which they use in and around their greenhouse for insect control)... and about 600 other types of plants. For me, going there was like, IDK, going to an amusement park for someone else, I suppose. Lots of fun, spend way too much money, five minutes after you've left you already want to go back. No long lines, though (but no fresh-squeezed lemonade and funnel cakes, either).

 

[AngryBird]

Does that kill the adults and eggs, or does it just repel them, and they go infest some other part of the house? Not trying to be sarcastic here. I really want to know.

It is more of a repellent. Since you have used chemicals. you don't want to move them to your healthy ladies.

Sprinkle cinnamon around healthy plants and they don't go there. Garlic works too
If you add it in spray on the sick plants.. the smell of cinnamon stays even after shower (or just add again)

No offense taken. I know you had a big war on your hands.

 

[AKgramma]

TS, are you talking about Safer's pyrethum mite spray? I bought 6 of those online. I thought I had better stock up, as good miticide is getting harder to find, and not many suppliers ship them to Alaska.

 

[TorturedSoul]

TS, are you talking about Safer's pyrethum mite spray? I bought 6 of those online. I thought I had better stock up, as good miticide is getting harder to find, and not many suppliers ship them to Alaska.

That's the substance that the plants I mentioned contain. I don't remember whether Safer's uses the natural stuff or its synthetic "equivalent." (But I think it uses the natural one.) It has been a while since I used Safer's soap/etc. and I'm not home to see if there's a bottle somewhere to look at.

 

[AKgramma]

Last night I brought out the little bit of pollen I saved from the last 2 BBL males. and with a sable brush, pollinated a few flower clusters on one branch of a lady in her 4th week of flower. I think this one will take, as it's not as far gone as Frilly Lady.

It's 53 days on the first BBL ladies in flower, about 7.5 weeks. Buds are starting to bulk up with visible trics on the sugar leaves. I will let these go to the end of August, which will be close to 10.5 weeks, then I'll evaluate their progress. From what I've been reading we should go about 2 weeks beyond breeders' recommended harvest times, as those are grown under optimal conditions. Nothing optimal about MY grows!

I'm already planning the next phase of my grow, when I open up some room. Hoping to have several jars curing by the end of the year.

Having acquired some fem autos of various strains, I am anxious to start a winter batch and dedicate one of my 3 units to just the autos. Although Sweet Sue recommends 20/4 lighting throughout, I'll need to go 18/6, just to regulate the heat. Gaslight isn't going to mean a thing to Autos, so won't go that route. I think I will put them under the two mars300's with auxiliary CFLs so they get all the lighting they can in their relatively short lifespans.

About all the training I will do is some LST, to preserve the center COLA, but encourage side growth.

From what I read, most growers use 3 gallon pots in a very light soil/perlite for autos, so I will try this. My tall, narrow hempy containers (waste receptacles) will be good for this. It will be all coarse perlite for the first 5" to maintain the reservoir and the light soil mix above, to support the new plants until they hit bottom. The regular 3 gallon pots I have don't allow for a deep taproot, and the waste bins are the best alternative I have.

I am ever vigilant, seeking out new signs of mites. I have plenty of an assortment of mite sprays to use if ANYTHING besides the plants themselves are moving in the units!

 

[AngryBird]

I forgot to mention.. just place a small glass ( shot glass size) with vinegar and a few drops of dish washing liquid in the pot.. mites LOVE going there to feed = DEAD mite.
You can catch some that way while you sleep

 

[AKgramma]

I forgot to mention.. just place a small glass ( shot glass size) with vinegar and a few drops of dish washing liquid in the pot.. mites LOVE going there to feed = DEAD mite.
You can catch some that way while you sleep

We in Alaska do something similar to trap and kill wasps, only on a larger scale. Fill a shallow tray full of water. Drop enough dish soap on the water to form a film. Drop a piece of raw or cooked meat, fish, or crab in the middle, with the meat sticking a bit above the waterline. The wasps will swarm over the meat, get their breathing tubes filled with soap, suffocate and die.

I wasn't aware that adult mites left the plant.

 

[AKgramma]

Since I will pop a few autoseeds sometime in the next 4 months, I have been saving some good articles for how to grow Autos. Here is a short and sweet guide I really like and am going to try in my tall hempy pots.

Sweet Sue: The pic is for you. Note that the auto is only a bit bigger than a cigarette carton!

10 Top Tips for Auto-Flowering Pot Plants
credits: Posted on January 21, 2013 by campo cultivator from 10 Top Tips for Autoflowering Plants & A Higher Yield - GG2C
Edited by AKGramma

The key to getting a successful harvest from autoflowers is SIZE
A true autoflowering strain has a pre programmed lifespan: from the moment the seed cracks to the day she dies the age is indeed pre-destined ... therefore more than any other type of cannabis the vegative growth is critical to the end yield

So here are our 10 top tips for successfully growing autoflowers

1. Size of Pot Even for dwarf autos you need to be using a 3 gallon pot to give the plant enough space to develop a good rootball.
2. A good light mix. A nice light mix such as 50:50 cocoerlite is best as it makes sure you get a good wet-dry cycle.
3. AVOID OVERWATERING AT ALL COSTS
4. Give NO NUTRIENTS AT ALL until the autoflowering cannabis plant has developed 4 nodes. The dose should only be introduced gradually and in increments.
5. Continue vegetative feed until ALL upward growth stops. The auto will have started flowering before this happens (in a 9-10 week auto, you would expect to continue using veg nutes until week 6)
6. Ensure the genetic material (that's technical talk for Cannabis Seeds guys!) that you start off with is of good, well bred and viable stock. Check what other growers are / have been growing and how well the strain did.
7. For maximum grams (oz) / foot, make sure you have 16 dwarf/short autos in a 4 ft x 4 ft (1.2m x 1.2m) area
8. Go easy on the nutes. Generally less is better in most cases.
9. Don't give them too much light to start with. Go for a low watt fixture for seedling growth, increasing the amount of light as the plant develops.
10. Autos don't appreciate being transplanted:

- They just don't have time to recover from transplant shock in their mad dash from seed to harvest. So don't do it! Either sow the auto seed direct into their 3 gallon pot or better still, follow the directions below:

-
1. Cut the bottom off a "party cup" or 7-10cm pot.
2. Place 2″ of damp cocoerlite in the bottom of a 3 gallon pot
3. Fill the larger, 3 gallon pot with coco-perlite (dry)
4. Bury the "party cup" or 7-10cm pot half way down in the 3 gallon pot. Fill this with coco-perlite too.
5. Now plant your germinated seedling into the party cup and water in as usual.
6. When you water your autoflowering seedling (and remember no.3 above!!) make sure you water ONLY in the small pot for the first 10-14 days. This will ensure that the seedling gets the water it requires (and depending on its age, the nutes too).
7. In the meantime the auto's tap root will hunt downwards with accelerated growth hunting out the damp layer of coco-perlite it just knows exists at the bottom of the 3 gallon pot. The tap root sends out a vast network of smaller fine root hairs also looking for this source of water.

Result?
This method of growing autos pushes your autoflowering plant to develop a highly developed root system that will accelerate root growth (and thereby maintain larger plant growth) during the first few weeks of its life. It also avoids transplant shock which, given an auto's automatic race towards harvest, it cannot recover from naturally.

 

[TorturedSoul]

That looks like a good plant - if you want to grow a joint.

I've seen threads where people were complaining that their autos just kept on growing instead of finishing up... and later posts stating that it was because they fed too much nitrogen. Might be something to keep in the back of your mind if you decide that you want one to continue growing. IDK how accurate this is, but it wasn't just in one thread that I saw mention of it.

I have seen that there are some larger ones now. I think one was called Think Different, Think Big, something like that by Dutch Passion. And some where the THC level is decent. Hopefully, there are a few that have both. I'll pay attention when you grow yours, maybe I'll learn something.

 

[AKgramma]

Yes, I saw mention of super autos, which are the big strains bred back with ruderalis. But this little pic off the web reminded me of Big Sue's itsy-bitsy one-cola wonder. LOL!

I was gifted an assortment of fems and auto fems, so, once I have sexed the mystery strains, I will start the autos with the double-pot method I posted in #633. This makes more sense to me than starting them in a cup of soil, then transplanting to the tall 3 gallon hempys. I'm going to add vermiculite to the perlite, and microbes to the first feeding, once the seedlings have their first 4 real leaves.

If this is successful, I will def make the gradual move to 50% fem autos, and 50% fems. I'm SO OVER the sexing thingy!

 

[TorturedSoul]

I was gifted an assortment of fems and auto fems

I wish I could be so lucky. The other day I thought about when it typically starts to become cooler here and decided that - if I could manage to get through the next three to six weeks okay - then might have been a good idea to try germinating (and growing!) again. So I got my "materials" ready... and lost most of mine down the kitchen sink. I came real close to disassembling the drain - with a hammer. But I did not have the time or the money to replace it, and that sink is older - quite a bit older, I think - than I am so I don't even know if its drain setup is of standard "modern" size/etc. I have... I think one Kali Mist and two Jack Herers left but the JHs are "regular" and could both end up being males (especially if I cannot get the heat down from the third to the sixth or so weeks of growth). And I think I have a couple Barney's Farm singles left that I had planned on giving away because {they were freebies and might be old, I do not consider them to be of high quality, I have read and heard many unfavorable reports of Barney's Farm strains in general for a variety of reasons including the dreaded "my female plants kept producing male flowers and seeded all my buds!"), and two people have begged me to give them one or more seeds}. So... That was depressing.

so, once I have sexed the mystery strains

I hope you get all females (unless you are looking for a male or two for breeding purposes).

I will start

If you pre-soak your seeds in some way or other before planting, do NOT try to get that set up whilst standing at your kitchen sink, lol.

microbes to the first feeding

I forget which brand/type of nutrients you are running these days. Are you feeding the plants directly, or feeding your soil and a biosphere within it, which breaks down the nutrients into a different form for your plants?

If this is successful, I will def make the gradual move to 50% fem autos, and 50% fems. I'm SO OVER the sexing thingy!

I don't blame you. I would really prefer all non-feminized seed, but... That would presuppose that I had lots of seeds. Having feminized seeds does make it far more likely (but not a 100% given) that the grower ends up with female plants.

Dutch Passion published an article several years ago about the male:female ratio of non-feminized seeds and ways to encourage more females (or more males). I know at least one person has reposted it here and it is bound to be "all over" the Internet. If you are interested, I can look for it tomorrow evening or the next. It's pretty simple stuff but I cannot remember all of it with 100% accuracy AtM, and it's late and I have to sleep now. Have a good night/morning.

 

[AngryBird]

excellent guide in short and simple words

 

[Tead]

I'm SO OVER the sexing thingy!

Amen! When one considers the time and resources involved, fem'd seeds seem totally worth the minor price difference.

 

[TorturedSoul]

They ought to be cheaper lol.

 

[AKgramma]

Now that my OGKs have been in flower for over a month, and I transplanted 2 of them to hempys with Perlite a week or two before putting them to flower, I now can give you a growth comparison of soil in hempy vs Perlite in hempys.

The two OGKs in Perlite are 14" tall, with small, clawed leaves. The one OGK I left in soil in a hempy (bottom 4" is Perlite) is 24" tall with larger, normal leaves. These are plant-only measurements (excluding the pots). Everything else is the same, their age, their feeding schedule, their lighting, their environment, etc.

Among the BBL's, soil vs perlite/vermiculite mix: The BBL's in my old soil bins are 1/3 taller, fuller, with larger flower clusters and bigger leaves than those in the Perlite/vermiculite hempys. Everything else is equal.

I'm going to be kind and blame the difference in my not being able to get the feeding right with just soil-less mixes. The soil regulates the nutes better. The microbes in soil convert the nutes into a simpler form that the plant can use.

What I am going to try with the next batch of babies and the fem-autos is plant in the tall hempys with the bottom 4" coarse Perlite, topped with Perlite/vermiculite/soil mix. The tall hempys will allow a longer, more spread out root ball, and the addition of some light soil to the upper mix will allow me to add and feed the mycorrhizae bacteria that form a symbiotic union with the roots.

I want to use the tall hempys instead of standard pots because they take up less square footage, and I can get close to twice as many in my spaces. Also, they will be a whole lot lighter weight to move around.

And, no, TS, I DON'T work with seeds (or clones) over the sink. I bring the water and containers to a table, where I can sit down to do the necessary tasks comfortably and safely.

 

[AKgramma]

Today I splurged. I went to Amazon to buy something else and saw that th Mars 300's were still on sale, so I ordered 2 more for my second unit. These will reduce the number of CFLs I need by half, going by true watts from the socket.

The oldest BBLs in flower m(in the perlite hempys) are exactly 8 weeks in flower and are putting out their scent. The buds are starting to firm up, and there are almost no more white pistils. lots of trics on the buds and the leaves that are left. Breeders timetable says 56 - 65 days. So I will give it another week and evaluate. Now that the buds are plumping up, and the pistils are 90% brown, I think we can call it quits next Thursday. That will be 63 days.

They look like the first BBL I harvested, only 2/3 the height and volume. I will not take any buds still putting out pistils, and if there is any promising vegetation left on them (not very likely) I will attempt to reveg them. One strike against revegging these two, is that the 2 containers I used for my first try at Hempys are almost half the size of the tall hempys I use now. I think it will be too damaging to repot them, unless I totally cut away the old jugs.

What do you all think? Tead?