Alpaca Bowl's - DWC - Auto Berry Feminized - 2015

[Alpaca Bowl]

Hey everyone! Just wanted to say that I'm excited to be here and look forward to being part of this great community of people. My wife and I are Marine Corps veterans and this is our first ever attempt at growing medicinal marijuana. So let me get started with the details.

Room Size: I'm growing in a 2'x3'x5' Xen Lux grow tent.
Strain: My beans are from mjseedscanada, Autoflowering Berry Feminized. Indica X Sativa X Ruderalis.
THC: 17.5%
Veg/Flower: Still in veg state, only been above ground about 6 days now.
Climate: Indoor/Outdoor. Growing Indoor.
Soil/Hydro: Deep Water Culture Hydroponics / 20 Gallon Rubbermaid Tub is the main reservoir.
Substrate: Hydroton and Rock wool in 2 - 8" Net Pots
Lighting: 125W CFL 6400k
Room Temp: 72 - 84 degree's Fahrenheit
PH Level: 5.5
Watering: 24 Hrs via Drip line & 2 - 10" Air Stones
Nutrients: General Hydroponics Flora Series Nutes.
Air Flow: Carbon Filter fan combo from Vent Tech. In / Out. 1 Oscillating Clip Fan.

So most of you are probably going to notice that currently only one net pot is being utilized, and the other is covered with a propagator and black plastic. That is because in all of my newbness, my impatience got the best of me and I killed on of my beloved seedlings by constantly bothering it. So with that being said, I only have one Auto Berry Fem in the DWC. The other net pot will be holding the seed that is currently germinating in the propagator. I apologize for the poor quality of some of the images; the water pump and drip lines are not currently shown in any of the pictures. I'll be sure to include it in my next post.

I know that the tub I'm using looks kind of trashy, but I assure you it's brand new, the tape is wrapped all around it to prevent any light from getting to the nutrient solution so I avoid any algae growth.

You'll notice in the last picture that my stem looks brown. I can assure you that it indeed is not brown, but rather purple. When I first noticed this I panicked a little bit. However, thanks to 420Magazine Forums I soon learned that stems that are purple are usually like that because of plant genetics. This being a "berry" origin, I'm certain this is correct.

Please let me know if you have questions or comments.
Again, this is my first grow, so any and all advice is welcome, and compliments too!

Thanks for your time!

-Alpaca Bowl for ya

 

[OlderGrower]

Cool cool, set up looks organized and very clean, always a good start
your baby looks happy and healthy

looks like I am the 1st one here so if you don't mind I will grab a comfy chair over here and enjoy the show

 

[Rifleman]

Move over old man.

 

[Alpaca Bowl]

Thank you for joining us OG!

 

[Alpaca Bowl]

Glad to have you here with us RM!

 

[Alpaca Bowl]

Hey everyone, how are you doing? Hope life is good.

Okay, so I'm not even into this grow very long now and I have a feeling my baby is distressed. Monday I changed the reservoir out and put in a PH'd 5 gallons of water and 1/4 the recommended GH Flora nutes for seedlings, they are still young so I didn't want to over do it. Let's take a look.

DAY 8
PH LEVEL: 6.5 (just put in some PH Down to get her back at 5.5, not sure what happened.)
TEMP: High 91F - Low 70F

This morning I woke up to an unsettling temperature spike. Turns out that I mistakenly unplugged the fans last night. When I opened the tent it was 91 degrees Fahrenheit. I know that these are tough plants, but this young, I just don't think that it's safe. So I got the fans back up and running, it's stabilized at about 75 degrees now.

As you can tell, in comparison from the last pictures, this little girls fan leaves just blew up in two days. Nice! Now the not so nice part; I'm not sure if anyone can notice, or I am just being overly paranoid, but it seemed slightly wilted and droopy this morning. It's not so bad as it was this morning, but even the coloring in the first set of fan leaves has started to fade a bit and becoming a tad bit light green. Is this a side effect to the heat overwhelming it? Is she hungry perhaps?

Here is a closer look. She's had that little tear in the front of her right fan leaf almost since it's grown. Not something I'm too worried about.

Last but not least. Our newest member of the family. Also an Auto Berry Fem, but something clearly went awry when germinating because it came up missing a cotyledon. Seriously, this thing looks like it was born in a bar fight. Should I give up on her or should we see how resilient she is?


I should make note that I don't as of now own a PPM meter. Just the PH meter. I know this is important and do plan on getting one.

Thanks for your time!

-Alpaca Bowl for ya

 

[Amadeus Forzin]

Cummon guys, Make some room for me.

 

[Alpaca Bowl]

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been on in a few days. Right now I go to school full time so the wife and I are pretty busy. So let's take a look at what's going on.

This thing is absolutely blowing up! My wife named her "Woodhouse". I can barely keep count of all of the leaves this thing keeps pushing out. She seems thus far to be very happy. There is one visible root I can see dangling down into the nutes right now, and another thick one popped out of the side of the net pot today. So before too long I'm going to remove to drip feed to that one net pot. As far as my runt goes, we've named it "Brett" (some may or may not get it), she's still pushing out tiny little leaves, so if she's fighting to live I might just see what happens for shits and giggles. Who knows, maybe I'll end up with a little 4" bonsai bud; I've seen it happen to plants that lived longer than they should have.

I seen a spider mite the other day on my girl and I wasn't happy about that at all. I managed to kill it and have been keeping an eye out since then. I haven't seen any signs of them since, however there were a few leaves at the base of the stalk that were a little curled up at their base.

DAY 13
PH LEVEL: 5.9
TEMP: High 86F - Low 68F

 

[Alpaca Bowl]

Hey everyone, I hope you are all enjoying your holiday season heading into this years end.

Not much is new in the world of our Auto Berry. Apart from having more leaves and a thicker stem, everything is cruising along as about as normal. Last night just before I went to the farm to check on her progress and she seemed abnormally droopy. My CFL was maybe only an inch or two from the top of the plant, so I'm figuring maybe it was just a bit too much heat; anyway I raised it about another 5 to 6 inches. This morning she still seemed rather droopy but it was a big improvement over last night.

Recently since I've seen some good looking root growth, I've bumped up the nutes from General Hydroponics to mild vegetative growth. About 1 tsp of each nute (Micro, Flora, Bloom) per gallon.

DAY 18
PH LEVEL: 5.7
TEMP: High 82F - Low 68F

Every new growth seems to be coming out curled up and twisted. I'm a little nervous about it, up until I see them straighten out while maturing. As a newb grower, I can't explain this right now.

Auto Berry Fem is short. Real short. Also it is that it auto flowers within 8 weeks from seeds.

I'm extremely happy about all of this root growth. They look brown in the picture but I assure you they are white.

Thanks for stopping by!

-Alpaca Bowl for ya

 

[Alpaca Bowl]

What is going on everyone! Hope all of you are having a spectacular December month to end the year. So the other day after coming home from school, the wife and I discovered that our house smelled like a plant was growing in every room. So a quick trip to the farm to investigate and I realized that the inline carbon filter fan was for some reason powered down on low (I have fan speed controllers). Before turning the carbon filter back on high, I took a good long look at the inside of the tent and decided that I didn't really like what I was seeing. The top of the tent was over crowded with the ducting, the carbon filter and the light. So I moved the carbon filter and the fan INSIDE of the tent, down in the corner next to the plants. Now that I have all of this room up top, adjusting the positioning and height of the light is a lot easier. Also with the re-positioning of the carbon filter and fan, it's a lot more quiet and the smell is virtually gone.

DAY 26
PH LEVEL: 5.9
TEMP: High 81F - Low 73F

I cant be for sure, but this LOOKS to be the beginning stages of flowering? These little white pistils are popping up all over.

She's getting bushy as ever. Seems like just over the night she rose about 3"

Over all, I say she looks healthy and happy! I'm considering trying the 'topping' method my next go around, just to see if there is a significant difference.

These two rust spots were a lot bigger just a few days ago, but the leaf seems to somehow be regenerating. Didn't think that was possible.

This fan leaf and one other on the plant have these holes in them. Read somewhere on these amazing forums that it's most likely PH fluctuations, which a day ago I had some PH issues.

These roots are white as can be and are just as abundant as ever. It's insane the amount of progress we see in the reservoir day to day.


Thanks for stopping by, and comments and questions are MORE than welcomed!

 

[Rifleman]

You ain't seen nothing yet. she is getting ready to explode in growth. You're doing well.

 

[Alpaca Bowl]

You ain't seen nothing yet. she is getting ready to explode in growth. You're doing well.

I hope so! I keep reading about how short these things are, but I hope the buds are dense. I keep looking back at your grow and comparing the days so I have an idea of what to expect!

 

[Rifleman]

I hope so! I keep reading about how short these things are, but I hope the buds are dense. I keep looking back at your grow and comparing the days so I have an idea of what to expect!

I got lucky and picked some of the larger autos...by accident I assure you.

 

[growchick]

These look like they are getting excellent care and will turnout amazing! They're very pretty. I'm gonna have to watch, too!

 

[growchick]

My shortest one right now is 42" and the tallest is 55". I don't know how everyone else gets these short plants >.>

Some days in the veg phase they put on over 2 inches a day.

 

[Rifleman]

My shortest one right now is 42" and the tallest is 55". I don't know how everyone else gets these short plants >.>

Some days in the veg phase they put on over 2 inches a day.

my big girl is 54", even my little sweet tooth is 30"+. I think Barneys and Royal Queen have the large auto nailed.

 

[Alpaca Bowl]

My shortest one right now is 42" and the tallest is 55". I don't know how everyone else gets these short plants >.>

Some days in the veg phase they put on over 2 inches a day.

First off, thank you very much for joining and welcome!

I read that my Auto Berry is a cross between lowrider strains, so that could possibly be why it is so short. These past few days though its been showing growth!

 

[Alpaca Bowl]

I haven't ordered from either of them, but I'll have to check them out. I spotted some beans online the other day that were Jack Herrer Auto's,mainly sativa and a perfect medium size plant. I really want to try those out next, the wife and I love sativa.

 

[Alpaca Bowl]

Hey everybody, I apologize for not being on top of more routine updates, however the lady and I are in the midst of finals and it has been absolute chaos trying to find time to even get online for any news. That being said, WOW I've got a lot of questions and concerns with the grow. Yesterday upon inspection, the reservoir was down to the 5 gallon mark. The water looked practically clear, so I'm assuming the plants are getting plenty of nutes. I added another 5 gallons of PH'd water and 2 tsp per gallon of FloraMicro, FloraGrow and FloraBloom. Both plants thus far are responding normally. I realize that the one smaller plant shouldn't be on such a heavy nutrient schedule. We're going to chalk that up to a rookie mistake. Any further grows for an area of this size are going to be done one plant per reservoir at a time. Let's take a look.


DAY 37
PH LEVEL: 5.5
TEMP: High 77F - Low 68F

At first glance, we can see that she's absolutely blown up. But the problem is, she's dominating the territory of her counterpart who's been struggling for a while now.

I'm worried that perhaps earlier before she started flowering, that I should have done some defoliating. Being that this this is my first grow though, I figured It would be better for me to go the "all natural" way the first time around.

White pistils and offshoots from just about everywhere I can see on this thing. I suppose that isn't too bad, but I figured this thing would have picked up the pace a bit more than she has considering its said to be an 8 week plant. Am I being impatient and ungrateful?

I broke a branch last night. While being careless and trying to adjust the grow tent, the fan fell and broke limb. A big one at that, and just under where I assume a bud was going to once grow. In a panic I tried duct taping her, but she wouldn't stand. Came and checked on her this morning and she was actually bent and growing back upwards under her own strength. I'll be keeping an eye on this.

Moving on up. Literally, she's 20" tall now, and here I thought ryder strains were low. I knew I should have tried topping her before it got to be this late, because everyday she gains another 2" and soon I won't have much space left. She's actually pushing up the light when I go to the farm to check on her some mornings.

Backside of the tent has crowding issues.

A view of the inside with tent closed.

****************************************************************************************

Death from above. Poor girl can't get a break, and it causes me to grow weary that she may hermy on me. She's super tiny and isn't anything like her big sister at this age. At 23 Days old she's incredibly thin in stature and seems to be pretending to flower.

Sorry for the crappy shots. She lost a main fan leaf and stem during the falling of the fan incident. Again, I'll be keeping tabs on her recovery.

Thanks for stopping by, and comments and questions are MORE than welcomed!

 

[Alpaca Bowl]

Hello 420 Family! I hope everyone is doing just fine tonight. Went down to the farm to do the daily maintenance that these girls require and I noticed something rather fascinating inside of the reservoir, so I took a photo to show all of you. I know it's not really much of an update, but I just needed to poke my head in and follow up on some threads. Let's take a look!

DAY 38
PH LEVEL: 5.5
TEMP: High 78F - Low 68F

At first glance the plants look rather healthy and seem to be responding well to the flowering nutrient schedule.

Look at this massive white root penetrating the side of the net pot! It's thicker than the air lines that are connected to the air-stones! I've never seen anything like this in any forum or any picture of a plants roots at that.

Finally just a nice sexy pic of all the sweet root growth.