Red Dwarf Auto - 400 CMH

[nibec]

Hey guys! well, im back. After a long break, i decided i needed a hobby once again.

I have decided to try for a perpetual 1 month harvest using feminized autoflowers. reason being, is i dont have much time between work and play to do this, but i miss the hobby dearly!

The plan:

400 watt CMH.
3 gallon pots
Buddah's Fem Red Dwarf auto flowers
Soil. sunshine#4 with added perlite, and dolomite lime.

going to grow out 2 at a time, with a 4 week offset, for a total of 1 plant harvest per month (give or take obviously)

SO,

AUG 2nd - she breaks the surface

AUG 8th - 6 days old

AUG 15th tomorrow is her 2 week mark

as you can see im getting a bit of cupping, shes about 8" from the light, and i noticed shes getting a little warm. I readjusted my fan just after that shot, so hopefully within the next day or two we will see her flatten out. If not, i may need to raise my humidity up a little.

Other than that, i'd say shes looking great. Her first pistils shot today, and she stinks to high heaven already

any questions fire away. im not really a soil guy, i used to pride myself on hydro, but, like i said previously... im following KISS pretty closely at least until winter time.

nutes will be starting in the next week... i havent seen any yellowing yet.

PS, QUESTION! any auto growers out there? do i simply start with flower nutes? maybe a little heavy on the micro at first? this is my first auto experience, and thats what i figure ill do. but any suggestions are welcome!


(also, the walls will be white soon, just waiting to pickup my panda plastic )

 

[KingJohnC]

subscribed

 

[nibec]

Just like to add that i will be going CMH the whole way through for 5 seeds. after that, im thinking of firing up a second light, and going MH veg, HPS flower. i want to see the difference first hand, but i want a decent control group of 5 on the CMH before i do that.

 

[nibec]

ill do pic updates once a week to avoid too many pictures of the same thing thing over and over

anyways. shes on node 6 now (was node 4 in the last photo) and with the new fan position, shes acutally closer tot he light without cupping. only 5.5" away now from bare bulb

these CMH bulbs burn really cool compared to HPS thats for sure. i can hold my hand 3" under it and it only feels like a beam of light coming in a window. pretty cool.

still havent started feeding yet, which feels very weird to me, being a hydro guy and all. but her leaves are nice and dark, and cotyledons are still green.

i have some old GH nutrients that i have to use up, so ill start her on that, 1/4 strength soon, with molasses.

first feed ill just go 2-2-2, and after 1-1-2 until finish. unless anyone has any reasons i shouldnt.

 

[KingJohnC]

make sure you shake your nutrients every time before you use them, also always start with adding the Flora Micro, Flora Bloom then Flora Gro in that order.

 

[stealthgrow]

Sub'd.
Looking good Nibec.

 

[nibec]

make sure you shake your nutrients every time before you use them, also always start with adding the Flora Micro, Flora Bloom then Flora Gro in that order.

You betcha. Iv gone through my fair share of bottles of nutrients

Anyways. Changing it up. I'm going to try supernaturals bloom and ultimatethrive products instead of the gh.

Was going to go gh due to the fact iv had 1/4 full bottles laying under my sink for 5 years. But..
I think I'm just going to toss them instead.

 

[nibec]

well, made an idiot of a mistake.

while readjusting my light today i had a momentary lapse where i dropped the hood... bare bulb landing on her.

not sure how bad it is yet... i knocked a fan leaf off, and i wont be able to tell for a day or so if the bulb acutally landed on her, or if it just missed her. but we shall see... sad times.

hopefully if it did hit her it only hit a very minimal spot.

 

[nibec]

Well yesterday after it happened, for about 4 hours, she was very stressed. all sad and droopy.

today shes standing right up, and only slight burn on 2 fan leaves.. if i were to total it all up, only the size of a dime.

so good news... i didnt hurt her too bad.

looks happy again pic updates in 2 days

 

[nibec]

Well, there she is, 3 weeks to date (....tomorrow ), quite a bit of growth VS last week.

i know she looks a little funny, but overnight, and this morning i didnt get to check on her, and she reached up to the light again. went from 7 inches away to 3, so she got a little warm again.

these autos apparently have some vigor to their step.

anyways, shes getting fed now. i decided to try out "supernatural"'s line of bloom food.

i count 14 tops (doing a little lst to try and keep an even canopy to get the most from my 400 watt.)

sorry its kind of a crappy picture, they'll get better once it starts budding... these "veg" pics are mostly for my own reference and progress once i get some frosty goodness, ill slow down and get good captures and move her away from the CMH, and get rid of those lines

and yes i know i havent put up my white panda film yet... shame on me.

next week ill be dropping another bean into its home, so i can have my 1 month perpetual harvest

 

[nibec]

Figured i would toss a couple more pictures...

after these, i tied her main branch down to the same level as the rest again. normally i just tuck the tall ones down a couple times a day, which i find a lot of the time is enough to shoot up the side branches. but, now she pops the branch up on her own within an hour, so i decided to finally just tie it .

shes looking decent today, so i decided to retake a couple photos.

what i woke up to this morning

Taken away from her CMH

buds are starting to pop up and grow now, not just little tuff of hair. they grow up so fast those 2 pictures are 3 weeks 1 day from breaking surface.

currently a foot tall (after tying down the main tip)

next one i do is going to be in a 5 gallon i think, didnt expect her to get this big. and at this point im pretty sure its going to affect her final yield being in that 3 gallon (which only actually holds 2.1 gallons as i measured... still marketed at 3.... i hate that)

 

[nibec]

also, id just like to comment on how easy supernaturals line of products is so far.

im currently using ultimate thrive(similar to superthrive,$15 for half a liter) and bloom terra (28$ for 14 ounces, comes in powder, everything blended into one, no mixing)

i have used advanced nutrients, general hydroponics, botanicare, and canna, and so far... this stuff is performing just as beautifully, but stupid simple.

literally just add a teaspoon of the powder into a gallon of water, rases the PPM to about 400, (easy math if you want to go higher or lower) give it a little stir, and your ready to pour it in. (there is terra, for dirt, and aqua for hydro... assuming you use RO water, it auto ph's it for you too)

im tempted to purchase the "bud blaster" product from them too. just for that last 3 week bump of flowering

iv never had a product be so simple to use, and not see any signs of deficencies. normally with all other brands i'v used, i have also had to add cal mag. although, that might have something to do with the dolomite lime i added to my soil.

anyways, so far i recommend it.

this being the first time start to finish with a CMH bulb, and new nutes, i cant really comment on how much better either is than what i'v used before, but this combo of light/nutes so far has been quite impressive. leaves are beautiful lush green,
no odd imbalances of nutes or stress showing,
everyday she shoots up more and more...
recvoered from the stress i gave her via dropping my hot CMH bare bulb on her when she was 2.5 weeks old within a mater of 6 hours (burnt some leaves from that, and knocked one off,but i cant even find them now)
stems are nice and flexible, i can literally bend her main tip to the dirt(well... not quite, but to the level of the dirt), and see no creasing or signs of wanting to snap. (most plants i have, if i try that would feel like they are going to snap before i made it half way, cell structure on her is phenomenal)

 

[nibec]

sorry for the late reply! got to be way to busy to do an update.

here is her a day into week 4

ill snap some nicer photos tomorrow, in a rush today. shes just starting to get some frost

ill probably end up evening out the canopy more tomorrow as well. get that light a little closer to some lower ones

 

[rdooski3]

Subbed! Nice looking auto!

 

[stealthgrow]

looking good nibec.

 

[nibec]

i know i keep saying ill get better photos... but not happening. im just too busy... i hardly have enough time to water the damn thing!

anyways. here is the week 5 picture. HOPEFULLY ill have time to snap some nice ones this weekend.. i only have to work 20 hours this weekend i think... so maybe.

i have held off on planting my next one so far. i wont be going perpetual as of right now.

im thinking of trying a 5 gallon scrog for my next one. get the most i can out of that 400 CMH. so far im loving what that light is doing. she looks way healthier than any HPS or CFL plant iv grown.

anyone want to play a game? guess the final weight? closest one gets... the satisfaction of being closest? haha to put that plant into perspective. its currently 2'2" tall and 2' diameter

 

[nibec]

day 44. i think she may be a 56-60 day pheno. ill go grab some batteries for my scope, but shes looking like shes about to swell and call it quits.

lots of red hairs. but still a ton of white. oh well, the scope will confirm whats going on

 

[KingJohnC]

from your photographs your plant appears to be putting on some weight.

 

[Crazycarl]

Subbing looks good

 

[nibec]

from your photographs your plant appears to be putting on some weight.

yeah, but i heard the camera adds a few pounds

next one im thinking either 2 plant (trainwreck) scrog, or another red dwarf auto. but i also have some bag seeds that i would love to grow out. as well as kalashnikova, exodus cheese and blue dream.

definately set up the space properly next time. film the walls and such.

i ended up having to hook up my scrubber for this one. didnt expect her to get so big, and stinky. i always pictured autos to be little compact single cola plants. but she proved me wrong! haha.

i actually really enjoyed growing this auto. while it may not be worth it time vs weight ratio wise. it was definitely interesting.