What’s up dudes, somewhat new to listening but you guys are all awesome. The three of y’all vibe really well together. Now for my question…
I’m in prohibition land so I’m trying to be discrete as possible but I’m working on my first auto grow ever. I’ve seen a lot of guys do different things and they all seem to work but I’m looking for quality and weight. I know that may be asking a lot but, I’m using two older model Mars-hydro 1000 watt LED’s that say they pull 600 actual watts a piece in an 8×4 tent inside a storage shed with a carbon filter and fan.
I’m still trying to decide what soil/medium to use and there’s a lot of people out there to copy off of for the first run but my question is how do I focus on the best yield when building my soil? And could you comment on using compost teas for added nutrients? I already picked up some Recharge but I don’t even know how to use it so if you have some tips that would be killer. Thanks guys, love the show.
Recharge- https://www.dudegrows.com/realgrowers-recharge-cannabis-user-guide/
Soil/tea- https://www.dudegrows.com/dgc-guides/#organic
Start with a recipe to get the nutrient amounts and ratios to grow good plants. Then learn to train, not over-under water, top dressing, and controlling environment.
Coco- https://www.cocoforcannabis.com/
You should really try to learn to grow using photo period plants. They’re much more forgiving of mistakes. You can kill it with autos but make one mistake and you can loose big on yield. Good luck with it.
Hey!! Alright so couple things. I’m assuming you have photo period experience?? If not go photo. But you said first auto run ever not first grow. If your doing autos you should really consider coco. Idk why but for some reason in my experience autos grow much bigger in a Coco Mix then soil. I ran a side by side and the auto in soil grew some tasty buds BUT the plant was nine inches tall and had two sites with two lowers.(10-14 grams) Same exact strain in coco, worm castings, compost and perlite. 38 gram dried total. Same quality as the soil. I don’t think autos quality will ever be affected by the growing medium nearly as much as yield. Honestly stick with photos. I know the allure of autos seems amazing. But someone who is also in a 8×4 shorty tent space is important. My opinion if your looking for a good yielding harvest and a couple of them a year go sea of green. Veg in solo for two weeks the up pot into one gals. Could fit a grip of one gals in a 4×8.(Looks crazy at first but once flowering hits it’s awesome) Keep them single colas. Get two trays flood them once a day. Just my input. I completely scroged out a 4×3 once and the time it took to veg that plant I could have gotten two full term runs in. But back to the ? Def look into amending coco or using mineral based nutrients. I use Mr Bs in veg and, flower and flower finisher from green gro pride lands. Obviously recharge, slf100 some Compost teas and a little langbonite during early flower to help with the flavor. Just my input. Maybe someone else will be able to help. Much love and respect. Enjoy
Compost teas and nutrient teas are two different things. Ones for microbes. The others for well the plants. I do one Solo cup of compost to one and half earthworm castings. Half a cup earthshine from green gro maybe some azomite. I Do one tablespoon of molasses into two gallons of water. Let aerate for a couple. Then take your Ingres put them in a tea bag, old sock, panty hose whatever you got and let it bubble for 18-24 hours.
If you want to try a compost tea, you’ll need a good recipe as JustCoolin said. I find it easiest to use a ‘kit’ from a well known tea company like BoogieBrew.net and some high quality worm castings from them or BuildASoil. My FAVORITE castings – the best I’ve ever bought – come from TXWormRanch.com. They are a fungally dominant casting. If you want to use a compost for your tea, My #1 compost source is SymSoil’s RC compost. You buy it online in smaller batches which means you are always using fresh and viable compost. Their compost is heavily tested in a lab to insure it’s the highest quality possible. I’ve never found a better commercially available compost and the compost you use determines the quality of your brew. Last thing… I recommend you build a “Air Lift” brewer in a 5 gallon bucket! They are more effective than air stone brewers and are far easier to clean. You can build one VERY cheaply. Just search ‘DIY air lift compost tea brewer’s YouTube. You can reach out to me on Instagram if you need help or want some direct links. Happy to help! Compost tea is applied directly to your soil/medium AND can be foliarly applied as well. They each have their own benefits. I do both and I use a Hudson Fogger to apply to the canopy; however, you can also apply with a pump-up sprayer. I use a Chapin pump sprayer (available at BuildASoil) to apply compost teas to my soil and to do ALL my hand watering of soil.
Your medium… You really need to pick that out. I can’t encourage you strongly enough to build your soil from either a BuildASoil kit (I like their 3.0 peat-based kit) or from KIS Organic’s peat-based kit. Your soil mix is EVERYTHING and those 2 systems are about as good as it gets anywhere! You purchase the nutrient and mineral packages from them and, then, purchase most everything locally – like the sphagnum peat moss and aeration. I prefer super high worm castings and compost that I can’t purchase locally (to me) but ordering that does raise the cost of the ‘build’ some – a worthwhile, long-term investment in my opinion! If you’re planning to reuse your soil (as I do), the quality of that initial ‘build’ is crucial to success. Once I tried those soils, after using multiple online ‘recipes,’ my quality and yield was so increased that I never even considered going to any other recipe. They are both water-only mixes, technically, but you can do a little top-dressing just before flower and during flower and you won’t believe your success, barring any other problems. These kit produced “balanced’ soils that are far less likely to have nutrient lockouts than using the online recipes. The peace of mind they will give you are WORTH any slight additional cost.If you use one of these kits and some of BuildASoil’s top dress kit along with Recharge you don’t really need anything else. The compost tea is optional BUT I have had better yield and quality with it. Don’t forget a good mycorrhizal product – I use DynoMyco; it has the most propagules of the strain we want with cannabis and their proprietary distribution system they use is MUCH better than any other company I’ve found. Again, it’s not the cheapest product out their but the better quality you use, the better results you get, generally. I’ve spent thousands and thousands of dollars experimenting with all sorts of soil recipes, including lab soil tests over the years and these suggestions are based on that. I’m hoping to prevent you (and others) from making the same mistakes and jump right to what not only works, but works INCREDIBLY well. It’s not hard to grow a plant full cycle. What’s hard is bringing that plant to its full potential! There are a lot of things(like genetics, environment, IPM practices, etc) that go into achieving that goal, but having an IDEAL soil is a huge hump to get over. KIS Organics and BuildASoil provide a really affordable way to get there ‘from the jump.’
TIP: If you’re going to be growing in a no-till/organic/living/water-only type of soil, using biology to feed your plants you really want to maintain your soil at a constant moisture level (that’s sufficiently moist to support the biology BUT dry/aerated enough for air/gas exchange to occur. For optimal results you do NOT want to swing from wet to dry! This is why I’ve gone mostly to Blumats for an automated system that maintains that perfect moisture level. This may be to expensive for you right now but one thing you might want to consider is getting at least one moisture meter from Blumats. Their moisture meter uses the unique Blumat ceramic moisture control tip and a digital meter that provide you with consistent readings. To start with, I put one meter in one of my pots and used it to help me figure out when to water and when I had added enough water; and then I applied that to the other pots. It’s not perfect but it did help. It’s better to water a little every day (or even a little bit several times a day) than watering more heavily every few days. This sure isn’t ‘convenient’ but its better for your soil and your plants, IF your can make the time! One or two cycles like that and you’ll be looking at some sort of auto-watering system like Blumats! LOL!
As others have asked: Are you a NEW grower wanting to start our with autoflowers or are you an experienced photo grower that’s wanting to try your hand at autoflowers for the first time?
Hope this helps ya!
@DTOM420
Nutrient recommendations: http://www.dudegrows.com/nutrientsystems
Starter Guide with lots of tips: https://growerslove.com/pages/welcome-new-growers