Auto Closet Grow with 315 watt CMH

Day 45. The NLs are coming along nicely. They both have pretty much stopped stretching and are now filled with bud sites. The one to the front of the cabinet is a couple days older and showing it with slightly bigger buds.

The lemon plants are putting on crystals and fattening up. It’s exciting to watch.

I started my last NL seed today. It is in a solo cup filled with 70/30 coco perlite and some worm castings on top. I’m excited to have my grow space full with 6 plants now. Seedsman has been slow with my newest seed order so I am now out of seeds until my newest order arrives. Hopefully it arrives soon. That’s it for today.

Looking great..well done..

Not too much new to report. I am going to give straight water for a couple of feedings, I think I went a little heavy on the cal/mag - I have a few rust spots that aren’t mildew or fungus on a couple leaves on the smaller lemon auto. My cal/mag has iron added so I don’t know if it’s from too much iron, but I’ll just give it a rest for a few days to be safe. I did a little bit of defoliating to get light to more bud sites and I plucked this small lower branch. It was so perfect for a little clone that I had to save it. I have no expectations for it, but we’ll see.
Here is a picture of a lemon auto leaf with rust spots

Here are some pictures of my big lemon auto. We are at day 50.

The rest are pictures of my NL clone, my NL seed that is just breaking through the soil. The last one is my unknown seedling but looking at its leaf structure, I think it’s diesel berry, which is exciting!

Not one necrotic leaf man, you've got this dialed in
I too am tryin to see if I can clone a small branch I took off of my flowering White Crack. Mine's been in straight water though, no action yet

Tiflis said:

Not one necrotic leaf man, you've got this dialed in
I too am tryin to see if I can clone a small branch I took off of my flowering White Crack. Mine's been in straight water though, no action yet

Click to expand...

I’ve never really cloned at all before. I used some of the cheap root hormone powder from Lowe’s. It appears to be working well though.

Warning: Long post

I haven’t posted in almost a week. What a week it’s been. Like the day after I posted last I checked on my plants and they all looked awful, the small lemon auto started having leaves just whither away, it started showing awful nute burn/deficiency issues with blotches everywhere, and the top leaves started folding upward with serrations pointing up. Both of my NLs starting having the same problems but to a lesser extent, and the big lemon auto showed very slight issues, but almost not at all. I realized I was primarily having root issues (the most pressing issue anyway). Since I upgraded my electrical/timer/mounted small fans on the wall, I didn’t keep my eye on how it would affect watering needs. Basically, I lost airflow around the soil and underside of the plants, but had kept watering the same. I corrected this, let them all dry out thoroughly and added my big fan back in to blow at the soil level. Now I’m back to checking the weights of the pots to determine when to water/feed. Now my plants have mostly stabilized, but are still showing some nutrient or light/heat issues I need help solving. Here is a pic of my small lemon auto

many ideas? I have given only water for the last week. It might have gotten some hot cal/mag (maybe didn’t mix well enough)last week, but only water since. The water is ph6.75.
Here are the NLs. Same thing where I got the watering stabilized but still showing some nute issues and leaf issues at the tops of the highest buds.
I know my rh is too low - and I can’t do too much about it for a couple more months. I think this is contributing to the root problems. With the cold snap for the past 3 weeks even with a humidifier I hover at 20%. I’m also short on space to add a bigger humidifier, and with the exhaust fan speed needed to maintain temps and odor control, the small humidifier just doesn’t do the job.
My temporary solution to all of this was to defoliate about 6 inches up the plants allowing better airflow. I did put the big fan back in, I had to remove the NL seedling because there isn’t room for it. I watch the watering levels religiously and keep the humidifier on full blast. My long term solution is I am doubling the size of the space this summer 3.5 x 5 ft instead of the current 3.5 x 2.5 it is now. This will give me the space to comfortably grow 6 plants, plus have a large humidifier with a humidistat to control rh levels. I’m also going to add an led for the expanded space or maybe even replace the cmh entirely with a single led big enough for everything (we’ll see how much the wife is ok with).
So that’s where I’m at. Any advice on the nute/leaf issues would be appreciated. Here is my success after all that failure this week: the big lemon auto is a monster and giving me no problems whatsoever.
And here is the Diesel Berry in a 1 gallon pot, already staked down 3 times. It smells distinctly like berries so I know it’s not NL.
And here is El Chapo. That’s what I named my NL clone, who is no living on her own outside of the humidity dome and starting to grow a bit.

Day 59. The lemon autos have 11 days left and are looking dank. I keep getting whiffs of fruiting lemon trees when I’m working on them. Still showing some rusty spots on the leaves, but oh well, they buds are getting fat and resin is getting cloudy. No nute deficiencies are keeping me from harvesting these ladies In 11 days. Take a look:
The NLs are kind of a mixed bag at this point. One has buds that are getting fat and pistils are about half red, it’s getting sticky with resin, the other has kept up with everything but not fattened up really. It is a week behind the other, but looks almost like a slightly different phenotype.... more sativa, skinnier leaves, long skinny spear buds that look almost whispy.... I though it was maybe took the root issues harder than the others and was maybe a little stunted, but it’s starting to turn red and putting on resin, just no weight.... I don’t know, we’ll see. Take a look. The skinnier buds are up front, fatter ones in the back. You’ll also see the nute or heat issues I don’t really have under control yet. They have only gotten water in the past 10 days and an EWC top dress. The NLs have at least 18 more days, 25 tops. The skinny one maybe 30. Here is the Diesel Berry. I have tied this thing down 6 times. I guess I’m committed to this 1 gallon pot now. Still, it’s looking good.
That’s it for now. Thanks for taking a look and feedback or criticism is always welcome.

The Diesel Berry is looking good after being tied down again yesterday.

Day 62 on the big Lemon Auto. 8 more days. The pic shows a few white pistils at the top of a zoomed in bud, but these are the last of the new ones. They were all red just a couple of days ago, but all the top colas decided they want to reach for pollen one last time I guess.


also took a small tester off the small lemon auto.

Her are the NLs, the first pic is both of them, the second one is the more sativa pheno. Still having nutrient issues, but they’re still doing well.

That’s it for today. Thanks for looking.

One of my seed orders came today! For anyone not familiar with the long story of me trying to get seeds over the past five weeks, basically the mail sucks, customs sucks, and three seed orders later I finally have more seeds. I got a pack of Auto skunk from Fast Buds and a freebie Fast Buds AK from NASC. With the lemon plants coming down in 7 days, I needed to start my next plants like a week ago. Anyway, I have them, and I now have two solo cups filled with Nectar for the Gods #4, one with a skunk and one with an ak. I put them under my ghetto humidity domes and now we wait. Check them out.
I still have a Seedsman order due (along with the replacement seedsman order, both are outstanding), along with an order from dcseedexchange.com. At least I can wait patiently now.

Not too much to update. The AK and the skunk haven’t sprouted yet, I’m expecting them up tomorrow or the next day. The diesel berry got trimmed up a little bit. Its been been growing rapidly.

The lemon autos are almost done. They get chopped on Saturday, I tried the tester bud. It definitely tasted like lemon but needed longer for a more balanced high. It’s not the strongest high ever, but it was a free seed, and it will probably get better as I took the tester 2 weeks before the harvest date. The NLs are also still plodding along. The back plant on the right is at about 50% hairs turned and the buds have swelled quite a bit. I’m thinking 3 more weeks on her which would take her to 12 weeks which was the top end of seedsman’s quoted life cycle. The back left might take a little longer. That one took the worst of the nute damage and watering issues and has developed a bit slower that the other. She also sprouted a week later. We’ll see what happens. I’m excited to harvest an NL because I just got a seed order from DCSeedExchange and I have some blue Hindu auto seeds ready to go.

I just finished building a diy drying box that I think will work pretty well. I can’t dry plants in the regular living areas of my house because of the smell, and the 3 boys I have running around everywhere. It’s legal here but the growing odor makes my wife anxious (although weirdly not the smell from my vaporizer which I use every half hour or so) anyway, happy wife happy life so I needed a solution for drying.
I decided to dry in my attic but the 30-40 f temps were an obstacle. I decided to use the heat put out by my exhaust to warm the box and hopefully keep it around 60 degrees. Here is what I came up with:

You can see that I cut out the bottom of the box on one side to fit over the duct that feeds the filter. I turned the fan down to 50% (lowest setting) to make it so there is no breeze in the box, just lightly warmed air rising and venting out of holes I drilled all around the top half of the box. I can also leave the top partially open to vent more heat, but it seems to stay between 63 and 65 with them closed. It will cool off a bit at lights out, but not too much. The difference between lights on and off in my grow room is only about 10 degrees, so I might drop to the mid 50s for 6 hours per day, but I can deal with that. I’m also going to line underneath the can filter with plastic to make sure no insulation particles from the floor boards make it into my drying box. Anyway - that’s my drying solution.

Last picture before the lemon autos get cut down.

Just finished. I haven’t really handled the buds much until today. I’m not a big bud squeezer when the plants are growing.... I try to pick just one bud to lightly touch to see if they’re hardening up properly, and I only check that same one every time. I’m really impressed with the bud density. These are rock solid. I was planning on switching out my cmh for a bigger led when I enlarge my grow room this spring, but I might just add an led to the enlarged space next to the cmh. Anyway here is the big plant chopped down to branches with only fan leaves and the biggest sugar leaves removed (the small lemon got chopped up last night but I didn’t take a picture)
I’ll post the dry weight in hopefully 10 days or so.

I decided to repot the AK and the skunk seedling today. They sprouted fast in the Nectar for the Gods potting soil but I didn’t see them grow as quick as they should and suspected the solo cups of soil were too wet (they were). This soil mix is coco based and I really suck at starting seeds in coco. I filled my new root warrior pots with FFOF and sprinkled a bunch of my trusty Kelp 4 Less Mycorrhizae in the dug out spot for the root ball and transplanted. One of the seedlings didn’t want to stay up after the transplant so I made it a little helper.

i sprinkled some mycorrhizae around the base of the stems and gave them each maybe 2 oz of water and they are good now.
The Northern Lights are still plodding along. I’d say 2 more weeks on this one (which is 12 total weeks from seed, Seedsman said 11-12)

The other NL needs 3 more weeks. It sprout 5 or 6 days after the other one so this is also rightin line with seedsman’s harvest time. This one has started to turn purple in spots and has an extra funky smell.
I
These plants both have really good looking, sticky buds for how many struggles I have put them through. They were both overwatered, probably got too much cal/mag, and too many bloom nutes as well. Despite all of that, I think I’ll pull 1.5 to 2 ozs from each plant. It’s also kind of cool that I got two different phenos with distinctly different smells.
The diesel berry is doing well. I have to water daily as I’m pretty sure it’s rootbound already, but it’s stayed happy. It’s basically under just 2 30 watt led bulbs right now, I’m curious to see what the yield is from it.
Does anyone have an opinion on Cree Cxb3590 lights? I think I’m leaning toward adding a couple of these totaling 200 added watts when I add more space to my grow room. I like that I have more flexibility where I hang them over a qb style led. Any thoughts?

Harvest update: I dried the lemon autos for 5 days. I did remove some smaller buds at 4 days. Next time I’ll put some more holes in my drying column to defuse the air flow a bit more. That should be enough to slow the drying time a bit further. As it warms up outside the Rh is higher in my house so that should help too. The end result was 51 grams off of the big lemon auto and 14 grams off of the small one. I tested a bud as they went into jars and it was harsh, obviously, but I definitely could taste some lemon and I got high so I’m happy enough. It could be stronger, but it was a free seed. I’ll update again soon when I harvest the first NL (I’m thinking another week).

Look at all this space and light I have now! The 2x4 that the led board is hung from is the old header from my original wall.

This is the last post in this grow journal. My end yield for my first four plants (2 NL auto, 2 lemon auto) is as follows:

51 grams lemon auto 1 (ok quality, lemony)
14 grams lemon auto 2 (ok quality, lemony)
38 grams NL 1 (good quality, tastes like NL should)
52 grams NL 2 (52 grams of purple stinky dankness that is a serious couch lock type of high)

I still have the diesel berry in flower, it is currently 51 days from seed. I should have a new grow journal started by then that I will post the yield in.
After adding the new vipar spectra p2000 led to my room, heat became a problem again. I decided to take the cmh down and replace it with another led. I ordered a Mars hydro 150 watt led. My new setup has a total of 350 watts from the wall over roughly a 3.5 x 3.5 square. I can now run my exhaust on low, humidifier on low, and keep temps right around 80 with 30% humidity. While not perfect, it beats the hell out 85 degrees and 15% humidity. Anyway, thanks for following and leaving feedback, and keep your eye out for my next grow journal.

I haven’t updated this in forever. I’m still using the same two LEDs, but I moved my grow out of the closet and into a 4x2 tent in my basement. I have an additional 2x2 for veg but I haven’t set it up yet. I currently have some old school strains going, 2 Pure Power Plant and 2 Big Buds. Here are a couple pics. These are 2 weeks into flower with 6 weeks veg, happy frog soil, no nutrients. The big buds are shorter so they are propped up on pots, the ppplants are straight sativa in their growth pattern and are much taller. Back left and back middle are PPP, back right and front are big bud.