Fixing to Grow 60 Day Wonder White Dwarf Auto and Auto Fuel

The two in the fron are Greenomatics. They were LST'ed a couple of days ago otherwise they would be 18" tall. Back left is the White Dwarf which for a long time was the runt but is now almost exploding. Back right is the the auto oil with the long bladed 7 point leaves.

For scale, the pots are 3 gal & 9.5" wide.

The second shows a small cola on a Greenomatic. The girls are making buds!!! I am switching these to full flower nutes soon.

The oil & white dwarf at the back are both showing sex and growing fast. My guess is that they will start to bud in another week.

In any case, I am switching to the HPS light.

Looking really good, keep up the good work!

ArseNick said:

Looking really good, keep up the good work!

Click to expand...

Thanks Nick!

It is now about six weeks since germination.

Switched to HPS today. The G'matics are on flower nutes now. The other two still on veg nutes.

I LST'ed the oil and the w. dwarf. They look like shit at first. Like they've been flattened in a hail storm. But they recover quick enough. I am trying not to shock or stress the plants if possible. My understanding is that every time the plant has to repair itself, you simply lose yield because they are on a fixed schedule.

The G'matics are showing trichs even at on the base of the small leaves. I will try to take a picture through my microscope soon.

My guess is that it will be two or three weeks before I start to think about harvesting the G'matics. If that works out it will be 8-9 weeks from seed to harvest! The autos and the WD will be at least 2 weeks behind is my guess.

I took the UVB cfl out of the lamp hood and mounted it in a clamp light. I have two 26W Repti-glo 10.0. Putting the UVB lamp in the hood was fucking stupid. In fact it's fucking embarrassing. I have two decades of professional experience measuring light and I forgot that most glass will just stop UV. ???

I put on a top dressing of Super soil since the soil level in the pots had sunk down.

I added 1 tsp of azomite to all the plants about 10days ago and since then things have been taking off! I can't be sure whether this is the magic pixie dust or just the plant's own schedule. It seems that the autos grow slow until they start showing sex and then they really take off.

good stuff man, those auto-flowers are something else....8-9 weeks seed to harvest....wow. they aren't my cup of tea though. supersoil? do you use subcool's recipie? or make your own? what do you use as your base soil?

@Jesus

Yeah the autos are interesting. I chose them because I wanted something soon as possible. I'm very interested to test the quality of the smoke when they do finish. My feeling is that they are still not as good as photoperiods but they are improving and in a few years autos might be the big thing.

I am germinating seeds for the next grow. I have Dr Greenthumb's C99 and a bunch of old seeds which are struggling to germinate. These are all photos and I will veg them with the autos in their last weeks of flowering. This is another cool thing about autos, you can run them in parallel with photos and it doesnt matter what state the photos are in.

I mixed up a batch of SS for this next grow. I used Subcool's 2011 recipe with Fox Farm OF and Black Gold Seedling Mix. The Seedling Mix is in place of FF Light Warrior which I can't find locally. It's only been 'cooking' for about 10 days but I figured as a top dressing it would be fine.

It's a shame about my old seeds. I had some nice stuff. Dr GT's Big Laughing & Endless Sky and Blueberry from Mary Jane's Garden (I think). I bought these during my last grow, about 5yrs ago and never got around to starting them. Thing is, almost every seed germinated and I was very hopeful but once cracked, the seedlings have a lot of trouble growing the tap root and most have died. So far not a single one shows its tap root at the bottom of a 1" rockwool cube. I started to wonder if I had forgotten how to germinate seeds and was getting discouraged, but the new c99's were planted 3 days ago and the little guys are standing up nicely and the tap roots are just coming out of the bottom of the rockwool. They go into starter pots today. So I think it's an 'old seed issue'. Even if they germinate you are not out of the woods.

The numbers get a bit tricky with a small closet grow. I have room for up to 9 3gal pots. With regular seeds, you plant double the number of seeds and hope for 50% fems but it's a crap shoot. I could start 18 seeds and end up with 5 girls or 18 girls. With old seeds things are even more uncertain. If I plant 40 seeds hoping half will survive, I could end up with 4 girls or 40! If you are growing hundreds of plants then the statistics help you and you are much more likely to come out close to the ave fem/male rate of 50%. With small numbers it's hard to predict. So I may have to start more seeds a week or two later, or double up two to a pot if I get too lucky.

I plan to make this op into a staggered grow - perpetual harvest every 3 weeks. I think that will give me more flexibility since I will always have enough in veg to keep the flowering closet full.

Pick'n Mix Madness:

Went a bit bonkers: https://www.rollitup.org/seed-strain-reviews/450350-picknmix-sannies-attitude.html#post6011970

The two c99 fems are in 3" pots with 50% OF FF/ Pearlite. I like to use a very light mix for the first potting. They are moving right along. The first set of true leaves were just visible as dots yesterday and are now spreading. This is completely different from the old seeds that I germinated where the seedling just sits there for a week with its cotyledons folded and then dies.

My closet can hold 9 3 gal pots (perhaps 12 if I really push it). As I mentioned above, I intend to make it into a staggered grow with 3 or 4 different strains going at that same time. I expect I will continue to grow some autos every now and then. It's an option that adds a lot of flexibility to small op like mine. If ever there is an empty spot in my grow op, I can throw in an auto without having to synchronize flowering schedules.

Question: It's now past the 6 week mark. The Greenomatics are flowering furiously and look to finish in a couple , three weeks. But the Oil & White Dwarf are still showing only single flowers at the nodes. I'm beginning to wonder of they need 36hrs of dark to trigger flowering. If I do that will it fuck up the Gmatics?. After a very slow start, they are both growing rapidly, which I hope is the preflower stretch but if they keep building green stuff they are going to be out of root space by the time they really start budding.

I can just let them ride it out and transplant to 5gal containers if need be. I will get something from the Gmatics soon and I have found some reliable MOMs to keep us going till the harvests take over.

Dunno. I'd appreciate any thoughts.

wow man you have got yourself awfully busy over the past couple months. i have the same problem when im sprouting seeds, old ones are never as viable as fresh seeds, depending on how well stored they are. What usually ends up happening to me is i sprout too many and run out of space for them....my last sprouting endeavor was like 14 females out of 18 seeds. That is conveinent running the auto flowers alongside your photoperiods....this could hep you make up for a shortage of females from your germinating seeds if that turns out to be the case.

i always germ in a paper towel before planting it...once my taproot pops and is maybe 1-2 inch i plant it directly in pro-mix in a small dixie cup, then let it grow out in there before transplanting. the only thing i have ever use the rockwool cubes for is cloning...and that was only kuz i had more clones than open spots in my bubble cloner so i just dipped the cutting and used these rockwool A O.K. starter cubes to root clones in- i just didnt want them to go to waste. maybe wouldnt hurt to try a diff germ method for your older less viable seed?

I cant speak from experience with the auto flowers but i dont think your plants are gonna out grow the 3 gal pots, you might just have to water more often towards the end...i always try to avoid transplanting during flower.

@jesus:

Thanks for your comments. Yeah drop in an auto when I have to pull too many males, just what I was thinking.

Germination:

There's so much conflicting lore on this subject.

Start on paper towel/ rockwool / directly in soil
Plant when tap root is just showing/ 1/4"/ 1-2"
Pointy end up/down/sideways
Presoak for 24 hrs/only for old seeds/never
Use distilled water/ do that and sterilize everything too/ meh who cares?
no nutes/ drop of nutes/ superthrive/rooting hormone
Cover sprouts/ only till real leaves appear/never
Heating mat/ dont bother

Confusing. I always did ok till I started messing with these old seeds.

LSTed the white dwarf this morning. I'll post pix when she straightens up in a day or so. This plant is stretching and putting out green like crazy. For weeks she was the runt. Less than half the size of the GMatics, now she is almost as big! I think I will switch her to flower nutes and see if that triggers her into making buds.

I also updated the LST on the GMatics. They are on full flower nutes and the colas are starting to fill in. I have a couple three colas that are not covered with but and no stem difficult. Also I got a bit of sticky finger from handling her.

The C99 seedlings are growing their first set of leaves very nicely.

I threw a pack of Old Nirvan Ice seeds into water to see what I get. I decided to go try and germ all my old seeds. It's either that or throw them out and waiting isn't going to improve them. I've had decent success with popping and showing a tap root but once they go into the rockwool cube they die. The problem seems to be root development. I am thinking of trying to set up a mini bubbler to develop the roots as soon as they pop. It's going to be fiddly. I have fat fingers and poor vision

I thought this is interesting. One of the few surviving seedlings has been sitting in a rockwool cube with her cotyledons still folded and no movement at all. No tap root showing out the bottom. Last night I put a pinch of mycorrhizae (AN Piranha) on her before sprinkling her with water and this morning her leaves are straightened and standing up!

Four Girls In The Closet


The two G'matics



Some Colas forming on the G'matics



White Dwarf (Just been LST'ed)



Olive Oil (auto oil)


Yellow Spots on Olive Oil


The girls are under the HPS lamp and full veg nutes. The G'matics are moving right along and filling in their colas

The White Dwarf looks like shes starting to bud. There are now multiple flowers forming at the nodes. Could be the change in nutes, could be she is just doing what she does when she damn pleases.

Olive Oil just keeps growing green. I have her LST'ed otherwise she would be shaped like a christmas tree. Her leaves are really dense. In fact this is starting to cause a moisture problem which I will explain below. I'm getting a little frustrated. Sometimes I tell her

"You think I bought all this fancy soil and nutes and stuck you under this expensive light so that I could have salad??? Where are my buds??? Put out out you bitch!"

I think I might put her in 48 hours dark to see if that triggers flowering. At this rate she is going to need a 5gal pot when she does go into flower and starts stretching. If this is a sativa phenom, she is going to take up most of my closet.

The last pic shows yellow spots on some of the leaves on one side of the plant. There were a few of these, (I have a few similar spots on the otheres from water drops causing burns on the leaves) but when I LSTed her and bent her over I found a whole rash.

I spent hours looking up pests, fungi & nute deficiencies. I looked at the leaves very carefuly under the microscope. I am convinced this is water burn even though I know I never splashed those leaves. Her foliage is so dense that when I move the leaves I find the under leaves are wet from transpiration! I'll move a fan next to her and keep an eye on it to see if it spreads.

The c99 are doing good. One shows the second set of leaves. Both are under the HPS but further away. It looks there are two different phenoms.

Ok White Dwarf is def flowering. Olive Oil looks like she is starting. That's good news. Why they are both almost a month behind schedule I don't know. I am inclined to think the bloom nutes helped trigger the budding. They both started budding shortly after I started bloom nutes. Should have tried that earlier. Usually I stick with veg nutes through the stretch and wait for the buds to start before switch to bloom nutes. A good trick to have up one's sleeve.

The colas on the GMatics are filling in and are covered with trichs. I see a couple of amber hairs here and there. The trichs are all clear. I will look at them under the microscope in a few days. I'm guessing a week. I usualy harvest a few colas at a time so that I get each one as I like them - milky and hardly any amber. These plants really eat up the nutes. I've gone over 100% of the Flora Nova schedule and they are showing no distress. Just moving along.

After a poor start - only 4 out of seven plants made it through germination and early seedling stages and then two of the plants grew very slowly, this is turning out better than I expected. I'm not going to break any yield records with this one but I will get plenty to smoke before the next harvest is ready.

The C99s are doing great. I've started them on light nutes.

Olive oil spent 48hours in a dark closet (bad girl!). Now she looks like she really is budding. So far, I am unimpressed with this strain - Oil from AutoFem. Two of the seedlings pretty much commited suicide shortly after germination and this survivor wouldn't flower w/o a dark period. My final decision will be after she harvests (if that ever happens) but even if she is amazing I doubt I will buy Autofem's gear again. Running a small grow with only 2 or 3 plants from each strain means I need uniformity. I still have 7 seeds from this pack so I will grow those, sometime.

I also have a pack of auto Syrup which I never grew. I am setting up a staggered grow with a harvest every 3 weeks. Autos will be very handy to fill in the odd gaps that occur.

Gmatic #1 gets the chop in less than a week which means seed to harvest in approx 60days! I find that fucking amazing. #2 perhaps a week after that.

@TrifelinJ: Thanks.

I will update pix soon

Well I keep saying 'another week for Gmatic #1" and it's always another week. Her buds are swollen and her leaves yellowing but she still puts out bursts of new buds. I am going to have to cut something soon. Can't stand it anymore. I am hoping for at least 2 oz perhaps 3 from this girl.




This is her little sister who is a couple of weeks behind. She is doing nicely but her yield looks to be about half of that of big sister. I am a little concerned about the yellowing leaves. It seems a bit early. I am hoping her autoflower clock isn't going to run out before she has a chance to finish properly





This is White Dwarf. She is now serious about budding. Throughout veg this was the run of the litter but now she is the largest of the four.







This is Olive Oil, affectionately known as "The Bitch that won't put out!". I keep thinking she is going to flower and the tips keep putting out new green. She is un believably dense with leaves. She is like a pile of leaves I dont understand how her underleaves get enough light to stay green.

Anyway if she doesn't get her act together I am going to treat her like a photoperiod. I will do some serious pruning to open her up and put her on 12/12 as soon as the White Dwarf finishes and I put the photo period plants in the grow room.



I have set up a shelf in another closet as a veg closet with CFLs. My plan is to have a staggered grow with a two plant harvest about every month. It's already a real pleasure not to have to mess with seedlings and small plants in the main grow room.

On the left are two fem c99s from Dr Greenthumb. They have stretchy stem problems. I plan to transplant them and bury the stems. On the right is a Dr Gt Endless Sky an old seed which I brought back from the grave, and a Nirvan Ice. These are not fems so I might have two boys.

i love ur closet set up, looks great. subb'd

please keep us posted love this grow!

@philosophist and phatbuds: Thank you for your kind comments and your company.


Olive Oil is definitely starting to bud. I have no idea what took her so long. Bitch!

White Dwarf is in full budding mode and starting to fill in colas. She is now a bigger plant than any of her closet mates. I expect a larger yield from her than either of the Gmatics.

I will post some more pix soon.


I just recieved some Air Pots


http://www.airpotgarden.com/store/index.php?app=gbu0&ns=display&ref=greenhouse
http://www.airpotgarden.com/store/index.php?app=gbu0&ns=display&ref=airpotworks

The latest thing in container growing. We've been growing in soil and pots since the birth of civilization with notable success but we can't leave it alone, can we? Gotta mess with it. These pots are said to equal hydro in growth rates and yields. One thing I know for sure is that they are the ugliest things I have seen in a long time, perhaps ever. They look like some kind of torture device. If the Head Gardener for the Spanish Inquisition were to design a plant container, this would be it.

The idea is that the holes both aerate the soil and prune the roots. In regular containters, when the roots hit the sides they start circling in search of more soil which is wasted growth. In an airpot, the roots are guided by the little cones out to the holes. Contact with the air has a pruning effect on the root and it stops growing. Growth is then diverted to the root mass inside the pot giving a denser more efficient rootball.

I'm a bit skeptical. I've seen too many fads based on ideas that made sense but in practice don't amount to much. Still people are reporting major improvements in growth rates. Anyway, I'm human. If it works, I have to mess with it. They are not terribly expensive. So I am going to try them out on my c99s which are in seedling pots

from where can i buy seeds 60 day?

Doring, I dunno. As you know I was originaly planning to grow 60 DW but the seedbank I ordered from were out. Since then I've seen it on other seedbanks but I dont know if they actually have them in stock. These things come and go.

Last time I estimated their age I got the math wrong. I was stoned. So sue me. I believe these were planted on 6/17/11 and this is 8/16/11.

The two greenomatics have been finishing. Pistils are turning brown and leaves are rapidly turning yellow. I may not have given them enough nitrogen but too late now.

Test smoke today, clipped one bud cluster about the size of my fingernail, dried it in the oven (not the best way) and smoked it in bong. I wasn't expecting great dope. Autos have a so so rep.

Anyway, no harshness (green dope!). Not much flavor. Delicious indica body high. Your body feels like its filled with a warm glow and your senses are enhanced. Absolutely not couch lock! It feels wonderful to move. Potent. Not knock you flat with one hit potent but a strong high that lasts several hours. Reminds me of some Mango I smoked recently.

That was fucking amazing. I found myself wishing I had more to smoke right then. If it gets no better than this after curing, I'm growing her again!

So, final judgement after curing but it really looks as if this auto will deliver great dope 60 days after planting a seed!