First Grow - 5x Girl Scout Cookies Auto.

Cillit_Bang

Well-Known Member
Day 41 update.

Boy am I glad I’ve got that carbon filter! The smell is insane. Very very strong smell of fresh bud. I’m getting citrus smells and fruity smells and strong earthy smells, but also sweet smells... put it like this, they smell delicious! I’m surprised at how strong the smell is this early on. By my calculations I still have several weeks to go, so I’m curious if the smell intensifies in the meantime.

The buds are coming along nicely. Forming nicely. I’m checking daily for any signs of bud rot or anything like that, given how dense the buds look. I appreciate the buds have a long way to go yet, but they’re getting there.

my temps are around 27C. Cannot lower them to save my life. Tried everything now. The windows in the room the tent is in are wide open allowing fresh air into the room, the fans are on full. The light is now at full height meaning the rollers won’t allow me to raise the lights any higher. I can’t lower them. 27-28C is the current temp inside the tent with a RH of 49% - guess I’m learning that this is the down side to having HPS lamps are the amount of heat it kicks out. Feel like I’m out of options with that unless i fork out money on proper air cooling, which to be honest I don’t really want to.

The feed has been standard. I’ve moved off grow now. The plants are having just bloom now. They’ve had about 3ml each this week with about 4 litres of water per plant. Not all in one go; but spread out over a 7 day period. This was after I flushed with water.

There’s not a huge lot else I can do at the minute besides watch and wait. A lot of my focus now is on just nursing it through to the finish line. I’m checking for any signs of bud rot, any signs of pests or any issues with feed/PH.

the 5 GSC plants are all budding beautifully. They’re all well into budding now. They’ve not gained any new height at all in the last 7 days.

The Glue Gelato plant, however, is beyond huge. I’ve got my light at the highest point in the tent, the rollers physically won’t allow me to lift the light anymore than it is. The Glue Gelato plant however is approaching the light and now measures a whopping 122cm tall. it’s slowly starting to bud. This plant has been extremely sensitive to the amount of water it’s been receiving and very sensitive to heat too. That being said it’s grown the best so far. Feel it’s been a little under valued in this journal. It’ll certainly make up a large bulk of my final crop and I’m excited to try it!

I know that these are just autos, a lot of people will argue they’ve grown better plants and I know full well people have.. but I’m proud I’ve grown these myself and got to this point with no issues and for a first time grower I’m happy with this so far. I see a lot of people posting daily with issues they have so I feel blessed that these have got this far problem free and with a healthy looking
inal crop!

anyway, enough mumbling, here’s some pics. I did a naughty pic and took one of the Girl Scout cookies out the tent so you could see it a bit better.

Girl Scout Cookies firstly;
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AND also here is the Glue Gelato plant. Like I said, haven’t focused too much on this but feel it’s the underdog! As you can see it’s only just beginning to bud so is some way behind my GSC!
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Cillit_Bang

Well-Known Member
Quick update. Tent temps are way way too high. Unfortunately this means I’m going to have to make yet more changes to the grow tent.

fans fans fans. It’s all about the fans. I’m not happy with my passive air intake anymore. I feel I could be moving more air into the tent which could reduce temps. I’m trying to source two new oscillating fans for inside the tent, and an intake fan so I can add ducting to it.

until then, I’ll have to keep the flap slightly open to the tent for now. This has cooled it down from 28C down to 27C.

The below pic shows temps currently, 28.2 inside the tent, 24.8 outside the tent and 47% humidity.

since taking this pic and opening the flap it’s gone down to 27.5 c
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Cillit_Bang

Well-Known Member
Plan A. Fan blowing on full speed into air intake duct, second large fan to move hot air around the room, reckon this will lower my temps! Probably not, we will find out.

turns out getting fans are a lot harder than I anticipated, with everything being shut because of corona ive had to improvise. Let’s take a second to appreciate my brilliant DIY work. Ahahaha

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.Smoke

Well-Known Member
I noticed in your first posts you were using a batwing reflector.
Is that still the case?
If so, quit buying fans and get a 6" air cooled reflector for $60 on Amazon.
Your tent temp will instantly drop -10F.
I have 2.6kW of hps in a 4x8 that doesn't get above 78F.
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Your ladies look great
Edit....that's with passive intake btw.
 

Cillit_Bang

Well-Known Member
I noticed in your first posts you were using a batwing reflector.
Is that still the case?
If so, quit buying fans and get a 6" air cooled reflector for $60 on Amazon.
Your tent temp will instantly drop -10F.
I have 2.6kW of hps in a 4x8 that doesn't get above 78F.
View attachment 4525370
Your ladies look great
Edit....that's with passive intake btw.
hey man! Thanks for commenting! I did consider an air cooled reflector and it’s definitely something I’m looking to do in the near future once the lockdown is over and the UK isn’t quarantined because of corona. I’m not working now because I got temporary laid off, so I’m not sacked and I have a job but I can’t go back till it reopens which is an unknown date (there’s currently talks in the media of lifting the lockdown in June), and in the meantime the UK government pay everyone’s wages to the value of 80% so money is tight at the minute!

when I buy one though, I plan to upgrade my lights fully and get a 1000W HPS set up with an air cooled reflector. This is because on my next grow after this I’m upping plants from 6 to 9 as there’s still plenty of space. I also plan to buy a new inlet fan as my makeshift model is ghetto. Do you think I’d need both with a 1000 set up?

would the below set up work do you think?
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Cillit_Bang

Well-Known Member
For reference, my temps have gone slightly lower to 27C which is still 80F. 22.8C is the room temperature outside of the tent. I’m concerned even with a humidity of 44% there’s the potential with that heat for bud rot no?
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.Smoke

Well-Known Member
hey man! Thanks for commenting! I did consider an air cooled reflector and it’s definitely something I’m looking to do in the near future once the lockdown is over and the UK isn’t quarantined because of corona. I’m not working now because I got temporary laid off, so I’m not sacked and I have a job but I can’t go back till it reopens which is an unknown date (there’s currently talks in the media of lifting the lockdown in June), and in the meantime the UK government pay everyone’s wages to the value of 80% so money is tight at the minute!

when I buy one though, I plan to upgrade my lights fully and get a 1000W HPS set up with an air cooled reflector. This is because on my next grow after this I’m upping plants from 6 to 9 as there’s still plenty of space. I also plan to buy a new inlet fan as my makeshift model is ghetto. Do you think I’d need both with a 1000 set up?

would the below set up work do you think?
View attachment 4525413
You shouldn't need a fan for intake even with the 1000w but that depends on the air temp of the room your tent is in.
I'm in a basement so my air temp is 68F constantly.
Dont think you should worry about rot @ 80/43. Just make sure they have good airflow.
 

TheDifferenceX

Well-Known Member
Nice to see those lower temps.

That GSC looks beautiful. That strain is so resilient! Temps, humidity, water, nutes, whatever.. It handles everything like a champ and finishes in 63 days EVERYTIME for me. I love it. You having that increased HPS light, you will reap the benefit with 2-3x more bud than I get.
 

TheDifferenceX

Well-Known Member
With the higher temps, any sativa dominant plant will suffer more than say the GSC will.

That Glue Gelato is definitely leaning towards the Sativa side, hence why it might struggle compared to the others. When my temps were 80+, i could not get a Blue Dream auto to finish good for my life. Seriously, I still never have and I tried 4 times. All 4 finished, but none of it was good and i gave it away to friends.
 

Cillit_Bang

Well-Known Member
With the higher temps, any sativa dominant plant will suffer more than say the GSC will.

That Glue Gelato is definitely leaning towards the Sativa side, hence why it might struggle compared to the others. When my temps were 80+, i could not get a Blue Dream auto to finish good for my life. Seriously, I still never have and I tried 4 times. All 4 finished, but none of it was good and i gave it away to friends.
man, you’ve got no idea just how dense my nugs are already! Another update is due, but I had a feel of the buds growing and they’re absolutely solid. Rock hard. There’s still weeks to go!

the glue gelato your right, it’s very slow. It’s not budding fast at all. I’ve reached a point I need to make an urgent decision, because the GSC plants are weeks away from finishing but the GG plant , it’s honestly growing so slow I don’t know what to do. If I keep it, it could be growing for at least another 6-7 weeks. When my GSC are done I’ve got 9 new seeds waiting to be planted, so I don’t wanna waste time with a plant that’s going to take up room and light in my tent , when I want to put 9 Fast Buds Wedding Cheesecake Autos in the minute the GSC’s are done.

I honestly don’t know what to do!
 

TheDifferenceX

Well-Known Member
Ok, lets look at some information on Glue Gelato.

It's a 60% Indica (GSC is 60% also)
90-120cm height (GSC is 60-100cm)
63-70 days after germination (GSC is 56-63 days)

So it's definitely not a sativa dominant. Just looks like it's a taller plant overall than GSC.
 

TheDifferenceX

Well-Known Member
I've been in this same situation with the Blue Dream auto. My GSC's would finish and i'd still have BD that need 2 more weeks. I would just assume this is going to be the case for you.

You are @ Day 46 today. You've still got 17 days on your GSC girls. A lot can change in 17 days, who knows maybe that Glue Gelato is a real fast finisher. Post some pics of the GG in a week or so and we'll re-evaluate.

Very excited to tag along on this one. Thanks for letting me litter your journal with my posts. lol
 

Cillit_Bang

Well-Known Member
Very excited to tag along on this one. Thanks for letting me litter your journal with my posts. lol
not a problem at all buddy, I made this journal for people to actively post in, and for weeks nobody was haha - I wanted this to showcase just what autos can do.

Back in the day when I was a younger man (nearly 30 now!) I knew some friends who grew one of the first autoflowering plants to come on the market - Lowryder Auto. This was about 2006/2007. I remember my mate getting 8 grams of dried bud off one plant and saying how shit autos were and how he’d never grow them again. I always knew I wanted to grow one day when the time was right. Now we live in a day and age where Autoflowering plants have come so far, I want to reinforce and showcase the fact that autos are not shit and that there are some great options out there for people looking for fast finishing bud.

I will post another pic shortly, I’m about to post a fat update in the next few hours so hold tight there will defo be an update within the next few hours for sure.

I hope you stick around for future grows, as I will be doing more FastBuds grows until I’ve exhausted their entire catalogue. I’ve already brought a pack of 10 Fast buds Wedding Cheesecake, from their new 2020 line up. I got loads of free FastBuds Stardawg Seeds too as freebees (for spending so much money lol) - so they’ll probably go up next after the wedding cheesecake. I’ll probably bore you to death with FastBuds grows ahaha
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Cillit_Bang

Well-Known Member
Big update. Sorry this is long. A day in the life of my plants. Yes, I have burnt them nutrient wise, so if you see burnt tips, a few yellow leaves, this was when I went wayyy to heavy on the nutes. Don’t forget this is my first grow... I never said I was perfect. :bigjoint::eyesmoke:

I had flushed them with pure water, and now today after being flushed for some time, I did a nute feed, at the lowest recommended amount which is 2ml per Ltr. They all had a litre today. Normally I would give them two; but that would mean upping the nutrients, and I didn’t want to do that. I don’t want to cause more nutrient burn to the remaining good leaves. Vast majority are fine, but on one as you’ll see, tips are all toast lol. Oops. Like I said, nobody is perfect. Least of all me.

my own lesson learnt; don’t feed nutrients every feed (which was about every 3-4 days on average.) - next time I grow I plan to alternate between one feed of nutrients,‘one feed of water, then one of nutrients etc.. I’m confident if I do that second time round I shouldn’t cause the same/similar issues. Feedback welcome of course if you have suggestions / counter advice!

Day 45.


starts off with some PH balanced water, measuring 7.2. I then use a syringe which is clearly marked, to add the relevant feed in. I stir, retest the water and see the PH is 6.1 - it could be slightly higher by maybe .2 /.3 but I’m not concerned - according to the chart, 6.1 in soil still takes the recommended nutrients at this PH.
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And then this is where the fun begins. I’ve given all the plants a thorough checking out. I feel they’re coming along nicely. Still a way to go get.

Plant #1 GSC.

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Attachments

Cillit_Bang

Well-Known Member
Still plant #1 GSC
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Plant #2 GSC.

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10 inch cola on the #2 GSC.


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Plant #3 GSC. The smallest of the lot, 17 inches ...but yet has the fattest buds.

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Cillit_Bang

Well-Known Member
Plant #4 GSC. Really weird leaf formation and buds are dense huge giant popcorn looking nugs
- this was the runt which was 36 hours behind the others when I planted them...almost like a twig, yet is full of beautiful fat buds.

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Plant #5 GSC. Again; doing nice.
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