1) How should I start the seeds? Germ them and use what lights at the begining?
2) I want to do things the best way that I can, using the best products. What can you all recommend for nuts and nutrient usage.
3) Any other help!!!
Welcome aboard smiley!
Your choice of strains will give you some pretty specific growing requirements. First off, are you using feminized seeds or good ole fashioned it-could-be-a-boy-or-a-girl seeds? Reason I ask is.....those sites are charging a small fortune for the autoflowering seeds these days.
If they are the regular seeds, then you definitely want to get a male and collect some pollen.
Just one decent male can save you a ton on autoflowering seeds if you anticipate growing them again.
1)
Lighting. After reading through a bunch of journals here, I'm sure you're aware that one typically uses a daylight spectrum (defined by it's temp in Kelvin) bulb (Metal Halide, cfls at 6500K, flouros). But autoflowering strains are a bit goofy with this.
They have a very brief vegetative period. Typically 2-3 weeks before you start seeing gender show (the true sign that an auto is going to flower). Given this shorter veg stage, it is perfectly acceptable to begin vegging with the hps you have (especially a 400watter
).
But there are advantages and drawbacks to this:
A) Advantage- You get to use your most powerful light for the veg stage as well increasing your babies growth early on. And using just 1 light all of the time means that you are well set up for a perpetual auto grow as you never have to change the lighting schedule (which will be 18/6 or usually 20/4 for your strains)
D) Disadvantage- Your "autoflowering dwarf" plant won't be too much of a dwarf. That's b/c it will stretch and get rather tall with that light. This makes tight node spacing a bit difficult.
Up to you. There's no wrong answer here.
2) As an experienced auto grower, I would recommend you seriously consider going hydro. DWC-bubbler to be specific. It's simple, it's cheap, it's a ridiculous yielder, and it's a perfect way to maximize the auto strains. Here's a link to a simple DIY bubbler system that I used with great success with autos:
https://www.rollitup.org/do-yourself/97378-diy-3-gallon-rubbermaid-dwc.html
If you're more comfortable with soil, then possibly consider using Coco Coir. It's now available at most hydro shops and easily obtainable online. The reason I am encouraging you to avoid soil with an auto is that your yield and finishing times will both be better in hydro or hydro-like (i.e. Coco) set ups with the auto strains. Taking that and combining it with the possibility that you have all fem'd seeds and you'll really be looking to try and maximize your yield off of the 5 seeds you have.
Now to the
nutes. This really will be a matter of preference. If you go hydro, I personally would recommend the
Fox Farm Trio pack of nutes (cheap but get the Grow Big for Hydro specifically...there are 2 types) and maybe the smallest bottle of
hygrozyme (that stuff is pricey though). And of course, going hydro, you'll need a cheap pH pen (amazon), cheap PPM meter (very important, cheap, amazon), and some pH up/pH down (cheap, amazon). And that's all you'll need for your entire grow (most likely multiple grows as you really won't use much with the autos).
As for feeding. Well, your ppm pen will tell you that. But the general rule of thumb with the autos is nothing for the 1st 2 weeks. They are HIGHLY sensitive to nutes and easy to burn or stunt. You'll want to start off a little under 1/4 the recommended dose of nutes and gradually add more based on the plant's tolerance (which you'll know by whether the ppm in the system is dropping or going up).
3)
Any other help. You know that those plants are going to stink something fierce right?
Make sure you have some sort of odor elimination system in place. They really are pungent.
Understand the major advantages of growing an auto strain:
1) Easy to grow. Very difficult to screw up and kill.
2) You'll barely need to use any nutes to pull off your grow. That's alot of bang for your buck on the nutes if you keep growing autos.
3) Perpetual growth. Here's the biggie. If you are very limited on space and can only have 1 room/grow cab/etc. then autos are the only way you can set up a perpetual grow. Due to the constant lighting cycle that'll never change (NEVER go 12/12 with autos...it's like feeding Gremlins after midnight
), the auto strains can easily be staggered in their growth to get routine harvests (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.). Whereas with other non-autoflowering strains, you do legitimately need 2 seperate compartments to make this happen as one room will need to be in 18/6 and the other will need to be in 12/12. Look into Sea Of Green and you'll see the type of grows that i'm talking about. Won't be an option for ya if you only have the 5 feminized seeds. But if you've got regular seeds on hand and manage to harvest pollen and pollinate one of you're girls, then you'll want to go perpetual thereafter.
If going hydro, go with a shallow rez size. This will help keep the plant on the short size so you don't end up with a 3' "dwarf" plant. I did mine in that exact tote shown in that DIY link I posted and got 3oz off of just 1 LR2 plant under a 150wHPS. Limiting the height really won't limit your yield.
Disadvantages:
1) Autos are never as strong a smoke, yet, as there regular counter parts. the Ruderalis gene (makes the plant autoflowering) decreases the thc content. I'm not saying that they are bad at all. But you'll notice that your Auto AK47/LR2 will not be as strong a smoke as if you just grew AK47.
2) Growing time. Most people think that autos really cut down on the time of a grow. This really isn't that true. Growing a regular strain would involve 4 weeks veg and 8 weeks flower. The auto strains finish in 10 weeks total. While thats a 2 week savings, it's really not that much. Don't listen to the "just 8 weeks" hype. Most of it is inaccurate. Plan on 10 weeks of growing with these babies.
3) Cost per watt per hour. As you grow more and more you'll start to look at the ratio of your yield compared to your electric bill. Given that the autos require 20/4 lighting, it does drastically reduce your "Grams/watt/hour" ratio. In terms of lighting, they are a less efficient grow than a typical grow involving a 12/12 light cycle.
Okay. I think that's all I've got for ya now.
Again, if you're dealing with just 5 feminized auto seeds, then I can't stress enough the importance of going with the hydro set up I described and linked above. It'll be the difference between getting 5oz off of 5 plants or getting 10-15oz off of 5 plants. Seriously.
I included a thread to an Autoflowering Resource Guide that you'll probably find helpful as well.
https://www.rollitup.org/general-marijuana-growing/199319-autoflower-thread-resource-guide-68.html
Best of luck!
-Butters
