I am currently on my third attempt at growing indoors in the humid South. I have been using AK47 autofems and free Do Si Do autofems that I got when I bought the AK47s. I have had a lot of trouble with these plants and I just can’t seem to get my pH and nutes right. I also am getting fungus gnats, which I am trying to fix with neem oil. The plant’s leaves keep dying off to what I think is nutrient lockout do to me doing poorly at ph’ing the water.
Anyways, I am wondering if I have a more difficult strain or do I just suck at this?
I read that autofems can be finicky and didn’t realize before buying these seeds that strain matters a lot for difficulty.
My question is: is there a better strain for noobs that will be more forgiving? I have googled a bunch of sites and there doesn’t seem to be a consensus, so I thought I’d ask here.
Also, is there a good ph meter out there? I bought one off amazon, but it seems like it doesn’t read right. I will put it in my water after adding nutes. It’ll read a ph of 5.8. I’ll wash it off, put it back, no added nutes or anything, and now it says 6.2 or something. Is this normal dilution of the nutes, or is my meter crap?
Ph reading has nothing to do with nutrients, although anything you add will change the ph off the water nutrients too. And the ph of the soil will determin what nutrients can be absorbed…
I have nothing against autos I grow both auto sounds easy but they are not as easy as photo plants if your pen craps out you can recover ,my first grow was white widow fem photo plants the hearty classics but if you don’t get a good ph pen that won’t matter aprera or blue lab also you live in a wet environment so make sure to check all the boxes pertaining to your environment or you could try living soil which has a much wider ph range hope this helps
I think many of us choose autos to start with not knowing if we can provide 12 hrs of absolute darkness.
Not wanting to lose plants to light issues we try autos because the light / dark periods are not as critical.
Once I confirmed that my grow area is dark enough for 12 solid hours I switched to photo period and wont go back. I can fill the tent, 3x3, with a single plant without any problem. The production and final weights are much better. Quality seems about the same but I am a total lightweight and a single gram will last me a couple weeks. Im a one and done guy. The wife consumes a lot so I have to grow at least a half pound each grow cycle. Northern lights is an easy grow and produces well. The autos can be small or huge and you just never know. Photos are pretty much straightforward.
my first grow i went with Autos cause i figured automatic HAS to be easier, right? 10 seeds managed to get one to grow (stopped drowning them… my fault) but, also made mistakes along the way. Since it was an auto, it flowered “on schedule” as a runt and not in good health. having a photo would have perhaps provided more time to allow the plant to recover [from me].
I first purchased a Vivosun pH meter and had a similar experience as you. (it’s on the pile with my $100 million watt blurple light). i purchased an Aspera and have been more than happy with it. actually reads the pH consistantly and when i check the calibration its always spot on.
A familiar tale. My wife easily goes through a zip a week. I don’t at all. I finally got ahead of her and was able to give a couple zips to a son in need.
Same deal with autos. Started with them to avoid light issues and assumed they would be less technical. White widow autos survived my first two grows so their surviving me is as good a recommendation as you can get.
@Spiney_norman I started with mainly Photos. I have grown a few Autos and they can be difficult at times like with brand new FFOF topped with Happy Frog. I just lost two Autos due to the soil still to hot for it.
@aj91330605 White Widow and Northern Lights was pretty forgiving to me…easy as making pie. AK-47 I thought was easy. Autos can be a real pain in the rear. You may like Photos better as you have way better control when its against an Auto. I have smoked so many strains long before I decided to grow my pain medication. So I never started a dossier. But I will be doing that now for references if asked what waa easy to grow and what not.
I hope w.w photis grow better than the autos do. I have 2 going now and they look totally different from eachother in every aspect. Lol. Ones a darker nice green buds stacked beautiful the other is loghter green more spacious and covered in double or more trics than the one thats stacked nice lol. Here is a shot of the 2 same age and all everything done the same in str8 canna coco with jacks and AN sups.
What a difference! I had the same situation come up, I ordered the stater pack from here, WW,AK and BG. In a nutshell, I think the site gets a lot of seeds from different producers.
