I hope posting this Grow Support Ticket isn’t premature and apologies if so. This will be my 1st attempt at growing Auto seed (LSD). I’ve had a couple failures with photos for reasons I’m pretty sure I’ve figured out. One was too much room heat & light burn from 1000W HPS light. Replaced with dimming control LED’s now. I had a cheap inaccurate pH meter. Now replaced w/reliable meter that also measures PPM. That’s when I discovered our Kansas City tapwater is freaking poison and a/pH over 10 plus! I installed an RO unit from the Grow Boss. I opted for the RO accessory of a mineralizer which puts back good minerals like cal/mag (my understanding). Have FFOF soil on hand so won’t feed for a while.
Primary concern starting out: if I use 100% strength of LED’s, how high should they be above the emerging seedlings? Or… what percentage should I dial LED’s in at for a lower height to emerging seedlings?
Any and all advice I’ll be grateful for - Thx Kindly In Advance!
I absolutely could not withstand another failure…
ILGM Grow Support Ticket:
-What strain: LSD auto from ILGM
-Age of plant: Ready to germinate now (3/12/22)
-Method: FF Ocean Forest
-Vessels: 5gl. Rain Science mesh style grow bags (black)
-PH and TDS of Water runoff: Indeterminate at this point
-PPM/TDS or EC of nutrient solution: n/a
-Method used to measure PH and TDS: MegaMeter from
GrowBoss. (combo meter tests PPM, pH, & Temp)
-Indoor: Closed room in basement, not a tent. 4’x3’ grow platform.
(8’ ceiling)
-Light: 2 ViparSpectra XS1500, 150Watts, Infrared Full Spectrum
w/dimming control.
-Actual wattage draw: 150W + 5%, 1544 PAR value @ 12” height
-Current Light Schedule: 18/6
-Temps: Day 74-80° - Night 70ish°
-Humidity: Day & Night - 50-55%
-Ventilation system: Yes. 2 AC Infinity 6” duct fans. 1 - incoming
ambient air from basement. 1 - exhausting air to outside world.
-AC: No - Humidifier: Yes - De-humidifier: No
-Co2: No
Welcome! If light is your primary concern, no matter what light you use check the PAR reading with a phone app. Put the phone over the canopy and take readings. I use this method at all phases of the grow cycle just to make sure lighting is correct. Regardless of the type of light you use or how close. Take the readings and you should be good to go. Happy Growing!
Oh, and I’ve read that many advise not to transplant autos.
All advice to a 1st time LSD auto grow would be welcomed
Especially what to expect from this strain characteristics and what not.
Looks like you mostly have it figured out, photos are more forgiving for sure. With what you have figured out though you should do fine, just make sure not to overwater, and stunt the growth, cuz it’s going to flower no matter what in roughly 6 weeks. Something you can do is some lst to increase yield.
@Dforce ya, I’ve been guilty of overwatering before. Since I’ve seen recommendations to plant autos in the final pot out of the gate I’ll have to be careful for sure. So topping ok then and should it be done sooner than a photo? Like what node?
I have only done a couple auto’s and as for lst I just bent the plant over and tied branches down, topping can stunt the growth, so you need to be careful. Some people have it mastered. I haven’t done it yet.
So, in general they are not too hard to grow. Not super hungry. Small plants - Lucy was 19 inches and yielded 2.20 oz. Powerful stuff, I’m very happy with it.
Feel free to ask me anything about them, I am around a lot.
@VirginiaGrowBoy Hi, interesting … well I guess KC May be in violation. Out of the tap pH consistently hovers right at 9.9-10. I get that reading w/2 different calibrated meters. 1 meter is of lesser quality, the other is of a higher dependable quality. I even had a friend come by and we tested out of the tap w/his meter and… same results. Could all 3 be wrong?
Probably not all wrong. It sounds like your measurements are real with them all matching.
Perplexing. Low or high pH like that is suprising and will cause problems. Typical city tap water is slightly base at 8.
I happen to have a wastewater treatment license and you can’t even discharge treated water TO A RIVER from a treatment plant with it outside of 6 to 9 pH range.
Let me go down the rabbit hole and see what I can find regarding your water.
@VirginiaGrowBoy Thx man! I tried to look up the consumer confidence report for Kansas City Missouri Jackson County and search rendered no information available for my area? Weird
I have no idea what would allow them to do that. Their annual water report says they “stabilize” their pH before distribution. What does that even mean?
Regardless, I am glad you know this as a fact because you will have to use a lot of pH Down to get it in range. Wow, just wow… I learned something new today.
@VirginiaGrowBoy I’m w/ya on the wow factor! Gr8ful you found this info which restores my faith that i’m not screwing up on the testing. LOL Yes, I have to dial in w/pH dwn. It takes a bit oh time tho. Weird part is 11 years ago I grew in the same spot with only water that came out of the tap. Never had any issues and a successful grow every time. Lots of work has been done on the KC water infrastructure here and it’s still ongoing. So things are definitely upside down with their pH currently. Since resuming growing, I believe tap water along w/mistakes i’ve made killed 2 rounds of plants (photos) before they started to really take off. First turning yellow, then stopped growing, then funeral services.
@VirginiaGrowBoy Now with the new RO hopefully things will be more in control as it’s brought my PPM dwn to 30. The thing I like about this particular RO is it can be dialed in where flow of exiting bad water is equal to the flow of the good water so way less excessive waste. There’s also a mineralizer accessory to put back some good minerals.
I see your issues with your water, I have to capture rain water, put into large totes, because my well has so much salt, it’s like taking it out of the ocean. My tds meter goes to 2000 ppms, and it burries my meter.
