anyone have a succesful "water only" soil mix recipe for autos?

[mostnonymouse]

Looking for a soil mix that isn't too hot for seedlings but has enough nutes to carry the plant through flower with no deficiencies. If anyone has had success through layering different mixes as well i'd be interested in hearing about that. I have all winter to test and dial it in but a starting point from someone with more experience would really help.

 

[GMT]

the trick with what I refer to as "lazy growing" is not so much trying to get the balance between "hot" and not soils, but rather repotting at the right time and into the right size container. You will need to use more compost than you would when growing with added nutes. I find that a plant vegged for 4 weeks, will need to be repotted into a container hold around 20 litres of compost (including the initial say 4 litre pot that it was vegged in). I pot at the point I switch to flowering lighting so with autos lets call that a few days before you would expect them to show sex. You can then pull any males out and use that tub and that compost for other plants that are slightly behind (if you have any).
I use vegetable compost, it typically cost around 99p-£1.50 per 20 litres, so around $2 lets say. Anything thats not too heavy (lift a few bags and pick from the lighter ones) should be perfect so long as its not made with wood chippings.

 

[Batboy]

Check out the Organics for Beginners thread and consider one of the LC mixes with Recipe #1. The organics gurus recommend including liquid Karma and/or mollasses with many waterings, so it's not 100% "water only", but I know for a fact that this mix will take an auto from seedling to finish without any nute additions.

Let the seed sprout and get established in an LC mix. When ready to transplant, put it in a pot with the full LC/Recipe #1 mixture (aged a few weeks so everything is immediately available to the plant). Water and voila -- this should work just fine for autos that aren't around long enough to use up all of the soil's goodies, so no need to supplement.

 

[mostnonymouse]

thanks guys. Maybe I should explain why I'm looking for such a mix...Next year I was hoping to supplement my normal outdoor grow with an early harvest of autoflowers in rubbermaid containers in trees. I'd prefer to only climb the trees once to plant and once to harvest after the containers are set up. The shorter lifespan and smaller size of autos tends to seem to make nute schedules a little more touchy and sometimes complicated. I'd also prefer not to have to transplant if I could avoid it (for the sake of the plant's health and yield, not for my own laziness) I was thinking maybe a regular dry-nute mix to fill half the tub and on top of that the same mix without the nutes, but with a large proportion of EWC + some maxicrop for some light nitrogen and potassium to carry the plants through to the hot mix. I have all winter to experiment on the same strain indoors but I was wondering if anyone had experience with a similar style of grow

 

[Muddy]

I've been growing autos outdoors for 3 years now and have to question whether you will be able to leave them hanging, unattended for the whole grow. How will you water them and will they get enough light hanging in a tree? Also, outdoors they are subject to pests. I've had issues with spider mites and caterpillars. Once my buds start to get fairly big I apply twice a week treatments of insecticidal soap to control the mites. I also inspect them daily to remove the caterpillars. I've also found it's important to remove the fan leaves as soon as they die off. If not, then tend to lay on the buds and if wet from rain or dew, can cause bud rot.

 

[Batboy]

Muddy raises some good questions. I also wonder if the soil 'layering' that you are thinking about will work. We all know that seeds and seedlings are very touchy and easily burned. In my experience a seed will send down a tap root as deep as the container and thus the plant will access all layers of your soil and could easily get burned. It's cool that you are ready to experiment over the winter. Maybe you'll find the right seed strain and right layering 'recipe.' Good luck.

 

[mostnonymouse]

I've been growing autos outdoors for 3 years now and have to question whether you will be able to leave them hanging, unattended for the whole grow. How will you water them and will they get enough light hanging in a tree? Also, outdoors they are subject to pests. I've had issues with spider mites and caterpillars. Once my buds start to get fairly big I apply twice a week treatments of insecticidal soap to control the mites. I also inspect them daily to remove the caterpillars. I've also found it's important to remove the fan leaves as soon as they die off. If not, then tend to lay on the buds and if wet from rain or dew, can cause bud rot.

Treegrowing isn't something I invented. It's been done successfully with a variety of techniques.
Watering: Black rubber hose running down the tree to a fitting that connects to a very inexpensive ($30 max) pump driven by a cordless hand held drill if need be...We average 4 inches of rain a month here in the summer.
Bug problems: I only grow organic and haven't had bug problems in the past with guerrilla grows as long as the plants are healthy. Some neem oil is the farthest I'll usually go.

I've got another option now that I believe will work better and give me more access to the plants without requiring all of this stuff, but the tree grow has worked for others in the past. I imagine you really need to know your strain though.

 

[wantaknow]

soil less mix spagnum moss bone meal blood meal dolomite lime guano several kinds if possable ,and lots of worm castings and pearlite ,let stand a week ,then trans plant ,works very well ,read up on subcools soiless mix ,good luck hope this helps

 

[Bighill]

I use this as close as i can. The idea with organics is you are feeding the soil not the plant. You need a bunch of stuff to feed the microbes in the soil. The microbes are what feeds the plant after breaking down the "food" you put in the soil. That is why compost teas help so much, you are adding mega amounts of microbes that feed on that goods in the soil. Your plant then gets a mega dose of food from natural chleating agents. Not EDTA's!
You want to pretty much mix a flower mix, heavy on blood/bone meal/bat guano. Once your sexed and transplanted, this is your final pot. I usually add some sheep manuer to help with the N factor.

I can have a greeen plant at the end that burns pure white clean goodness at the end. With little to no flush. When i flush them with a black strap mo/water mix they get really stinky.. Sugar also helps with making them STINK!!! (thanks mossy)

 

[IwannatokeNbone]

its a good idea to watch autos as they ripen, mold shows up over nite, removing fans is a good idea as they die