El Chilli's automática 2nd attempt for the Copa

[ska]

Looking good Chili mate. loving the home mixes and compost tea. looks like you'll be getting a good yield of that lot.

[Nugz]

hi mate Absolutly amazing diary this, loads on here are but this is one of my faves! fair play mate. hope you had a banging crimbo, take care fella

[Sweet Seeds-tommy]

Congratulations!

For your good work Sweet Seeds gives you the chance to try the new 3rd Generation Autos for free

For more information, check the following link:

★ MAGNIFICENT OFFER BY SWEET SEEDS ★

Keep up with your good participation... and have a Sweet 2012

the Sweet Seeds Team

[Chilli]

cool diary mate, theres some lovely looking plants youve got there. that cream caramel looks lovely might have to give them a go.

Cheers fella

For not being around much m8 your doing a bloody good job

Some pleasing on the eye plants & Bud there man ,bet the smell's real nice in there aswell @the mo

peace

Cheers BM mate - There wasn't much of an aroma until the last couple of weeks and then they got real smelly.

Some lovely buds you've got going on there chilli, top grow mate all things considering

Thanks Serpent mate

Good Job man

That Black Jack is a hairy monster...

NMA

Cheers NMA - She was an hirsute girl.

Looking good Chili mate. loving the home mixes and compost tea. looks like you'll be getting a good yield of that lot.

Thanks ska - I'm pretty impressed with the mome made mixes. It will be interesting to see if any of the different mixes make any difference to the finished product.

hi mate Absolutly amazing diary this, loads on here are but this is one of my faves! fair play mate. hope you had a banging crimbo, take care fella

Thanks for your kind word gthumb

For your good work Sweet Seeds gives you the chance to try the new 3rd Generation Autos for free

Thanks Tommy, but I'm not sure I will be able to take you up on your kind offer, as it's looking like I'm going to be away a lot this year and won't have time to diary.

A brief update

I've been away for almost a month and I even had to get Mrs C to jar them up for me (thankfully I semi manicured them when I harvested them as it turns out she's rubbish at trimming - I will tidy them up when I have a minute). They are all curing nicely and the best part of the grow is coming up next - testing and a smoke report.

I'm a little jet lagged at the moment but will type up a full grow summary of the diary and then set about testing , then we will see if any of the different mediums and nutrient made any difference.

[Chilli]

Grow Summary

A quick grow summary: The plan was to grow 4 different strains using different soil mixes and nutrients to see what (if any differences they made to growing autos in soil). Some seeds were pre-soaked and some were planted straight into pots (either directly into their final pots or potted up).

Lighting was:

72W CFL for germination (2 days) 24/0

300W blue CFL for early growth (12 Days) 20/4

600W MH lamp (10 Days) 20/4

600W HPS with supplemental 300UV lamp till harvest (46 days) 20HPS/1UV/3

Time - seed to harvest 70 days

The soil mixes were:

Canna specific soil mixes

Plant Magic’s Soil Supreme using Plant Magic feeds & beneficials (OT Bloom, Granules & Bio Silicon)

Using this mix were:

Cream Caramel #2 potted on before its final pot (11L). The seed was pre-soaked prior to germination.

Fast Bud 2 #1 potted on before its final pot (11L). The seed was pre-soaked prior to germination.

Plant Magic’s Soil Supreme – Home Mix: I tried to create a PM version of AllMix or Bat Mix by adding worm castings, bat guano, seaweed meal, bio-supermix and rockdust. Any additional feed would be homemade compost teas.

Using this mix were:

Cream Caramel #1 planted directly into its final pot (11L). The seed was pre-soaked prior to germination.

Black Jack #1 potted on before its final pot (11L). The seed was pre-soaked prior to germination.

Fast Bud 2 #2 planted directly into its final pot (11L). The seed was planted directly into soil.

S.A.D. #2 potted on before its final pot (11L). The seed was planted directly into soil.

Garden Centre Soil

J Arthur Bowers with added JI. Both plants using this were potted on using PM’s Granules at each pot up and fed PMs OT Bloom in flower.

Using this mix were:

Black Jack #2 potted on before its final pot (11L). The seed was planted directly into soil.

S.A.D. #1 potted on before its final pot (11L). The seed was pre-soaked prior to germination.

Findings

Germination - All regardless of whether being pre-soaked or planted straight into soil, germinated within 36 hours. Surprisingly the ones that were not pre-soaked started off most vigorously – particularly the ones planted directly into pots. At this stage the mediums made no difference.

Growth & Yield Results (2 weeks drying & 2 weeks cure)

Cream Caramel #1 (Home made mix, final pot & pre-soaked) 23cm 14grams

Cream Caramel #2 (PM Mix & feed, potted on & pre-soaked) 45 cm 50 grams

Black Jack #1 (Home made mix, potted on & pre-soaked) 72cm 69 grams

Black Jack #2 (JAB soil, potted on & planted direct in soil) 37cm 35 grams

Fast Bud 2 #1 (PM Mix & feed & planted directly in final pot) 65cm 75 grams

Fast Bud 2 #2 (Home made mix & planted directly in final pot) 70cm 72 grams

S.A.D. #1 (JAB soil, potted on & pre soaked) 35cm 16 grams

S.A.D. #2 (Home made mix, potted on & planted direct in soil) 79 cm 88 grams

Conclusion:

Whilst far from being a scientific experiment the results suggest:

1. Pre-soaking seeds makes no difference, if anything the seeds planted directly into soil did best and apart from the CC#1 those planted directly into their final pots appeared to do slightly better than those potted on.

2. If we discount the CC#1 (which may have genetically been a runt) , then the best performing were the ones in the either the PM Soil Supreme or the home made mix (there is little to choose between them and potting up made little difference. The ones grown in JAB were noticeably smaller and yielded less, which to be honest was a surprise as I have had good results with it growing tomatoes (it’s about the best garden centre compost around not as good as the other two mixes in the test).

3. Stability/Hermaphroditism – Very stable; despite varying light regimes (including a ballast failure, resulting in an extended dark period late in flower), there were no signs of any male flowers – most photographs were taken during the dark period, where the plants were regularly removed and subjected to bright lights, so it’s safe to say these are stable.

4. Autoflowering – All started flowering between 17 – 20 days from been planted and were then flowered for a further 50 days (7 weeks)- so they did what they said on the tin.

These almost grow themselves - add soil to pot, stick seed in pot, add water light and some nutes in flower and hey presto.

Here is the final jarred up result:

Whilst all the above is of interest the most important factor is how they all smoke and the effect, so the next post will be a full smoke report for all 8 strains - the plan is to give the joints to Mrs C so she can give me them, so I can do a blind smoke test, which will enable me to write a subjective review without any of my preconceptions altering the result