Autoflower grow. Trainwreck, WW , Norther Lights, Critical kush

Hi everyone, first post on this forum. So this is my second grow ever which actually began in the beginning of December. My first was 4 photo white widows about 15 years ago under a 250w HPS which turned out great. A few months ago I was given a 7 pack of Sweet Seeds - Sweet auto Trainwreck so I got all new equipment and supplies and decided to give it a go after much debate.

I picked up a 4'x4'x6' grow tent on ebay , 2 hipargero 450w cob (220 watt at the wall), 1 morsen 600w led(only 115w at the wall) which I already had for starting my peppers indoors, and 1 quantum 288v2 led (135 watts I believe ), 4" fan and carbon filter.

It all began with 3 Sweet Auto Trainwrecks which popped their head out of the dirt Dec 5th. As you will see I did made quite a few beginner mistakes along the way with these three plants. First the soil that I used was a mix of perlite and some soil that came from the pots of this past seasons pepper grow. I had 16 dif strains of peppers growing which were chopped down once the weather got too cold and they died. So I had plenty of soil laying outside in pots. I shook out the enough soil from the roots to fill 3 1 gallon pots and than sterilized it in my 8qt ultrapot as to not bring any bugs, larva or pathogens into the grow tent. I also did nothing to amend the soil and thought I could make up for it with nutrients. I did add some beneficial bacteria and some mykos. I am using AN ph perfect micro, grow, and bloom, and Calmag.

Another thing I did wrong with these 3 was transplant them twice. All 3 came out of their cups into 1 gallon plastic pots. I did some reading and found that 3 to 5 gallon was recommended for autos so after a short time I transplanted 2 of them into 5 gallon fabric pots and left the one in its 1 gallon pot just to see how it would do. I must have shocked them too much and ended up stunting their growth pretty badly. The 2 in the 5 gallon pots eventually took hold and were doing pretty good for what they had gone through but still pretty small. I started some LST on largest of the 3. I had the lights pretty close to the plants too early and I think that also didn't allow them to stretch out much.

Dec 20th
Jan 2nd

As all this was going on I was doing my research and trying to learn as much as I could. I was also looking at other strains and got the seed bug. I ended up going crazy and purchasing the following strains

ILGM WW auto
ILGM Norther Lights auto

From Sensible seeds:
Fastbuds zkittlez auto
Fastbuds Crystal Meth
Fastbuds Pineapple Express
Ministry of Cannabis auto Blueberry Domina
Dutch Passion Auto Critical Orange Punch
Barneys Farm Critical Kush
They also through in some freebies:
Garden of Green Critical xxl auto
Garden of Green Candyland photos

In an effort to try to achieve a harvest one month apart I tried to germinate the last 4 Sweet trainwrecks which 2 of them made it. This time I ordered some fox farms soil and got them going, along with a ILGM Northern Lights auto. Once the taproots reached the bottom of the small containers I made the choice to gently remove one of the Trainwrecks from its soil home and put it in a small DWC container made from an old protein powder container. I cut the bottom out of a 2 inch net cut so the roots would just be dangling through a large opening into 5.8 ph solution. I say light because I don't know exactly the ppm because I was also waiting on a ppm meter. It was held in place by a neoprene cloning disc. I cut the bottom out so the roots would not be tangled in the plastic for easy removal while I waited for some 6" net cup lids for 5 gallon buckets to arrive. I have done this before with peppers to give them a big boost in the beginning before moving them to soil and it works great.
Jan 3rd

I moved the DWC plant to the 5 gal bucket with a 50 gallon rated air pump and 2 stones on jan 6th but also made a huge mistake which wasn't realized for a good week or so until I got my meter. I measured 600 ppm in the bucket. It was growing like crazy and looked ok but by the time I measured the ppm it was starting to develop dark green, thick dry feeling leaves with brown spots. I quickly did a full res change and brought the ppm down to 200 ppm.
Jan 6th
Jan 13th

Meanwhile I transplanted the Northern lights and the other Trainwreck into 3 gallon fabric pots with Fox Farms ocean forest, a little epsom salt, additional perlite and a little worm castings mixed in. I put some Hydroton on top just to stop sloshing the soil around when I water. This is where they will stay for the remainder of their lives. I should have waited longer to transplant these but I need to learn some patients. They were getting pretty lanky and I figured I could bury them a bit deeper as well reduce the shock later in their short lifespan. I did not feed these 2 plants until the end of week 4 because I heard fox farms was a little hot and I already was having some issues with the first 3 Trainwrecks due to over feeding.

Here is a comparison from Jan 3rd to Jan 13th
Jan 3
Jan 13th
There is also a ILGM WW auto that just sprouted in the middle there. I really got carried a away with all of these plants thinking I had plenty of space based upon the 3 little runt that I initially started. The DWC Trainwreck was was closing in quick on them and was already bigger than the smallest one at day 18 where the 3 in soil where at day 39.

Here are a few shots of the first 3 soil Trainwrecks on Jan 16th. Each one had some issues of their own but were alive, flowering and producing trichomes.

Here is the DWC Trainwreck on the 16th. There were a bunch of cracking dry leaves with brown spots all which is due to the 600 ppm incident, but the new growth is coming in a nice and green and the stem is really thickening up nice. At this point I have been using AN ph perfect micro, grow, bloom along with calmag and I started adding Hydroguard since I do not have a chiller and the roots have been a nice bright white ever since. Still at 200 ppm @ 5.8ph. I was getting some water temps between 68 and 75. The temp in the tent usually hovers around 76-78 all day. I am running lights 24/7 because Its winter here and I was getting some big temp swings with lights off. I have a humidifier outside the tent set to 60% but I find with the dry winter air, heat from the lights and, fan with carbon filter running nonstop to control odor its still hard to get the tent to 50%.

Jan 20,
The 3 Trainwreck autos are flowering along at day 46. I was getting some soil runoff ph readings of 5.1 on two of them so I gave them a good flush with phed RO water to try to correct that. I was def over feeding them and one was really showing signs of nute burn.


Jan 23rd
It is now day 29 for the DWC auto and man is it coming along surprisingly well. I am pretty blown away at the vigorous growth I am seeing from this plant. This was from the same pack of seeds and it just goes to show the difference between soil and DWC. Even compared to its soil sister which sprouted the same day and is in fox farms soil. I trimmed off most of the old nute burned leaves and and have been doing some LST every day to keep up with its growth. I swear some days it grows inches so I am doing everything in my power to keep a nice even canopy on this one. I forgot to mention above that I did top this plant around its earlier in its life, but it didn't seem to induce any stress and those 2 shoots shot up just as fast as everything else was growing. The stem is 3 times thicker than the soil plants twice its age and its canopy is 3 times the size. All of this growth was under the blurple morsen light that only pulls 115 watts at the wall.


Heres the Trainwreck auto that sprouted the same day as the DWC one along with the ILGM Norther Lights auto. Honestly I don't even know which one is which. I mixed them up when they were small and never tagged them but the one on the left has a completely different leaf profile so I think that is the norther lights.

Very nice grow mate...

Jan 26th
I think 2 of the 3 Trainwrecks are getting close to finishing in a week or 2. Sweet Seeds claims 8 weeks seed to harvest, so thats closing in but I expect longer. They have mostly cloudy trichomes and and orange hairs, not as many white ones shooting out anymore. The largest of the 3 is still covered in white pistils sticking straight out. It also has that lawn clipping smell to it compared to the other 2. It also has an issue where many of the fan leaves are turning yellow and pull right off. Possibly a deficiency as a result of the flush I did not too long ago, or the maybe its the beasty bloomz i gave it. Not sure, but the buds are still fattening up.

The DWC Trainwreck is doing well. I have been feeding 400ppm now and it is drinking just over 3 liters a day and the ppm is down to about 115 usually after topping off with RO water. I usually pull an inch or 2 of water off the top with a pump and and replace that with the 900 ppm until the whole res is back at 400. The plant is starting to flower and the amount of budsites and cola on this thing is crazy. Probably more than the other 3 plants combined.
Since the DWC plant was doing so well I decided to germinate a Barney's Farms - Critical Kush in a rapid rooter plug and got that going in another 5 gallon bucket. I changed the other bucket to a 100 gallon rated pump and used the 50 gal pump on the Critical Kush since it is smaller. Hopefully the other plants will finish shortly. The other Trainwreck and Northern Lights are also starting to flower and are still extremely small so I don't have too much faith in them. I may just stick to DWC for now on.

Mellow old School said:

Very nice grow mate...

Click to expand...

Thanks, I am really enjoying it and learning alot as it goes.

I am just going to go ahead and skip right to Jan 29th and the most current photos I have. The buds are really starting to fill in now on the soil plants. The DWC Trainwreck is starting to crowd thing up a bit. Going to need some real estate for when the critical kush catches up but its getting close on the others. I am just not sure when I should start flushing. I have almost all cloudy trics on 2 of them. The one is still so dark green so I guess there are plenty of nutes still in the soil. I may start flushing that one in the next couple days to make it start feeding on its fan leaves. I am aiming for some amber trics in this batch because I want the couch lock pain relief sleep inducing properties.


DWC Critical Kush auto just getting some decent roots now

ILGM Norther Lights auto