Hello. Newer grower here. On run 2 with 5 gal. grobucket sips with living soil. I’m wondering with autoflowers if there’s any wisdom to top watering only at first. Would this encourage lateral roots extending veg time making for a bigger auto? Hope it’s not an intrusion. Great long thread btw. Aspirational.
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I hear what you’re saying. I see those black spots sometimes if the leaves are super shaded out. Also, I think I recall Bugbee or his protege saying that leaves go from energy producer to energy consumer as they get older, so those lower leaves may be of no benefit and actually may siphon off energy otherwise used for buds.
Only use lime if you have low pH tapwater. If you have high pH tapwater, you will eventually get high pH soil due to the high pH lime. Bad news.
A little oyster shell flour is fine, but use with the same caution as lime imho. 
Update time for me as well. This is the tent a few days ago on Monday 15F. Pre-net:
And here’s post-net. Not sure it’s going to do much, but at least they won’t flop on the ground!
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i haven’t grown an AF in over a decade but in general if im transplanting into a sip where the soil in the box isn’t fully soaked n saturated, like when making up a new box with your soil mix, i always top water first, it takes longer to saturate a box from a dry state just by wicking from the bottom in my experience. you could even do a lil bit of both lol.
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also i don’t know what kind of advancements have been made in the field of AF’s but i remember once you hit that 14-17 day mark they start flowering no matter what size they are so you’re gonna want to make sure your media is ready to go probably even before you get the AF in there. but as long as your soil is wet at all levels you dont need to top water on top of that.
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I’m not transplanting. They’re in the final pot. I was just wondering if there was a consensus opinion on how early to fill the res. With autos.
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gotcha. stick your finger or something into the outer surrounding dirt, if its not fully saturated all the way through like the darker looking soil around your blumat then yeah i’d top water.
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That seedling looks established enough to handle the moisture associated with SIP’s.
I would fill the res with H20 so that your soil life can get up and running. I do not have any experience with the Sip setup you are running but ya never know with a full res… the moisture may make it’s way to the top to take care of that little one. I am guessing you are still going to have to top water for a bit but ya never know until ya try.
I would also recommend taking your time and start reading from the top of this thread. There is a lot of info that will allow you to take full advantage of “The Power of a SIP”.
One of the easiest ways to give your established plant a boost is by getting a nice Mycelium mat going in your SIP. It is super easy with a little Grokashi and 
Crunch also has a DIY recipe listed above (the pic is a link)
Can’t wait to see how your mephisto forum stomper Auto turns out 
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You can also make it pretty simple with homemade labs a carb source (west bran ,oats even newspaper etc) take labs with molasses soak the carb source with it till damp and saturated but not soaking then lay it out in a thin layer to dry going to be my next project 
@Maddawg
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Thanks so much for your input. With a mulch layer it will wick to the top and stay moist. Guess I was just worried bout “overwatering”. This thread is a little outta my league atm lol. I gotta get my arms around growing weed in dirt before I learn to grow mycelium. Labs in the res. maybe a good baby step. I’ll get there. 
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GMO x Lemon Tree in earthbox juniors
I definitely vegged too long lol shoulda listened to y’all. I hate flowering during the Xmas/new year season lol my head’s not fully in the game
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@DesertHeartGardens if you have the time and think about it would you detail your process here? I’m definitely interested in making some soon. Or do you have a link?
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lol oh well man, live and learn. You can still prolly salvage them with a thick topdress of compost and EWC, watered in with rootwise or LABs or similar diverse biology. It may not reverse the yellowing, but it might keep it from progressing.
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I feel like that’s the biggest growing pain with SIPs. I’ve def been there and had a plant explode with so much growth going into flower, that I had to chop it and remove because it took up more than half of my 4x8 and well past my lights in my 8’ tall tent. Sativas and SIPs aren’t the greatest combo if you have limited height.
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For sure can do a write up plan w pictures on doing a batch next week so will take pictures and do up my process for you
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I had to transplant mine into a regular eb when I did the Jr’s
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Morning! 
Day 28F in my SIPs tent. It’s that transition time where stretch is over and they’re starting to get serious about flowering. Temps are between 64-68F lights off, between 66-72F lights on cuz it’s cold in the house.
Front right is Nigerian Rafiki #8 (NN cut) and she’s by far the thirstiest girl. I just filled up the ~2gal City Picker rez yesterday and it’s already dry, looking thirsty. Refilled it after taking pics. After reading Nobody’s comments about NR8 liking low fert and medium light, I’m a little concerned. My NR8 is 3-5" from the light on many tops. Couple nights ago I turned the light up from 200w to 275w per panel. Went from 400-600ppfd to 550-800ppfd at the tops. Hope she doesn’t hate it. Also raised the light as high as it will go. Here’s a couple perspectives on her. She’s just over 6ft tall.
Tahoe OG which is front left in the main pic. Just a gorgeous, bulletproof plant. Hope to see her at her best this round!
Spellcaster #10 (NN cut) - second stretchiest in the tent but very happy.
Santa Cruz Blue Dream - didn’t stretch as much as I was expecting, but looking very happy nonetheless.
Dragon Hammer #3 (NN cut) - hardly stretched at all, and required so much pruning to get her this open. Hope the smoke is worth it!
Mother’s Milk #31 - stretchiest plant in the tent, but so happy and vigorous and has a ridiculous budset. She’s gonna throw down! I pruned just about everything below the net and defoliated a ton. Looks like I need to do some more. She has HUGE hands.
The other two plants in the Earthboxes down the middle are not doing great and might get cut. Archive’s GG4 and Bandaid Haze ix3 #3 (early purps - NN cut).
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Day 57/58f update.
Happy Sunday, Y’all! Hope everyone is easy!
Everything is on cruise control and stacking. This last week or so the temperature and humidity in the area has risen drastically. Starting to cool down again, but I popped the a/c on in the house to help keep the environment in check. Been running the dehumidifier, so temps have been hotter than I like. Think it may have fox tailed the LWv2 a bit, but it’s all good.
Soulmate- C
Lemon Wookie v2- A
Lemon Wookie v2- B
Soulmate- D
Soulmate-A
MTSBWY~ Crunchy
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I dunno if I’ve heard that one before, but I fucking LOVE that old-school dub, haven’t listened to any in a while. I’m thinking today may be the day to crank some.
I know I’ve already said this, but that plant is so crazy-looking…
Plants look good! Haha.
That’s interesting. Was the stretch unexpected? I’ve read a few of the Mother’s Milk #31 grow reports, but I can’t recall now if any of the people growing it mentioned that it was exceptionally stretchy. I woulda thought the Nigerian Rafiki would be the tallest.
I don’t think I knew that you were growing that one (Nigerian), but I’m for sure interested in hearing what you think of the smoke haha. The things Doc had to say about it, I thought it might exacerbate my occasional anxiety haha, so I never grabbed any of those seeds.
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The stretch was expected. Higgins told me it was a stretchy cut, this review of the cut says it’s a tall plant with lots of internodal space, and this is bodhi’s description of the phenos in Mother’s Milk which lead me to believe this is an OG-dominant pheno:
Characteristics: milky mounds of motherly love. Mothers Milk is a truly beautiful hybrid of Nepal OG (same mother as Goji OG) crossed to the now retired Appalachia male (green crack x tres dawg). The amazing thing about this cross is that many of the phenos have an aroma of powdered milk, some with very delicate fruit accents like the smell of candy hearts, but an undeniable head of sweet powdery milk. The predominant milk smell is so different and unique he named it mothers milk. These cannabis seeds have some of the highest bag appeal of any strain he’s run, and a potency that will cut through the fog of other strains like butter, with a heavy yield for an OG hybrid. This is a very feminine and sublime strain don’t expect in your face lemon pinesol on this one, although with some digging there are pure og phenos to be had, the magik with this momma is in the unique expression of her genes.
Also, the MM#31 might not be the tallest, but she did start flower smaller than the NR8 and stretched the most. She would have been the tallest if I hadn’t pinched the tallest stems and laid them over.
After smoking these bandaid haze and ix3 cuts that are extra relaxed, I wanted an actually energetic sativa. Hopefully this one is it, minus the anxiety some people get. We’ll see! I will have to cut her at 12wks no matter what, so hopefully she’s not the 13wker that people who have grown the cut say she is. NN said she’s 11-12wks, which would be better for my situation.
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Grabbed a 12 gallon tote today at the store and I’m going to give this a try. Should be fun!
Snagged an extra lid for it too.
I already have a batch of LOS cooking up. I just need to make the SIP. I don’t really have room for it in the veg room right this second so it’ll probably be a couple weeks at least before I can plant it. That’ll give me time to put some soil in it and let it “marinate” lol
(that’s bokashi bran doing its thing on top of the LOS I have “cooking”)
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