I really appreciate you taking the time to post such a thoughtful message. I have only recently really started to dial in all my environments and I can see massive improvements. I don’t know how I have been growing this long without taking better care of temp/humidty/lux/par etc. I have been using an app on my phone to take lux and par readings and I understand it is not 100% accurate but based on the manufacturer charts for my different lights I have determined an average of how far off my app might be. I am looking into purchasing a meter just for my lights.
Lots of really good information in your post I will incorporate into my autoflower plans moving forward.
I still don’t understand how some people are getting these monster autos that are 3-5 ft tall. Every auto I have tried has been like 2 feet tall or less.
Really starting to see the appeal of running autos but I still prefer mostly photoperiod. The quickness and variety I can get with auto is fun and pretty instant gratification compared to my long photo veggin. All though I do tend to veg my photos way too long anyway.
Next project coming up is to see if I can produce some seeds with one of these mephisto strains. I saw your write up on reversing @LoveDaAutos feminized photos plants to get seeds. Any additional tips for how you do it with fem autos?
@Greenup take in what that old fart shares with ya. He’s a good guy and really does love to talk growing weed… matter of fact sometimes it’s tough to shut him up.
Auto’s can be tough to dial in for newer or less experienced growers… which is to be expected. Figure what your issue/s are and adjust accordingly. Mine was typically watering related… take your time and invest in a few pieces of gear that in turn dial you in. You’ll get there… I’m not an old pro either…
BTW… he’s the guy who actually made those Double Grape s1 that iv been sharing. I’m sure OG will see more of his work in the future… I’m glad he’s joined us.
Picked a few. Gonna drop one of each. Haven’t picked a bodhi yet but I will. Two are mephisto autos and on topic lol
Mephisto - double grape (thanks @LoveDaAutos
and @GCBudz)
Tree1four - 77 nova
CBD Shark Shock (thanks @misterbee)
Mephisto - blood orange haze
Little baggie are some magic seeds I got from a friend. They have a long story I will tell ya some time. Super excited to see what these bring.
Obtain STS - From the research I have done it seems the way to go. Other than a few sprays online that don’t specify what they are. Those others also cost way more but some say works with one application. I haven’t decided on a specific STS product but I wasn’t planning on making my own. Open to recs. Could be convinced to use CS with the right arguments.
Start an autoflower seed that will get reversed. 20 days in spray STS. Not sure exactly how many times to spray and how often. After watching videos and reading, my notes say every 3-5 days for a total of 5 applications. But please let me know your regiment since you have been successful.
20 Days or so after starting the first seed, start another autoflower of the same cultivar. As I understand it, this lag time will help the reversed plant have time to develop viable pollen that is ready at the time this second plant is ready to accept the pollen.
Keep them in the same tent with fans and let them do their thing. Maybe shake the reversed plant over the top of the other?
Let both plants ripen until the flowers are ready then harvest and separate the seeds.
I suppose I could harvest and store the pollen then grow another plant to receive it but I would rather just do them at the same time. I have tried storing pollen from a true male once and I have not used it yet so who knows if i did a good job.
I have recently been using STS and I buy the Sodium Thiosulfate Pentahydrate and Silver Nitrate and mix up my own. I’ve heard from friends who have bought the ready to spray STS and it did not work for them.
Unless I’m planning on making thousands of S1 seeds of a strain I will typically just use one plant. I treat one or two of the very bottom branches with the STS or CS and use the pollen created to pollinate however much of the rest of the plant I want to pollinate. I dust the buds by hand and expect 5-7ish seeds from a small to medium lower bud. Each pistil has the potential to become a seed if successfully pollinated. So I dust bottom buds and generally look to make 100-150 seeds in a reversal. If you’re careful with your pollen you can cut off and throw away the reversed branches, harvest the seeds from the bottom buds, and trim the top buds for useable flowers.
Once you pollinate the plant to make seeds you don’t harvest the seeded buds from the plant until the seeds are fully mature.
I’m pretty sure I am going to be doing an Autoflower journal and I never grow auto plants without reversing one of them. So if you like we can start together and go through the steps together. You’ll just need to purchase either STS or CS before you’ll need it.
After seeing your comment about people buying premade sprays and it not working and seeing that one of the premade sprays I was considering is just parts A and B that you mix with water, I decided to go down the rabbit hole of making my own STS. I seemed to remember people using all sorts of lab equipment and I deciding it wasn’t for me right now. Maybe that was CS?
Anyway, it seems really easy to make STS if the recipes I found are correct. Just need distilled water, 2 dry ingredients, and no special equipment other than dark storage jars and spray bottle.
The main issue I have now is that you get so damn much of the Silver Nitrate and Sodium Thiosulfate. By my calculations the bottles I found on amazon would allow me to make 10 spray bottles per batch and enough to make 50 batches. So 500 spray bottles! If you add another $17 of bottle of Sodium Thiosulfate you can make 1000 bottles. I only need 2 bottles. Basically this shit is gona go bad sitting on my shelf for years before I have to figure out how to dispose of it. I understand the unmixed dry ingredients will last much longer than the water mix. I would also need to buy 500 ml brown glass bottles to store the solutions and those are not cheap. So now I am storing dry ingredients, mixed with water A and B solutions, and spray bottle mix of A/B.
Didn’t I see some little batches of the dry ingredients floating around the forum in seedlike containers? Did I dream it? I guess I could buy the ingredients and give them out to the local grow group members. Am I gona get on a government list for buying these ingredients?
It’s gona run me $100+ to get the ingredients ad glassware to store them. Sure, I can make a million batches, but I don’t think I need them. All of that makes it seem like just buying something premade for $35 would be the way to go for a one/two time adventure. If I do go the kit/premade route, anyone used this Cannabinology STS Spray kit ? They seem to have paid the most to amazon to get me to see their product lol.
If anyone has used a STS premade kit or solution and had success, drop it on me.
I sent you a complete shopping list via PM. I will be starting my next auto plant in about 10 or so days. We can grow some small to medium sized plants together and make some seeds. Do you have a strain in mind you’re going to reverse to make S1 seeds?
I hope you dont mind but Im going to follow along as well. Right now I have a little mutant Double Grape going on at about 4 days now. Its not a REAL mutant but somehow the cotyledons got mushed together and the pseudo leaves are coming out of the side lol!
Thank you for the list. I will go ahead and order the stuff to make some STS. I noticed you also included Colloidal silver in he shopping list. Is this so I can also try that? It isn’t needed for the STS right?
I just put two mephisto seeds in paper towel this morning. But i can start another in 10 days if these will be too far along before i get the supplies. I do have a photo strain I really want to reverse since it came to me as a clone. But I am happy to start another strawberry crinkle to make seeds from it when you are ready. I was always planning on making seeds of it. Or I could do a blood orange haze to keep the crowd happy.
As far as instructions for mixing up the STS… I found like 20 places with word word copies of the text found here Make STS Fem Seeds. How does this recipe compare to yours?
Don’t mix this stuff up till like the day before or day you’re going to use it.
So I started with 250ml of distilled water for each bottle, and A got 0.25g Silver Nitrate and B got 1.95 grams of sodium thiosulfate pentahydrate.
PARTS A & B
1.25g silver nitrate to 250ml of distilled water stir real well and mark PART A
1.95g sodium thiosulfate Pentahydrate to 250ml of distilled water stir real well and mark PART B
SPRAY MIX
125ml part A mixed into 125ml of part B added to 250ml distilled water into your spray bottle. Wrap the whole spray botle with black electrical tape to keep out light. This must always be stored in the fridge…A and B and the spray, all 3 bottles refridgerated.
@LoveDaAutos has me all set up for my first reversal… successful reversal that is. I tried a Mango Smile once with Twenty20’s spray and did not succeed.
The more the merrier is always more fun. Be sure to put some type of dark tape on your spray bottle covering every bit of the glass. I used electricians tape cause it can be shaped and stretched better then say duct tape.
