Im going to make a video next grow, possibly a tutorial with pics instead, that shows how I get good results by watering in the seedling stage. From germ tthru the seedling stage. To help show either beginners or anybody struggling with the seedling stage, stunting, and or early flowering. Been seeing people have a lot of trouble lately.!
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I am gonna be out of town for a bit this week and I come back on Saturday. I’m thinking if it’s still this small by then, I’ll restart.
I’m almost positive the main issue here is that I kept it over watered early on…so next time, with the help of my new sprayer and the info I got here, watering should be on point. Once it gets established I’ll probably add the Blumats again (I’ve had pretty good runs with them in the past).
I was also able to get my pH pen calibrated, and it looks like my soil is ~6.5 pH using a slurry test with distilled water, and ~1800ppm. Not sure what the ppm of living soil is supposed to be (or if it really even matters) but the pH seems to be on point.
So…
Plan is to take this soil, add some fresh BaS Light from an old bag I have, and add some more pumice (maybe ~3-4 cups?)
Not sure if I’ll amend any more fertilizer, but I’ll definitely top dress with some more Craft Blend.
I am also getting my worm bin started again soon so I can start top dressing with that in the future.
I am wondering if I should add anything else though? I’ve got some old bags of EWC and Buus compost, and Garden Lime.
Also thanks for the help everyone!
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Sounds like a winner..more aeration, more micro life.. sounds perfect 
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Came back from out of town and it stretched a lot, but it’s still really small so I decided to start over.
I believe I found the issue when I dumped out the soil through…there were dry pockets! I’m assuming the roots hit a dry spot and that’s what stunted it.
I’m really surprised considering I did two waterings to runoff with Q at the start, and watered with Q or aloe almost every time. But this time I am making sure it’s all moist before starting…
I added:
4 cups perlite
1 cup Malibu compost
2 cups bagged EWC
1tbsp Ag lime
I also used about 40-50% fresh (but old and dry) BaS light.
I also tried to transfer it to a 1 gallon to see if I can keep it alive.
Gonna start another seed in the next day or two once I double check the soil is ready.
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When I add in pumice (I prefer perlite) or vermiculite or anything like that for airation I add in about 20-30% perlite to 80-70% soil mix. 25/75 is what I shoot for.
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Does the soil you use already have aeration? I think the BaS soils are about 33% pumice already, but I’ll add a few more cups today! I can tell that this mix I feels more aerated than before at least.
I personally like pumice because I use it for houseplants / bonsai / cacti, and it’s what’s in the soil already (and I already have a bag of it!)
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It’s just a little heavier that’s all. I use a mix of about 50/50 Fox Farm Happy Frog and Mother Earth Coco/Peat and then I mix in about 20-25% of that total weight of perlite and then mycos and bennies.
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Pumice is best imo..perlite I’ve used and still use..but it floats to the top over the course. Often doesn’t matter once established..but something to consider.
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I added about 2 more cups of pumice and really went through the soil with my hands to get all the clumps out and make sure there were no dry spots.
I found a BaS video where Jeremy goes through the way to tell if soil is moist enough using the squeeze test. He says to squeeze until a single drop of water comes out and that it holds it’s shape. Did that same test and mine seems to be spot on.
(I am guessing that means it’s at field capacity?)
I then added it back to the pot and let it sit in the tent with the light overnight.
Soaked another seed (still Twisted Trees Sugar Cube), in about 2 shot glasses worth of water with a bit NFTG Zeus Juice waited till it dropped (after slightly shaking the mason jar it was in) and sowed her in! It soaked for about 14 hours.
Added the mulch back on (with the old chopped up cover crop) and watered maybe about a cup with some Rootwise and Aloe using my sprayer.
Gonna wait to get the cover crop going until a little after she pops up.
Hopefully things go better this time!
ill prob start a proper journal here for this if she pops up and looks happy.
also the first girl seems to be doing ok in her new pot, I don’t expect much but I’m curious to see what’ll happen!
Also decided against the solo cup thing as this soil is like 50% BaS light so the nutrients should be a bit more balanced this time.
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For what it’s worth…
I use straight BAS light, nothing added until like day 20… then just topdress with whatever I’m adding (usually craft blend, gnarly barley, kashi, and a bit of lobster compost and some build a flower.)
My thoughts on the matter, are…no matter what style you are growing in, autoflowers like an easy start… Not to much N, nice easy growing conditions… Starting with too hot a soil usually will cause problems…although there’s starting to be some really tolerant cultivars out there.
Edit: I’ll occasionally water in some fermented comfrey extract in veg…and some fermented watermelon extract in flower)
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I’m gonna test that 3.0 here..got 2CF headed my way for a 2 or 3 5 gallon auto grow..wanna see what the fuss is about 
been wanting to run BAS for sometime now
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Pretty sure they’re also working on an autoflower blend…
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That’s cool..I’ve used so many auto and light blends as well as full blends..I gotta tell ya I’ve only ran into 2 situations where these new photo to auto heavy feeders tend to tolerate the hotter soil quite easily..and just slightly deeper plug and/or tiered system..yet to have many issue with full blast soils..
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The only one I see giving people problems on the regular, is the Stonington Blend… And I’m almost positive it’s because of the dehydrated chicken shit they add…
Other than that, I agree… usually they do fine.
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Good to know! I’m gonna be much more conservative with watering this time and let the roots search for water. The pot still feels heavy from the initial watering, and now that I am positive the soil is moist all the way through and has a nice texture, I feel more confident in letting it go.
I see Jeremy top dressing pretty early on the auto grows sometimes, so good to know you don’t really need to do anything the first couple weeks.
And for updates… we have life! She popped up yesterday with the seed hull still on, but after some light misting it basically got itself off (with a very slight flick from me)
I’ll start a real journal when I get a little bit more time, I had fun journaling on old afn (and I’ve been stalking your journal on here @frankthetank )
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They don’t recommend going below 10 gallons for their soil, but I’ve had luck with this size (6.6 gallon). I did some supplemental feeding on past grows though (I’ve got NFTG bottles and some GreenGro top dresses).
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