Still experimenting with best use of available tent space and light. I’ve got two autos at eight weeks above ground, started three more seeds soaking, which I expect will sprout in a few days. I’m thinking they’ll be fine in the shade of the ripening buds, with the light running wide open above. Because I can’t do things the easy way.
So sf1000 in a 27x27x60 tent, running wide open 18/6 or so, FFOF and the trio. Gotta follow this rabbit hole. How will staggered harvests impact yield over time?
I don’t know about your yeilds over time, but i would guess you would be just fine. For some reason, doing this has never crossed my mind! The only drawback i see is having to harvest more frequently!! ( that being my last favorite part of growing) But i think i may try this in a couple grows. I love this idea!
My issue, frankly, is space. I’m living in a studio apartment, growing in a 27 inch square, five foot high (works out to five square feet under the light). I dry in a box ducted into intake air for the tent, so odors are controlled, with only one filter, yet the tent is available without interruption. Growing strictly autos, finding actual sprout to chop time runs close to 12 weeks. My current crop is exactly 8wks plus 2 days, and I’m sprouting three more plants today. They’re in pint size square pots, and will go into three gallon fabric pots sometime around the harvest of the other two. If need be I can stuff the three 3 gal pots alongside the mature plants. I might chop before transplanting. It’ll be close. One thing I’ve noticed the last two crops, I’m less likely to chop early, because I’ve already started my next plants. That alone should improve yield. Eventually I want to have a bit of surplus instead of often running low or out.
8 1/2 weeks since sprouting for these two plants, and three new sprouts today. Gonna be interesting.
It occurs to me that one key to success with this method is dealing with diverse moisture needs. The maturing bud wants pretty dry air, around forty something rh or less depending upon temperature. Newly sprouted seedlings want wet, rain forest conditions. I’ve lost seeds that went sideways after sprouting, likely got dry before shucking their shell. I’ve gotta think even the survivors have been impacted by that.
I’m able to compensate for this by hydrating sprouts with an eye dropper several times a day. I have that luxury, retired. If I was out much of the day, I’d build a plastic wrap mini greenhouse in one corner of the tent for my sprouts, inducing condensation around the sprouts for the first week or so.
And we are on to the next phase. Despite my best efforts, the autoflower gods decided one of my nine plus week old autos was done. It essentially stopped drinking and went into autumn mode, shade leaves yellowed and dying, sugar leaves lovely colors. So I chunked it up enough to fit in my drying box, and went about preparing pots for the next three plants.
That leaves one maturing plant getting fat under the lights, one plant in the dry box, and three seedlings a week old. Once the space was available, three, three gallon pots were prepared to accept the transplants in a week or so.
What the staggered grow autoflower method leaves me, is room to work a total of four or five plants with only one 27x27x60 tent, one sf 1000 light, one carbon filter and in-line fan, and a very small footprint in my apartment.
And here we are. Chopped the remaining plant yesterday, clearing the tent space for transplanting seedlings into their permanent pots. I’m three weeks ahead of the chop then germ method. Figuring a 12 week cycle at most, three weeks of overlap is a 25% time savings, potentially giving as many as six crops per year from one little tent.
27 days above ground, and eleven days since I chopped the last flower, these girls seem pretty happy. Got em started with a little LST yesterday. Hoping to ring the pots with main stems, stimulate secondary colas. Gonna be interesting as they get more crowded.
