The strain selection for this SAFC will be from seeds on hand. Mostly Purple City Genetics because they were available locally. Two others that are for sure are Barneys LSD Auto and G13 Labs Bride Cake. As a matter of fact, this is Deja Vue. I attempted germinating all of these before without success. I have had a couple successful rounds of germinating and transplanting since then so maybe I'll have a better outcome.

Scuff Seeds - 3 hour soak in Distilled water - direct to Rapid Rooter   Ready for the 4/20 Bean drop!

Here's a bit of strain info while we wait for germination ...

Bride Cake Auto
Bride Cake Auto is a cross of Triangle Kush x Animal Mints with added ruderalis genetics. It is a high-yielding auto-flowering strain which produces high levels of THC.

This indica-dominant plant is suitable for both indoor and outdoor cultivation taking between 65 - 70 days from seed to harvest. Indoors these compact plants will grow to a little over one metre tall producing 500 - 600 gr/m2. Outdoors they will grow a little taller reaching a maximum of 130 cm. yielding between 70 - 150 gr/plant.

Indoor growers might want to make sure their air filters are working well as this is quite an aromatic strain. When dried its scent is complex and includes floral, fruity and woody tones with lime and vanilla notes. Both resin and THC production is at a high level although we do not have an exact figure for THC. Its effect is potent yet well-balanced offering a nice mix of the physical relaxation and cerebral stimulation.

BREEDER/BRAND G13 Labs

PRODUCT TYPE Seeds THC

GENETICS (Triangle Kush x Animal Mints) x Ruderalis

PACK SIZE 5 Seeds

VARIETY Mostly Indica

FLOWERING TYPE Autoflowering

SEX Feminised

YIELD Indoors: 500 - 600 gr/m2; Outdoors: 70 - 150 gr/plant

PLANT HEIGHT 110 - 130 cm.

GROWS Greenhouse, Indoors, Outdoors

FLOWERING TIME 65 - 70 days from seed

TASTE / FLAVOUR Flowery, Fruity, Lime, Sweet, Vanilla, Woody

EFFECT Cerebral, Physical, Relaxing, Stimulating

LSD Auto
At last an auto-flowering version of Barney's legendary LSD strain achieved by crossing LSD with a Super Magnum Auto. This is a 70% indica strain with enormous potency coupled to excellent yields.
LSD Auto is an easy-to-grow plant that reaches a height of 90 - 120 cm. taking between 64 - 70 days to complete its life cycle. It can be grown in any environment, indoors, outdoors as well as in a greenhouse and is known to possess great resistance to mold, botrytis, spider mites and cold weather which means that northern European summers should not cause too many issues for growers.
Indoors yields can be as high as 650 gr/m2 while each plant can deliver up to 400 gr. when grown outdoors. LSD Auto's scent is a mixture of musky, earthy floral, herbal and Skunky, all in all a very pungent strain. Its flavors include earthy chestnut, mango and citrus with sweet and sour notes. In terms of effect, this is not a strain for the novice smoker; it is seriously potent with uplifting euphoria, social with a strongly psychedelic body-high before evolving into a phase that is more calming and relaxing. Barney's Farm claim medium medical benefits but do not go into any details regarding this.

BREEDER/BRAND - Barney's Farm Seeds
PRODUCT TYPE - Seeds
THCGENETICS - LSD x Super Magnum Auto
VARIETY - Mostly Indica
FLOWERING TYPE – Autoflowering
SEX – Feminised
YIELD - Indoors: 650 gr/m2; Outdoors: 400 gr/plant
PLANT HEIGHT - 90 - 120 cm.
GROWS - Greenhouse, Indoors, Outdoors
FLOWERING TIME - 64 - 70 days from germination
MEDICINAL PROPERTIES - Yes but no specifics given.
TASTE / FLAVOUR - Citrus, Mango, Sour, Sweet
EFFECT - Calming, Euphoric, Psychedelic, Relaxing, Talkative, Uplifting

We have lift off! Phew! Sweatin' the last 4 days waiting and hoping and praying.  LSD and Juicy O have pushed up. They look pretty feeble compared to their stable mates in the tent but there's hope. Even though these are destined for the great outdoors they have to struggle through my lame attempts at recreating INDOORS what is a couple steps through the door already. For a brief period, I had too much ventilation in the tent, trying to create 3 separate zones for all the plants in the tent at different stages. What I needed to do was turn off all but one oscillating fan and open the passive exhaust while running the active intake and a humidifier. Consistent 75 F and 70 RH. So far everything seems happy(er)(ish). Perhaps a transplant in the future. Solo? 1 gal?  5 gal ? To infinity and BEYOND ? RRRRRRrrrrrr. Step away from the pipe! Ah, the age old debate of transplant or start in the final pot. Anyone care to comment on that or any aspect of growing autos then I'm all ears. I have not been able to get the real scoop. Autos are weak and have low THC. Autos are small. Auto are difficult to grow. Autos are EASY to grow. Can't train 'em. On and on and on. Guess I'll have to step up to that ledge and have a look for myself.

I would recommend starting in small pots and transplanting, which will result in better root development. Autos do not like to be rootbound, and may go into flower sooner and result in smaller plants if you dont transplant soon enough. But if you follow dr coco’s guidelines that should yield large healthy autos, including transplanting and training.

Some of the concerns about autos size and quality were more apt a few years ago, as the breeding has advanced there are many strains now that perform well.

Thanks Rusty. On your recommendation I have potted LSD and Juicy-O to Solo cups. I'll need to keep a close eye on them if they are on a 3 week veg schedule. I just up-potted some photos that were in 1 gal pots and they were root bound. Debating whether I should pop a couple more Autos. Going on 6 days for the seeds in RootRiot pods. 

She made her entrance like a Queen! Late to the party. 6 days in the Root Riot and just when I was giving up hope. Bride Cake is growing. That leaves only Afberry left. Again, doubtful. The last time I tried these seeds Afberry was the only one that popped and didn't survive the day. It did pop right away though.

 Well it's getting crowded in there so if the weather decides to stay fair there will be a mass migration. That's Grapefruit, Sunset Sherbet, Venom OG and Watermelon Zkittles x Dosido keeping these seedlings company in the tent. The Venom and Zkittles have been in my chamber of horrors since May and they are trying to recover. They have been undergoing my first mainline and manifold attempts. Zkittles is a seedling and Venom is a clone. They were topped once and straight to LST. It seemed that they were stunted and growth was slow. I see now that they were already root bound. Into 5 gal pots without the restraints. When they recover, back on the rack! Grapefruit and Sherbet are the result of my germination experiments. When I failed to launch at the NYGC start I was determined to figure out why. I tried several techniques and they ALL worked. Go figure. These are unsexed seeds so who knows, maybe cross breed them for the heck of it. I'll cull the males and then clone everything (he said casually as if it were nothing). So this is how everything in the tent ties back to the SAFC and these little autos.

So the temp and humidity in the tent were not ideal so I tried to do something about it. Outdoor temps were rising and the environment inside required the exhaust fan to only run intermittently because passive air exchange was not happening. Without a speed controller I figured I could schedule the fan operation with a WiFi power strip. I was worried that I needed constant air replacement and concerned that allowing the temp and RH to build up and then flushing that air out once an hour would not be enough. I have been running like this a couple days now and it seems to be working. I did have an oscillating fan fail which has left it a bit hot but not outrageous. I rearranged some things in the tent to give priority to the autos. They have a dedicated T5 light that is lowered within 2 inches of the seedlings. They all got 50ml of PH 6.3 water. Afberry was still unsprouted in the root riot so I tossed it after 9 days. Then I very unceremoniously took a new Afberry seed and plunked it directly into a solo cup of soil. Hope it's not too hot. I had not tried the KISS method of germination. Fading out as I type this entry so I gotta call it before I wind up crashing in the chair again.

Feeling lucky right now. The Afberry seed (#2) has emerged so I now have all of the strains I planned for. A couple more weeks of fortification and I think I can get them outside. OK. So the pics aren't exactly POW material but still important. OK. not really important either.

Feeling lucky right now. The Afberry seed (#2) has emerged so I now have all of the strains I planned for. A couple more weeks of fortification and I think I can get them outside. OK. So the pics aren't exactly POW material but still important. OK. not really important either.

When does the wild growth spurt happen? Well perhaps it's not this week. I am happy that they are growing. They seem to like the T5's. The growth rate seems pretty consistent as the seedlings are all about the same size in relation to each other in the order they first emerged. Since they don't seem to need me at the moment I'll go re-read the transplanting tutorial. By crackie, I'll do something to disrupt our little world. 

It's funny. Now that I have a little stash in jars, I can relax a little. The pressure was on when I had the lion's share of my weed budget for the year tied up in equipment instead of something smokable. At ease enough now that I am experimenting with the plants I have going now. I'm pretty much going to let the autos do their thing. Everything else seems to be fair game. Snip here. Snip there. Try a little of this and a little of that. And sometimes complacency. I don't want to do that. I'm tired. I've got so much else going on yadda yadda yadda. What might happen if I just don't finish off those manifolds and just release all those restraints? Crazy thoughts , right? Or do I just need the drama so I screw things up until I have to do something about it, JUST so that I'll have more to do. A Perpetual Problem Machine. Nah. And all this because I didn't have better pictures to post at this juncture.

Carpe diem! I saw an opportunity so I grabbed it. I had to do some transplanting so even though the growth has been slower than I expected I up-potted all the autos. Usually the roots are pretty dense in the solo cup by this time. There were roots, just not very profound. They are in 3L pots so I'm just edging it up in size. Hoping for good roots.

Family matters have taken priority. Minimal time for plant care unfortunately. The Autos seem to be weathering the neglect better than other specimens. All in all, I quite happy with the growth and apparent health at this point. The plants are still in the tent for the time being. I have run out of soil for transplanting so the next pot up will have to be this weekend. My humidifier had a strange failure where one of the multiple evaporation disks had begun rubbing on the case and it stopped turning. Humidity dropped. Temps went up. Take apart. Clean. Good to go. Also I gave the plants their first feeding @ 1500 EC / Ph 60.

My hit and run plant care style has failed me again. After the first feeding there was a growth spurt and Bride Cake shot right up into  the lights. Some burning but not too bad. I'll get pics the next time I go home.