0:12

Ladies and Gentlemen , stoners and Growers

0:14

, welcome to a midnight rendezvous

0:16

like no other . I'm your host

0:19

, socrates Gros , broadcasting

0:21

live from a server in the heart of

0:23

America . Join

0:25

me on an extraordinary journey through

0:27

the lush foliage of my autoflower

0:29

garden to learn how to grow your own fire

0:31

at home . This is the Autoflower

0:34

Power Podcast , the podcast

0:36

that takes you deep into the hidden realms

0:38

of the horticultural marvels that we

0:40

call autofowers

0:42

. On

0:46

this special Halloween episode

0:48

, we'll be doing an anthology of topics

0:50

, all things that will scare the crap

0:53

out of you and your garden , including overwater

0:55

, fungus gnats and bud

0:58

rot . So sit back , enjoy

1:00

, grab some Halloween treats hopefully you've

1:02

been trick-or-treating and enjoy

1:04

this episode of Autoflower

1:07

Power . One

1:16

morning you go into your garden and you open

1:18

the door , you notice your leaves

1:20

aren't looking so good . They're drooping

1:23

. This is a telltale sign

1:25

Right after the lights

1:27

go on and throughout the day . If you see

1:29

more constant drooping , you might

1:31

be overwatering your plants . Typically

1:34

, overwatering is

1:36

shown first through drooping

1:38

leaves . There'll be a couple other signs

1:40

, in addition to the drooping leaves , that you're

1:43

going to want to take a look out for , including

1:45

the top of the plant yellowing

1:47

out a bit more than the bottom of the plant

1:49

. So this will show itself on newer

1:51

growth towards the top of the plant , but just the top

1:53

of the plant . In general , sometimes this

1:56

looks a little bit like there's too much light

1:58

or light burn , but really what you're

2:00

seeing is that this is a

2:02

sign that you're overwatering your plant , especially

2:04

when the leaves are both yellowing and

2:07

drooping to some degree . Another

2:10

sign that you might be overwatering your plant

2:12

is the traditional drooping

2:14

that you'll see plus browning

2:16

edges . So when

2:18

you get kind of like nutrient

2:21

burn , you'll see more tip burn . This

2:23

is going to be a burn that's all the way along

2:25

the edges , all the way from the tip of

2:27

the leaves towards the back of the leaves

2:30

, and again you might see some drooping involved

2:32

with this . These two together

2:34

again they're a sign that you're overwatering

2:36

your plants . One

2:38

more sign as far as the leaves

2:40

go is brown

2:43

and yellow spots . These can

2:45

again look like nutrient burn , but when

2:47

they're coupled with drooping or

2:49

the browning of edges , it's a pretty

2:51

good sign that you're just over watering

2:53

your plant and that your plant is not able to

2:55

take up the oxygen that it needs

2:58

to keep growing and keep the roots healthy . You

3:01

can also over water in small

3:03

like transplant cups like whether it's you're

3:05

doing the solo cup method or double

3:07

solo cup method Typically

3:09

you'll see more algae growth towards the

3:11

top the plant . This is green , almost

3:14

like mossy , like growth on top of the

3:16

plant . It might look like mold or something but that's

3:18

actually just algae and that

3:20

is a direct sign that there's too much water on

3:23

the top portion of that container that's

3:25

being exposed to the light

3:27

. So if you see

3:29

algae growth on your small transplant

3:31

cups , this typically won't happen on your large full-size

3:34

plants in the 5 gallon

3:36

or 3 or 7 gallon pots . But

3:39

on smaller you know solo cup

3:41

or transplant cup size pots

3:43

you might see some green growth and

3:45

that's a sign that the top of your soil

3:47

is actually too moist . And that's going to lead into

3:49

our next problem that we'll talk about in a few

3:51

minutes . But let's talk about with the actual problems

3:54

with over watering and

3:56

what that does to your plant and what the problems really could lead

3:58

to . So when you're over watering

4:01

your plant , obviously you're just adding too much water

4:03

and you're not allowing any oxygen into

4:05

the root zone . This doesn't allow

4:07

the roots to get the oxygen that it needs and

4:10

it doesn't allow the plant to breathe and take up the

4:12

nutrients that it needs as well . The

4:14

problem really is that we

4:17

can't see the root zone , so

4:19

we can't tell whether the roots

4:22

look healthy or unhealthy . We

4:24

can't tell exactly what the state of them are . So we really

4:26

have to look at the top half the plant to diagnose

4:28

these problems . And

4:30

if we don't catch these in time , these

4:32

can cause other problems . And the

4:34

biggest one especially if you're catching

4:37

in the first couple weeks is

4:39

stunting . So if you're over

4:41

watering your plant early on , especially in

4:43

the solo cups or right after

4:45

transplant , or even in its full-size

4:48

container , if you're directly planting

4:50

, over watering can lead to much smaller

4:52

plants in the end , and that's something

4:54

we want to prevent because ultimately

4:57

with autoflowers you don't have any time

4:59

to catch back up like you do with photo periods

5:01

. So over watering is really

5:03

it's a nightmare . You

5:06

want to avoid it pretty much at all

5:08

costs . You're almost better off to underwater

5:10

than over water . Underwatering is another problem

5:12

, but that's a little bit easier

5:14

to remedy quickly

5:17

and I don't want to say the

5:19

problems are less . But over

5:21

watering is something that we should be looking at

5:23

as far as potential problems

5:25

and something that we could easily prevent . So what

5:27

are some of the solutions . One

5:30

easy solution is to let your medium dry

5:32

back in between waters . Especially if you're

5:34

hand watering , you're going to want

5:37

to make sure that the top couple layers

5:39

of your soil are dry

5:41

before you add back any water . You don't want those

5:43

top couple inches to be super wet

5:45

. Your root zone is really below those two

5:47

inches . So the top two inches unless

5:49

you're covering them up with some kind of mulch

5:52

or mulch covering , which is

5:54

another topic we could discuss in the future you

5:56

kind of want that to allow . You want

5:59

to allow time for that to dry and

6:01

no longer be soaking wet before you apply

6:03

more water . So one way to

6:06

check that that's really easy is just to dip

6:08

your finger in there and you kind of want it to be maybe

6:10

up to the first knuckle at least , if

6:12

not the second knuckle . You want to feel that to be

6:14

dry before you're going to go in hand

6:16

water anymore . This

6:19

confirms that it's probably dry enough

6:21

that you can water and that it's dried back far

6:23

enough . The plant does want to dry back a little bit

6:25

, especially on the top of the soil . So

6:27

this is a really good test and an easy

6:29

way to prevent over watering . As

6:33

far as knowing when to water , that

6:35

also goes with you're probably going to want to water

6:38

less frequently if you found yourself having watering

6:40

problems . Watering less frequency

6:43

and also watering with less volume are kind

6:45

of a one and two combo . You

6:47

could do one or the other or some combination

6:50

of both . You're going to want to read your plants and kind

6:52

of see whether

6:54

the plants want maybe a deeper water

6:56

, left less often and

6:58

allowed more of a dry back , or maybe just less

7:01

water on a more frequent basis

7:03

. Also , this depends a lot

7:05

on your medium . So if you're using

7:07

cocoa , you're going to want to dry

7:09

back less frequently and water

7:11

more frequently . So use less

7:14

water but water more frequently . With cocoa

7:16

Traditional soil

7:18

you can water a little

7:20

bit deeper and allow to dry off for

7:23

a longer period . So

7:25

really that does depend on your medium

7:28

. As far as the

7:30

green algae that grows on top of your soil

7:32

, you can use the double solo cup

7:34

method . So basically you're

7:36

just sub-irrigating in the

7:38

transplant cups . This is a great way

7:41

to prevent the top soil from getting too

7:43

moist , because you're really saturating

7:45

that bottom soil and if

7:47

you have any air flow , so

7:50

oscillating fans or anything to you

7:52

know kind of blow air over the top of

7:54

both your transplant cups and

7:56

your final pots . That'll help keep

7:58

that top soil dry and that

8:00

bottom soil in your pot where

8:02

the roots are moist

8:04

. Another thing

8:07

, along with the double soil lookup method , is

8:09

you can use sub-irrigation . This is , you

8:11

know , auto pots or self-watering pots

8:13

. Also earth boxes

8:15

, city pickers , anything like that , any

8:17

type of sippy boy as they're

8:19

sometimes referred is a

8:21

good way to prevent overwatering . This

8:24

allows the plants rather to

8:26

take up the water as they need it . They're

8:29

not going to overwater themselves , they're just going

8:31

to wick up in self-wicking

8:33

pots or in earth boxes

8:35

, or they're going to feed themselves and take in the

8:38

right amount of oxygen and the right amount of water

8:40

in auto pots . Again

8:42

, sub-irrigation is a great way

8:45

for the plant to not only

8:47

not overwater itself but to really

8:49

regulate the amount of water

8:51

that it takes to maximize growth

8:53

potential . So really take a look at

8:55

sub-irrigation I think we're going to do a whole show on sub-irrigation

8:58

at some point and some of the different methods

9:00

you can use . So another way

9:03

to prevent overwatering is to use sub-irrigation

9:05

and , you know , sip pots

9:08

. Basically , if you are hand

9:10

watering , only water under

9:12

the perimeter of the leaves . So when you've

9:14

got a full-size plant you can

9:17

fill the entire final bag

9:19

. But you know , if you've got a small plant

9:21

in a big pot , only water

9:24

around the perimeter . The roots are only under the

9:26

perimeter of the plant . You don't want to over saturate

9:28

that bag and you don't want to create too

9:30

much moisture in the air . So

9:33

those are some ways that you could prevent overwatering

9:35

your auto flower plants

9:38

. One morning you walk

9:40

into your garden , you

9:42

unzip your tent , you

9:44

look at your beautiful

9:46

plants but you notice there

9:48

are disgusting slender , fly-like creatures

9:51

buzzing around your plants , crawling

9:53

along your soil and popping out anytime

9:56

the soil is deserbed . You see

9:58

similar signs of overwatering . Potentially

10:00

your plants have been stunted if

10:02

they're early in their development . This

10:04

is an early sign of fungus

10:07

gnats , one of the most disgusting

10:09

, gross little problems that you

10:11

could have in your garden . Now if your plants

10:13

are fully developed and no longer in the seedling

10:16

stage or small vegetative stage , it's

10:18

probably not such a big deal . It's more of

10:20

just a gross factor that you've got little

10:22

gnats and little larvae crawling

10:24

around your soil . Don't forget

10:27

this is a Halloween episode . So excuse

10:29

me for some of these gross little bits . But

10:32

if you do have smaller plants in the seedling

10:35

stage , there's a good chance that that larvae

10:37

are going to go after the roots of that small

10:39

plant and prevent

10:41

it from growing to its full development . So

10:45

these are fungus gnats that you're seeing

10:48

flying around and the larvae in

10:50

the soil if you're so

10:52

unlucky to find some of these white , little tiny

10:55

wiggly worms , are its larvae

10:57

. So what are some solutions

10:59

to the fungus gnat problem

11:02

? Really , what we're going to try to

11:04

do with fungus gnats and most

11:06

bug problems is we're going to try to break the

11:08

gnat life cycle , which is only about

11:10

a week or so . So there's really

11:12

two stages that we need to address

11:15

. It's the adult gnat and the larvae

11:17

, which are the two different issues that you

11:19

see going on . The first is that we're going to

11:21

try to manage the adult gnats . The

11:23

easiest ways to address these are

11:25

to use sticky traps . You've

11:27

probably seen these in garden stores or on Amazon

11:30

. They're yellow garden

11:32

traps . They're basically stuck

11:34

in your soil . There's glue on them

11:36

and they're yellow , usually in the sign or the

11:39

shape of a butterfly or a flower something

11:41

cute for your garden and

11:44

they basically attract gnats to the

11:46

yellow and the glue on them catches

11:49

the gnats . This is not necessarily

11:51

a way to stop the infestation , but it is

11:53

a way to slow down the

11:55

reproduction of the new larvae

11:57

from the adult fungus

12:00

gnats and also it's an easy

12:03

way that you can monitor how bad the infestation

12:05

is and if you're getting ahead of the problem

12:07

or if the problem's getting worse , by replacing those

12:09

traps every week or so , which

12:11

we'll kind of talk about in just

12:13

a second . You can also

12:16

use hanging traps around your

12:18

tent or your grow room . If there's an issue

12:20

outside of the actual

12:23

tent that you're growing in or the garden that you're

12:25

growing in , this should

12:27

catch some extraneous fungus

12:29

nats just flying around . Another

12:31

thing that you can do with these hanging traps is that

12:33

you can wrap them around on themselves and

12:36

use the little twist tie and

12:39

put them around the base of one

12:41

of your plants . So basically , where the main

12:43

stalk is coming out of the medium

12:46

, you can just basically wrap it around there

12:48

and create like a little crown almost

12:50

on top of the medium around the plant , which

12:52

will help as a barrier for the adult

12:54

nats . And really , since the

12:57

larvae are going for your roots

12:59

, this is gonna be where the main area of the problem

13:01

are . So if you do use sticky traps

13:03

, or you use hanging traps . Put them

13:05

near the base of your

13:08

stalk . Replace

13:12

these traps , either weekly or bi-weekly , depending

13:14

on the need . The next

13:16

step is that you're gonna wanna destroy the larvae

13:18

. This is pretty gross . One

13:21

of the easiest ways to do this is

13:23

none of these are easy . Let me just

13:26

start off with that . Fungus

13:28

nats are not something that you are necessarily

13:30

gonna 100% get rid of , but it's

13:32

something that you can one prevent and two

13:34

manage . So every

13:37

one of these steps that I'm laying out is not necessarily

13:39

something that's gonna completely stop the

13:41

fungus nats in their tracks , but they're

13:43

all steps that you can take to help

13:45

prevent them without using

13:47

any sort of like fungicide or insecticide

13:49

, which I just straight up won't be talking about today . So

13:52

you can take a look at some of those on

13:55

their own . I know there's many different

13:58

products that are both organic and

14:00

safe on the line and

14:02

we might talk about them in the future , but that's

14:04

just not on the radar for

14:06

today . So , as far as

14:08

destroying the larvae , the

14:10

first thing we can do is we can dry out the topsoil

14:12

. Again , this goes with the overwatering

14:15

problem , and one of the easiest ways to handle

14:17

it is that we can just have oscillating

14:20

fans or just some sort of fan blowing

14:22

air over the top of the soil specifically

14:24

to make sure that the

14:26

two top inches are fully dried

14:29

out in between watering . We

14:31

can also lower the RH

14:34

in the tent or in the garden . This

14:36

will help prevent oversaturated

14:39

and over wet environments , which is something

14:41

that the fungus nats are drawn

14:43

to and really enjoy . So

14:46

lowering the RH through

14:48

dehumidifiers or more airflow

14:50

through your inline fans will also

14:53

help . You can use something

14:56

called BT , which is made up

14:58

of fossilized shells . These are

15:00

basically microscopically small

15:02

pieces

15:05

that will destroy the life of the larvae

15:07

. It's safe for people and pets . I

15:10

know some people use

15:13

these in cat food

15:15

if cats get worms , especially

15:17

for outside feral cats . So

15:19

it's safe for you and your pets , but

15:21

it will kill the larvae and

15:23

it will hopefully break up the

15:25

life cycle and stop it to

15:28

some degree . Again , none

15:30

of these are perfect , so

15:32

BT is just one solution

15:35

. As far as BT goes , you can crush

15:37

it up and soak it in water and use that water

15:39

to water the plants . You

15:41

can also soak mosquito bits

15:43

in water for 24

15:45

hours and remove the bits and just use the water

15:47

. There's

15:50

a couple different ways to use BT

15:52

to break the life cycle of the gnats . The

16:03

next one is to use a biological

16:05

control , which would be beneficial nematodes

16:07

. This one sounds pretty strange

16:09

. It's best used at the beginning of an outbreak

16:12

or preventively for the most

16:14

part , but it's worth doing , especially

16:16

if you're an organic rower , especially if you've

16:18

had fungus gnats in the past or

16:20

if you have a lot of house plants that have had fungus

16:23

gnats . Mining nematodes

16:25

are microscopic worms . They

16:28

burrow themselves into the nat

16:30

larvae , which is disgusting Again

16:32

Halloween episode . They

16:34

reproduce inside the bodies and they produce

16:36

a toxin that kills the larvae

16:38

. As these little

16:41

microscopic worms reproduce , they

16:43

spread because they're too big for the larvae

16:45

body and they go through the soil and seek

16:47

out new hosts and then reproduce inside

16:50

of new larvae , destroying

16:52

the cycle . So

16:54

yeah , happy Halloween . Each

16:58

nematode manufacturer has different

17:00

directions . Follow the directions closely

17:03

, because if you don't follow those directions

17:05

, these won't work . In

17:07

most cases you're going to have to do multiple applications

17:09

, whether it's every seven days or every 14

17:12

days also , depending on your infestation

17:14

. Follow

17:17

the directions for each nematode

17:19

product . They're all different

17:21

. Some of them you could apply to the top , some of them you

17:23

need to mix with water . Most

17:26

of them you're going to probably need to keep

17:28

refrigerated because

17:31

these are living organisms . Some of them have

17:33

been shelf stabilized , but most

17:36

you do need to refrigerate . So keep that in

17:38

mind . My

17:40

best results that I've had to

17:42

just tell you guys , the product as far as best

17:45

results was something called Nature's

17:47

Good Guys Triple Blend , hb

17:49

plus SF plus SC . I

17:52

found them at a local grow shop

17:54

and they needed to be refrigerated

17:57

. They were mixed in with water and then applied

17:59

through top watering . So

18:02

just my experience with nematodes . I'd encourage

18:04

you to try them if you've never experienced them

18:07

. Sounds a little bit weird that you've got microscopic

18:10

worms attacking larvae in your soil

18:12

, but it works . This is one

18:14

way to break that larvae cycle and get

18:16

fungus gnats out of your garden . So

18:20

let's go back to the past for

18:22

my worst garden nightmare to date

18:25

. I'm about to trim up

18:27

some recently dried and

18:29

about to be cured fat-nugged

18:31

white labeled northern lights . It

18:33

was probably some bunk seeds that I got from

18:36

one of those generic stores I don't want to say which , but

18:38

you guys know where all starters

18:40

kind of begin . It was one of those

18:43

types of places . This plant

18:45

was completely fertilized

18:47

using salts and I pushed this one as far

18:49

as I could . This was about my third grow . I

18:51

was very proud of the size . I

18:54

don't want to say that . It was

18:56

either the northern lights seeds

18:58

or the fertilizer , so don't take

19:01

that as the problem . I'll get into what

19:03

I believe for sure was the problem

19:05

in just a second . So

19:07

I'm about to start trimming up

19:09

these giant , heavy , massive

19:12

nugs of northern lights

19:14

that I'm so excited to check out , and

19:17

as I'm trimming I noticed

19:19

that there's maybe some

19:22

like dust or some like fuzz

19:24

or something that's kind of popping

19:26

up in the air . Every time I kind of dig into

19:28

the actual bud itself

19:31

and I notice that

19:34

it just doesn't seem

19:36

quite right . There's something different about this

19:38

than any of the other two times that I

19:40

had previously trimmed

19:42

my dried weed . It

19:44

seemed overdry or something like that . I

19:46

couldn't really put my finger on it . It

19:49

wasn't until that I broke into the nugs

19:51

that I found an almost like web-like material

19:54

and I really started freaking out

19:56

. I realized immediately that

19:58

this was bud rot . This giant

20:00

crop of monster buds was completely

20:03

ruined . This entire run

20:05

, these months of work to get my biggest plant

20:07

to date , was ruined because

20:10

I had fucked up and I had created

20:12

bud rot in these giant buds . When

20:15

it comes to bud rot , prevention is key

20:17

. You've got to monitor your humidity

20:19

and your temperature . You got to keep your R8 well

20:22

below 60% , especially

20:24

if you've got dense top colas . It's

20:26

really these dense colas , like I mentioned

20:29

in this particular run , that are

20:31

prone to rotting . Smaller

20:33

satellite colas don't have as much of an

20:35

issue because you can get more airflow to them

20:37

, but big , fat , tall

20:40

, high times looking dense

20:42

colas typically

20:44

are the ones that are going to have the bud rot

20:46

. If you've got some plant that you're totally

20:48

pumping full in nutrients and really getting like

20:50

an awesome growth , these

20:53

might be the ones that you're going to want to keep an eye

20:55

on and really make sure that you keep your humidity

20:57

low . In addition to keeping

20:59

the humidity low , you're going to want to keep your air circulating

21:02

constantly on these colas

21:04

From midflower

21:06

on . You want to make sure you've got either

21:08

circulating fans or just

21:10

a bunch of airflow within your

21:12

tent going at all times . You

21:15

want to move the humidity out

21:17

of the tents and draw a new air with

21:19

inline fans . If you don't have that going

21:21

, you want to make sure you've got something

21:24

bringing in new air

21:26

. Really , all you can do is learn

21:28

to do better next time . It takes one

21:30

run with bud rot to scare the shit

21:32

out of you and basically get you to watch

21:34

your humidity for every other grow you ever do

21:38

. For me , what was the solution on this

21:40

particular batch ? Well

21:43

, this was really a tough pill to swallow

21:45

, but I had to toss it all . I

21:47

wasn't going to risk it and try to pick around

21:49

this . I wasn't going to , you know , make myself

21:51

sick or , you know

21:53

, worry every time . I tried to enjoy

21:56

this bump Northern lights

21:58

anyways , and

22:01

I just had to take the L

22:03

and toss this plant

22:17

. Thanks for checking out this extra scary

22:19

Halloween episode of the Auto Flower Power

22:21

Podcast . One final

22:23

thought for Halloween before we go If

22:26

you've got them , let your black cats

22:28

eat your family's . On

22:31

this episode , we've discussed the horrors of overwatering

22:35

, infestations of fungus

22:37

gnats and the incurable

22:39

bud rot . I hope you've

22:41

taken something away from this episode that you

22:43

can apply directly to your garden today to

22:45

grow bigger , more vigorous and monster

22:48

giant plants . Check out the show

22:50

notes for this episode at SocratesGrovescom

22:53

. Slash Nightmares . You'll

22:55

find notes and links from this episode

22:57

Also . Feel free to email me at SocratesGroves

23:00

, at protonmailcom and

23:03

until next time , take it easy . Bye

23:06

.