1° Balconing - APEX: Critical XXL AUTO

Good afternoon G's,

I have been lurking around Icmag since 2011, due to force majeure I have lost the details of the old profile and I don't know how to recover it. For various problems, I left the forum back in the days and eventually I expatriated.

After spending some time in London working as a "slave" and after 5 years I (finally) moved to Spain, to the Balearic Islands to be exact. After a year here and inquiring about the various laws, but especially after meeting a house that would allow me, I decided to put a few pots on the balcony!

I have been kindly given 30+ seeds of Critical XXL AUTO from APEX and a few RQS-Amnesia Haze Fem
I live on a 9th floor, facing south, that means, from 1pm more or less till sunset

Assuming that I have never grown an Amnesia haze, plus feminized plus more on the balcony (many "PLUS" already) do you guys think it will be manageable at the end of flowering or will I fine myself with a monster on the balcony? I know it's not the best plant to grow first time in general, but should I have done? Say no?

I also know that the Amnesia Haze it's quite delicate strain to deal with, specially for first timers like me, because of the mould and fungi problems that comes from a long flowering stage, but I really hope the good balearic weather will help me out, I have faith!

Good point to consider is that from being a slave in London I came to being it in Spain, the situation has not changed so much from there, once all this crazy situation will be over, I dont know how much time I will have to stay behind them..

Just wanted to clarify that I was completely stunned, ok that the techniques over the years advances and all these things, but here we talk about science fiction !! You are crazy guys, let me tell you that, I have seen extractions, cultivations and all we can do with our little ones, HATS OFF boys, really lively congrats, you are heroes!

Happy to be back hanging out around here

Pics are a week old, this evening I'll update with some fresh shot

The 3 bathces have a week differnece between them, from left to right, oldest to youngers:

Pics from 4/14

Pics from 4/14

Great start! What size containers are you using?

aridbud said:

Great start! What size containers are you using?

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Hi Airbud, thanks for coming by, I presume you are talking about the taller ones, they’re 8lt water tank if you want I could give sizes

Nice start


bigger pots ( 14l-20l ) would be better ,

bibi40 said:

Nice start


bigger pots ( 14l-20l ) would be better ,

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Hi bibi whats up? nice to see you around

I know mate but with this covid-19 I had plenty of problems getting the some stuff like soil, pots and a few more things so it was the only solution I am actually lucky to have found them, I did start collecting bottles of soda and stuff like that...

Pennello5 said:

I live on a 9th floor, facing south, that means, from 1pm more or less till sunset

Assuming that I have never grown an Amnesia haze, plus feminized plus more on the balcony (many "PLUS" already) do you guys think it will be manageable at the end of flowering or will I fine myself with a monster on the balcony? I know it's not the best plant to grow first time in general, but should I have done? Say no?

Click to expand...

Will they receive artificial light at night? You might want to consider an artificial 12/12 using a dark room or cupboard if you have one - or even some kind of dark curtain on the balcony - then you can switch to flower whenever you like.

El Timbo said:

Will they receive artificial light at night? You might want to consider an artificial 12/12 using a dark room or cupboard if you have one - or even some kind of dark curtain on the balcony - then you can switch to flower whenever you like.

Click to expand...

Autos shouldn't be subjected to 12/12 lighting. Preferably 18/6, 19/5 (that's our sweet spot) or 20/4, or au natural light increasing a minute or 2 a day. Turn them 1/4 turn every week to get sun on all the plant since you are on a balcony. Good luck!

El Timbo said:

Will they receive artificial light at night? You might want to consider an artificial 12/12 using a dark room or cupboard if you have one - or even some kind of dark curtain on the balcony - then you can switch to flower whenever you like.

Click to expand...

Hi timbo,

they wont recevie any artificial light, I could use my bedside table lamp but I olny have 15w 6500k cfl, anyway i wanted to use just the sun light, Mediterranean power you know?

See ya Timbo

aridbud said:

Autos shouldn't be subjected to 12/12 lighting. Preferably 18/6, 19/5 (that's our sweet spot) or 20/4, or au natural light increasing a minute or 2 a day. Turn them 1/4 turn every week to get sun on all the plant since you are on a balcony. Good luck!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the advice, I'am already doing it, since we must stay at home I have plenty of time for them to spend with.

I just see them really small, Monday will be a month, and they're all AF so i am bit worried about a really close flowering stage that would produce nothing....anyway, let's seat and wait,

See you soon Airbud!

aridbud said:

Autos shouldn't be subjected to 12/12 lighting. Preferably 18/6, 19/5 (that's our sweet spot) or 20/4, or au natural light increasing a minute or 2 a day. Turn them 1/4 turn every week to get sun on all the plant since you are on a balcony. Good luck!

Click to expand...

I was talking about the Amnesia Haze - are they auto as well?

Pennello5 said:

I just see them really small, Monday will be a month, and they're all AF so i am bit worried about a really close flowering stage that would produce nothing....

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that' s normal , not enough daytime in outdoor at this period ,
certainly you don' t get a lot ,
in Europe best period for plant auto is May , ( plant the seeds ) , in south of spain too ,
plant some others in one month for get power - plant ,
and if you can do 3 weeks indoor at 18/6 before ... Jackpot

grow supplies

grow supplies

Have you tried grow barato to get pots and soil? I don't know if they deliver to the islands or not but they are very good.

El Timbo said:

I was talking about the Amnesia Haze - are they auto as well?

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No they aren't auto, the Amnesia Haze are regular feminized seeds

El Timbo said:

Have you tried grow barato to get pots and soil? I don't know if they deliver to the islands or not but they are very good.

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From your suggestion I presume you are in spain too, I did tried GrowBarato, Eurogrow and a few more but the shops on the island werent doing any delivery so I had to order from peninsula BUT because of the soil's weight the fees were crazy like 45/55€ for 150lt of soil which cost roughly 60€... I found some on the island but it hasnt been easy at all

bibi40 said:

that' s normal , not enough daytime in outdoor at this period ,
certainly you don' t get a lot ,
in Europe best period for plant auto is May , ( plant the seeds ) , in south of spain too ,
plant some others in one month for get power - plant ,
and if you can do 3 weeks indoor at 18/6 before ... Jackpot

Click to expand...

I was expecting definetly much more sun by this time of the year, like the past one, a nice spring started on February, but this year seems to be slower, just bad wether on March a this last week of April its not bringing any joy, but hey, got other 20ish Crtitical XXL and few more, waiting for the hot season to come.... any way what kind treatment do you guys suggest for that/those Amensia Haze Fem? Topping to 8 colas o Mainlining keeping the plant "small" by loosing pleny new shoots in veg?

cheers for coming by Gentlemen

Pennello5 said:

No they aren't auto, the Amnesia Haze are regular feminized seeds

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So I can help you with them... as it happens I'm also growing autos for the first time but I have years of experience growing photoperiod plants on terraces in SE Spain - just a little further south than you.

I think the weather will settle down soon - with the photoperiod plants I can get 4 harvests a year. I have 4 x 12 week flowering periods, which gives me 4 weeks wriggle room. I tend to have some plants flowering while the next lot are vegging and I use a dark room for flowering and artificial light at night for vegging.

Topping is a personal choice - I prefer not to for seed grows as I like to see what a plant does naturally.

El Timbo said:

So I can help you with them... as it happens I'm also growing autos for the first time but I have years of experience growing photoperiod plants on terraces in SE Spain - just a little further south than you.

I think the weather will settle down soon - with the photoperiod plants I can get 4 harvests a year. I have 4 x 12 week flowering periods, which gives me 4 weeks wriggle room. I tend to have some plants flowering while the next lot are vegging and I use a dark room for flowering and artificial light at night for vegging.

Topping is a personal choice - I prefer not to for seed grows as I like to see what a plant does naturally.

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Hi Timbo thank you so much for replying, hopefully the weather will settle down soon as you said and things will start to go better..

For the Amnesia's i was thinking to go like 0,5/3,5/6,5/11 to keep sizes down, do some practice with different tecniques and why not, trying to improve yield even do a plant that grows naturally is sexy

UPDATE 22/4

UPDATE 22/4

Hi guys, How is it going everything?

My current situation:



And this one has been sacrified to read a couple of guide on training and stuff!



See you in a week guys, problems apart

El Timbo said:

I was talking about the Amnesia Haze - are they auto as well?

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Amnesia Haze can be either autoflower or photoperiod. Does it specifically say AUTO? Or, what breeder?

aridbud said:

Amnesia Haze can be either autoflower or photoperiod. Does it specifically say AUTO? Or, what breeder?

Click to expand...

Pennello5 said:

No they aren't auto, the Amnesia Haze are regular feminized seeds

Click to expand...

Photoperiod

Amnesia haze is the photoperiodic one from Royal Queen seeds, sorry I didn’t mention it before.

Here we go another weekly upload in this quarantine..pics are from yesterday.

5th week for the oldest ones:

4th week for them:

How one of them reacted to the LST:

This one got bended 2 days ago

And then last but not least, 3rd week for them


We end today's upload, I apologize for the low quality photos I hope you'll get the idea..and since I had some space left on the balcony, I put in water on the 26/4, 2xRQS Amnesia Haze and after only 36h they were both open and one with an interesting rootlet, grounded one and the other one sttil in cotton, probably today in the evening it will end up next to the others.

The plan with the Amnesia is to practice the various Topping and LST techniques, I am considering Mainlining on one of the two, but it is on hold, at the next update chicos!