What's new
  • Please note members who been with us for more than 10 years have been upgraded to "Veteran" status and will receive exclusive benefits. If you wish to find out more about this or support IcMag and get same benefits, check this thread here.
  • Important notice: ICMag's T.O.U. has been updated. Please review it here. For your convenience, it is also available in the main forum menu, under 'Quick Links"!

Mitch's Auto Adventure......

mitch_connor

large member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Hello Mitch, This is an awesome thread. I'm so envious. Your living the dream, congrats on your new enterprise. I can't wait to grow out a few of your new strains! It takes alot of balls and heart to chase your dreams. Its been inspirational following your journey. Comtinued success bro:

Peace,
K

Thanks mate,
It has been and still is hard!
It would be fantastic to say we were living the life of riley, but 'poco a poco' (little by little) we are making progress. :)

Stay tuned anyhow, I'll get another update up soon

Cheers, mitch
 

mitch_connor

large member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
About 3 weeks ago, we set about doing a little renovation.
One of the smaller rooms here was known as the 'tent room' , an in between room that leads through to the larger room we built shown earlier in the thread.

It housed 4 x 1.2m tents each with a 600w, these were good (and now relocated) however we felt we could get more from this space and utilise it for larger mephisto project grows.

This is how it looked in it's old state, bits and pieces in there as we were giving the main room a big clean down:
picture.php


With the tents disassembled and the room cleaned, it looked like this:
picture.php


When we first arrived we added a dedicated circuit for this room in order to run the tents, and installed two double waterproof sockets, and mounted ballasts on the wall.
UK spec sockets to match the equipment we had brought over:
picture.php


We ordered some extra equipment, and set aside some items already to hand that we could make use off. The plan was to affix a damp proof membrane (thick plastic sheeting) to all walls, and cover over the top of that with black/white for reflectivity.
Then to do the same for the floor.

At this stage the walls were done and we began to roughly mark out the layout of the room and figure out where to position the lights. There are areas of the room that cannot be used, as there is the hot water heater, a door and the walkway into the mainroom.
picture.php


Here are the reflectors hung, and the grow area in white:
picture.php


To be continued..
 

paulo73

Convicted for turning dreams into reality
Veteran
Nice!!!
Have you thought about liquid silicone?!
It´s just like a very thick paint that after drying creates a damp proof membrane.
Not cheap but good stuff mainly for walls&ceilings.
I look forward to the next update.
 
S

Spider Crab

Great thread Mitch. I look forward to see what creations you have hatched. :)

That hash pancake looks like a giant choc chip cookie.
 

mitch_connor

large member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Nice!!!
Have you thought about liquid silicone?!
It´s just like a very thick paint that after drying creates a damp proof membrane.
Not cheap but good stuff mainly for walls&ceilings.
I look forward to the next update.

Hi Paulo, thanks for reminding me, I forgot to mention.
One wall is underground, on that wall prior to the membrane, we painted it with 'bitchumen paint' , It's a thick tarry paint that seals the wall and will not let moisture through.
It's around 25 euros for a decent sized tin.

I did several basement conversions in England, and if you've been down in a victorian houses cellar they are very damp usually :)

So in comparison, this was a breeze. Better to go belt and braces wherever possible though!

Cheers, Mitch!
 

paulo73

Convicted for turning dreams into reality
Veteran
I seem to forgot you came from sunny England :)
Nice to see you got it all covered.
 

mitch_connor

large member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
One thing we really wanted to do with this room was make a raised growing platform to separate the cold floor from the pots.
If we had more time and a bigger budget we would have built a timber framed floor. However using what we had to hand, we raised the floor using breezeblocks (cinderblocks) and safety glass. (No plans to be jumping up and down on them) But with weight evenly distributed on them, they seem plenty sturdy.
We will see how we get on with them for a run or two, and then there's always the option to upgrade.
picture.php


We added some wall mounted circulatory fans, added ducting and inline fans, lengthening any wires where needed.
picture.php


With the room 95% complete, we were able to add a few little gizmos.
Lights just fired up, it's pretty cold in spain!
picture.php


And finally a little toy from mr c.
picture.php
 

mitch_connor

large member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Hey guys, now all the build progress and general documentation is out of the way, I can start to show some of the project strains we have been steadily working on. Some are well over two years in the making, but we are doing our best now to strike whilst the iron is hot, and make constant progress.

We have an extensive list of projects in the works, but I'll break you in gently with one!

Our first new strain is named '24 carat' (Sour Boggle x P.I ),
The F3's of these are currently running. The pictures here are all of the F1 plants.

Background info:
This is the most indica strain in our line-up. The plants when young exhibit very afghanica looking leaves. Fast flowering, thick, and highly potent plants is the objective.
It will be my strain of choice to run AF-SOG's, minimal branching when roots are restricted, but should you wish to grow them out in lower densities, and allow the roots more space to explore, a good grow and environment will see a bushier and higher yielding plant as an end result.

I made the F1's as a two way cross, Crossing a male Sour Boggle to the breeding AFs (I had a group of 60 Auto female plants to choose from and I dusted only two from this selection that had the traits I was seeking),
I also crossed a male AF, to my star female cutting. I passed my sour B cutting out to several friends and received very positive feedback.
She is stocky and produces rock hard nugs and has leaves as big as dinner plates if you let her grow as a single cola plant. However unlike a pure Sour bubble, it has great vigour and responds very well to topping and training. The effect is highly medicinal, the buds are completely frosted and in cooler conditions she will purple up. It was also chosen for it's mould resistant qualities. (an important trait for SOG use)

I kept the batches from both crosses separate in the hope of getting the best of both to show in the F1 plants.

Here are some past images of her. F4 beans going to be made this run and I will capture many more images.

picture.php


picture.php


picture.php


picture.php


picture.php


I was really very impressed with the f1's and f2's so far. Greatly Exceeding expectations.
The plant produces what I can only describe as proper nuggets of bud. And it is an absolute joy to trim and process.
We trimmed a whole room of a huge variety of plants, and this stuck out for me as the easiest.
High bud per plant ratio, Very high flower to leaf ratio.
She is being bred for absolute quality and power, and not to be an outright yielder on a single plant basis, however employ a group of them together and you will for sure be rewarded with a nice tally.

Hope you like guys. Peace Mitch
 

paulo73

Convicted for turning dreams into reality
Veteran
I do like it.
I´ve even learnt something new just by reading your detailed explanation, thanks buddy!
 

mitch_connor

large member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
2nd strain on our menu ! - 'Hubbabubbatelescope' (bubblegum cut x W.W AF)

A special cutting made it's way to my collection from eastern Europe. A 90's serious seeds bubblegum. Very high quality, tight dense nugs not massive individually but as a whole the plant is a great producer, branchy structure, but of course the best thing is the taste and smell. Complete bubblegummy yummyness. it's an indica leaning hybrid plant, with a zig zaggy structure (reminded me a little of our blues, but I guess they are both products of a similar era).
I made a few photo period crosses to the same cut, but really there isn't much room for improvement with her.

Apparently, 100's of other bubblegums from serious stock were grown out a few years ago to find a male and female similar to this cut to work from, and none matched this cutting.

This was crossed to a nice W.W male one of our stable breeding AF's, In the W.W AF line I look for the perfect hybrid pheno's between the indica and sativa leaning plants.
The nice branchy structure and fast growth rate, but with fast flowering buds to match.

From the batch of the F1's we grew out, there was one stand-out plant, that reeeked of bubblegum and was the chosen girl to hit up for F2's.

I can see this becoming a personal favourite of mine for a long time to come.

I have fond memories of bubblegum, as it was the first weed I ever bought in a coffee shop in Amsterdam a long long time ago, and I had 4 naps in one day as a result :)

In the F2's, the plants show good resistance to stunting and stress and have superior vigour and size to the older school of dwarf AF lines. They appear to not be at all finicky with feeding requirements and for people who have not grown AF's it could be a great strain to turn them on to our world of AF's.

I would like to stabilise them to a size of 2 feet tall over the generations (with restrictive potting) and a yield of 2+oz per plant. They look like perfect candidates for training and should prove a very versatile tool and strain in our Autoflower arsenal!

Here are a few pics of midflower:
picture.php


picture.php


picture.php


and a picture from just before harvest, she can get pretty colourful shown cooler temps:
picture.php


In the F2's I found two identical pheno's, both carrying through the lovely bubblegum scent. Their structure and flowers were also a duplicate of one another, and so they were my chosen girls to produce the F3's. (Sorry no pictures of the F2's)

F3's are 4 days old. Cheers, Mitch!
 

mitch_connor

large member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Merry xmas icmaggers, Here's a little bit of testing we are doing in one half of a room.

All auto's, day 17-18 from sprout. Started in 4.5L potted into 19L @sex. Various strains of ours. Using our recycled soil, only plain RO water so far.

picture.php


picture.php


picture.php
 

mitch_connor

large member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Happy new year everyone!
used this handsome man today :)
picture.php


Making F2 beans in the non-auto to auto process, the strain is called 'toof decay' - The parent photoperiod plant was Grapefruit x Blueberry or Sweetooth 1.1 as it's sometimes known.

cheers
 

mitch_connor

large member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
Some random photos from today,

Trucking along quite nicely now for day 28 from sprout, week 3-4 they've gone pretty crazy.

picture.php


picture.php


picture.php


picture.php


picture.php


Struggling to get the white balance right, but under hps it's pretty tricky, I'll try and sort out some lights off photos next time around.

Cheers,
 

Krull

Soul Feeder
Veteran
Wow Mitch!

I'm on IC seldom lately and i'm sorry to have completely missed this amazing thread!
Seems you've found a very nice location and with your dedication and serious AF breeding work i'm sure you're on the right path for succeding! I love outdoor buds the best, the greenhouses look neat and also the new indoor setup looks killer!

Best of luck

=K
 

paulo73

Convicted for turning dreams into reality
Veteran
The 4th picture could be called "Healthy Plants"
Lovely jobly!
 

mitch_connor

large member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
The 4th picture could be called "Healthy Plants"
Lovely jobly!

having numerous strains running simultaneously, it's hard to keep everything 100% happy, but the majority are looking pretty happy, so I can live with that.

Cheers Paulo, all the best with your grows this year.

Wow Mitch!

I'm on IC seldom lately and i'm sorry to have completely missed this amazing thread!
Seems you've found a very nice location and with your dedication and serious AF breeding work i'm sure you're on the right path for succeding! I love outdoor buds the best, the greenhouses look neat and also the new indoor setup looks killer!

Best of luck

=K

Krull, no worries bud! everyone is here, there and everywhere, busy is good!
I'm not sure of whether we can remain in the same place for the season, but I hope so, I'm dreaming of outdoor now. Last year was our first serious go at outdoor growing and I'm a convert, I love it how the bottom buds get as chunky as the top, humidity is the main enemy here, we didn't suffer much in the way of pests, just grasshopers that would chomp some fan leaves, but they leave the buds alone it seems.
We're starting preparation now.
Hope everything is cool with you.
 

mitch_connor

large member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
This is the (re)location to be for this years greenhouses, long story short we had to move from the old spot, pretty gutting after we put in all the hard work to clear it, but it's ok, we salvaged all the old wood which is the main expense.
There was an old greenhouse here that has now been dismantled, it just wants clearing, and some ground work and we should be good to rebuild in early spring.

picture.php


And here's a room at week 4 from sprout that we are trying out a collection of autos
picture.php


ta :)
 
Top