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I have germinated some Jackberry and Herebei seeds in the Burpee XL starter kit that will eventually be transplanted into 4 gallon AutoPots. AutoPot says I should not transplant into the AutoPots until I have at least 3 nodes, so my question is as long the sprouts are getting fed properly, will I be able to continue growing them that long in the Burpee starter pots? Thanks

I have a spare room (on HVAC) to grow in year round, but also have privacy enough to grow outdoors too. I have just started putting together my grow room, but have not really had a plan- only a goal of having a perpetual grow in and outdoors. My room currently only has: AgroMax original stacker tent (basically a 3x3x2.5 cube) 4' 6-lamp HO T5 (that i've had to stuff into the tent as best I could) 2' 2-lamp HO T5 (not using) 1000w digital HPS/MH Lamp (with adjustable power)- I have hanging from ceiling over the tent. It is a cooltube design with supply/exhaust to outside the house using 6" fan/ducting. I'm using an AutoPot 4-pot system with a 50% cocotek/perlite mix and about an inch of clay rock ball in the bottom of each AutoPot and will be feeding GH Flora Series Nutrients I have a couple of aquarium air pumps and thinking about putting air stones into the bottom of my AutoPots to provide air to the roots (AutoPot sells Aqua Domes or Air Domes, but think this will work too?) I also have a TON of Fire Retardant Heavy Duty wrapping used in scaffolding or other similar work that would probably make for an excellent tent material. But it is white and not sure how lightproof it would be... I don't even know all of the components of a room that would be required for me to grow year round other than light and water, let alone how to set a room up to efficiently do it easily and reliably. In fact, I would like nothing more than to meet someone locally who knows what they are doing to give me a hand with this project rather than suffering through the trial and error mistakes I know are coming thanks to my OCD and accompanying anxiety. I learn well by OJT... Because of the OCD and stuff, I also need to consider making this operation as understandable for me as possible. Once setup, I want to be able to pretty much be able to just follow a plan and pattern to keep things going and learn from over time while I gain confidence that I'm not going to kill everything I touch. I live in the DC area, so I need a good resource like this one for every aspect of the project from setup to harvest. It is all new to me other than a few rough practice grows and allowed me to harvest some seed to practice with so I can start growing strains that work best for OCD, PTSD, Anxiety, etc. I would welcome comments and suggestions on achieving my goals.

27 February Update: One month since Germination Temp: 75.4F RH: 55% PH: 6.17 PPM: 509 Lamp: 1000w IPower digital at 75% power and HPS lamp. Medium: Coco/Perlite Gave them all their GH Flora Series feeding today at 1 month since they popped. All systems go. I noticed that some of the lower foliage wasn't getting enough light, so I did the only things I could think to do: Turned up the power to 75% and ditched the tray I had them in so I could give them more space to breath and grow. I have been rotating them around and turning them periodically, so I'll keep doing that too. I continue to look for them to show sex and may have bogey dope on some bandits in the midst, but will give them some time to know for sure. I am anxious to get some ladies into Autopots so I can start cloning soon!. I resolved my low-RH problem by running two room humidifier's non-stop and actually saw 55% today! It's been around 30-35%, so I'm happy with that and think it has something to do with changing the upstairs thermostat and a rise in outside temperature cause it really shot up. I had been measuring PH and PPM in my bucket after mixing in the nutes. This time I read the runoff from one of them to get a PH of 6.17 and PPM of 509- which is a bit low according to the schedule GH put's out, but I am creating a custom schedule so I could probably give it a boost of something next feed?

AutoPot offers a product that is essentially an aquarium air stone sitting at the bottom of an AutoPot to aerate the root system. Their model has a plastic vented "dome." I'm a redneck, so I thought to myself, "I have a couple of air pumps and some air stones." Any reason this won't work just as well as long as they are under clay balls at the bottom of the pot? Can it hurt?

I decided to try the AutoPot and just setup a 4-pot system in my tent and have a question or two before I get too far along, which isn't far. I've only put about an inch or two of clay balls into the bottom of the 3.9 gallon pots... I have the following grow medium option's: CocoTEK, Perlite, and an high quality organic soil mix from a recipe I made a batch of some time ago and had stored in a garbage can in my barn. It is very dry, but I assume it will be okay to use once thoroughly wetted. My orginal plan was to use a combination of all 3 medium's: CocoTEK, Perlite and my organic soil. But I have no idea in what ratio to use and worry if too much soil, I'll burn my new plants when they are ready to transplant into it from seed starters. So if someone could recommend an approach for what I have, I would be grateful to learn from you. From there, I think I just need to get a handle on a feeding schedule as it goes along. I was thinking the soil should provide plenty of nutrients on it's own for awhile before I would need to start feeding anything else- so this is another area where I could use some advice if possible. Pic of my tent and setup below, but not much to look at so far...

GH_FloraSeries-DTW_03216am.pdfI called AutoPot and spoke to someone that gave me the following information in regard to the AutoPot and using Chemical Nutrients- specifically, the GH Flora Series. Things to Remember when following the attached feeding schedule: 1. Start by using only 50% of the recommended parts per gallon in the schedule. 2. During Veg maintain ppm below 700 and in Bloom below 1100 using a ppm meter. 3. Do NOT use the Floralicious product as it will gum up the Autopot system. The rest of the Flora products are okay to use with AutoPot. 4. However you start you plants, let them get firmly established with at least 3 nodes before transplanting into the AutoPot's. 5. ONLY feed RapidStart from above and NEVER add it to your reservoir. 6. When you do transplant into the AutoPot, DO NOT START THE SYSTEM and feed ONLY from above for 10 days, then start it. 7. Prior to starting, fill your reservoir with the appropriate mix of Nutrients on the schedule. In most cases, you will be able to simply top off your reservoir each week with the recommended amounts of nutrients as they do not change much from feeding to feeding. If in doubt, simply dump what is left in your reservoir, clean it, refill with the recommended amount and continue on.