Need some mentoring please: First time grow for experienced gardener

[chico1st]

Hi I have a few quesitons about my first grow! (Growing weed is really fun BTW, it's like high difficulty tomatoes!)

Before I show my plants 3 basic questions

1. I know there are lots of signs of issues with plants. Yellow leaves etc. but how long does it take to react to an issue/correction? My plants had signs of Nitrogen deficiency when I planted then in thier new pots outdoors 5 days ago and I don't know if my soil solved it.
2. Do leaves that are yellow/curled, turn normal after a correction? Or are they permanetly yellow?
3. When I see bad signs, does that imply impending plant death, or things just aren't ideal?

I have 3 plants, which all look a little different (I am growing NLxG13) and I'm in Ontario Canada. This is legal, yay!

I have 3 different potting mixes that I'm testing out, which maybe was dumb on my first grow. In general they are 1:1:1 Peat : Manure : Pearlite plus Dolomitic lime and I was varying my manure source. I planted them in thier new soil 5 days ago.

1. One plant has some yellow curled leaves at the bottom, and the new growth has a mottled lime colored spots. It's getting tall though!
   I don't know what to make of those signs.
   
2. Another has yellow fringes on the lower leaves only. It's a really bushy plant.
   The lower leaves only, so those are old??
3. My last plant seems happy but it's the smallest (it sprouted 2 weeks later).
   

I need a sensai!

 

[Greenthumblady]

Hey there.
Maybe I can help a bit here. Also in Canada and a home gardener who has a bit of experience under my belt with canabis.
A few things you definitely want to research first:
- Lighting and canabis. The number of hours of light and dark the plant is exposed to is extremely important and, depending where you live in Canada, and whether it is a photoperiod or autoflower (which is next thing to research) may mean that your babies wont be ready until October/November! The curling issue may be result of the plant having started it's flowering cycle but started "re-vegging" or reverting to it's vegetative cycle as a result of a change in the amount of hours of darkness. Were they indoors until now?
- Ph may or may not be an issue - but when it is it REALLY is. An extremely common mistake is incorrect ph. It can make it so certain nutrients are not available or overly available and has been the big lesson I've had to learn. Other people pop a seed in the earth and have no issues, but best to read into it.
- there are tons of canabis diagnosis pictures out there. Common issues often boil down to ph, and cal mag deficiency is very common and may be your lower yellow leaf problem.
- insects love pot. Keep an eye out on soil and leaves.
- low stress and high stress training. Bending the plant or making strategic cuts let you shape it and encourage to grow big and busy vs Christmas tree shaped. Like a tomato plant
- outdoor theft. It is absolutely legal for us to be growing our 4 plants in our backyard but doesnt stop people from coming in the dark of night and stealing them. You'll find out why a big old spotlight likely wont do when you research lighting. You very much want to avoid bringing attention to those plants. I had my plants stolen last year and it broke my heart after all the time and effort. Consider surveillance or sound deterrent but who knows. Be prepared. We wont all be as lucky as the guy in London who's theif dropped his licence. Cops actually got the plants back! O CANADA!!

Those are the basics. Lots of information on this site or the web to look into. Growweedeasy.com leafly.ca good places to start. Canabis is fairly flexible if you address issues quickly but depending on the issue may not repair damage already done.

Hope this helps!

You better have your veggies in by now too!

 

[Ron Herbs]

Hi I have a few quesitons about my first grow! (Growing weed is really fun BTW, it's like high difficulty tomatoes!)

Before I show my plants 3 basic questions

1. I know there are lots of signs of issues with plants. Yellow leaves etc. but how long does it take to react to an issue/correction? My plants had signs of Nitrogen deficiency when I planted then in thier new pots outdoors 5 days ago and I don't know if my soil solved it.
2. Do leaves that are yellow/curled, turn normal after a correction? Or are they permanetly yellow?
3. When I see bad signs, does that imply impending plant death, or things just aren't ideal?

I have 3 plants, which all look a little different (I am growing NLxG13) and I'm in Ontario Canada. This is legal, yay!

I have 3 different potting mixes that I'm testing out, which maybe was dumb on my first grow. In general they are 1:1:1 Peat : Manure : Pearlite plus Dolomitic lime and I was varying my manure source. I planted them in thier new soil 5 days ago.

1. One plant has some yellow curled leaves at the bottom, and the new growth has a mottled lime colored spots. It's getting tall though!
   I don't know what to make of those signs.View attachment 4578085
   View attachment 4578086
2. Another has yellow fringes on the lower leaves only. It's a really bushy plant.
   The lower leaves only, so those are old??View attachment 4578084
3. My last plant seems happy but it's the smallest (it sprouted 2 weeks later).
   View attachment 4578087

I need a sensai!

I'm no expert by any means, but I'd try some Epsom Salts with Nutes at next feeding. May prevent more leaves from yellowing out.

 

[doublejj]

I'm no expert by any means, but I'd try some Epsom Salts with Nutes at next feeding. May prevent more leaves from yellowing out.

try a shot of epsom salts...

 

[chico1st]

I'm no expert by any means, but I'd try some Epsom Salts with Nutes at next feeding. May prevent more leaves from yellowing out.

whoa epsom salts, I wandered the internet a lot and never seen that one!
I happen to have non-fragrance etc salts for my bath so I'll give that a try!

- Lighting and canabis. The number of hours of light and dark the plant is exposed to is extremely important and, depending where you live in Canada, and whether it is a photoperiod or autoflower (which is next thing to research) may mean that your babies wont be ready until October/November! The curling issue may be result of the plant having started it's flowering cycle but started "re-vegging" or reverting to it's vegetative cycle as a result of a change in the amount of hours of darkness. Were they indoors until now?

Mmm maybe this is the ticket. It's only one of my plants so that's a little odd but this did start happening when I put them in new soil/which was also when they moved outside. I hardened them off and stopped lighting them at night but maybe it just took a bit of time to catch up with me.

Definitely harder than tomatoes!

 

[Greenthumblady]

Yeah 12 hours or so darkness triggers the plant to start flowering. Revegging should be fine. Give it time.
And the Epsom salts is in regard to what I was talking about cal mag. Epsom salts are a type of magnesium. The mag in calmag. They work great. They're actually fantastic for tomatoes too! Its supposed to make them extra sweet.
Research is key. Once you know it, it all makes sense I promise.

 

[crimsonecho]

Don’t use bath salts please. Use food grade epsom salt. It is suphur and mag it doesn’t have calcium in it. So over use may cause calcium deficiency. Also did you say you ammended with dolomitic lime. That has large amounts of magnesium in it also. Lime is used to raise the ph of the soil. You don’t have to add it unless your soil has low ph. So your problems may stem from ph.
one in the first pic looks either genetic or maybe some mold problems? I don’t know.
One more thing, strip the damaged leaves. They will not heal.

 

[chico1st]

Where the heck do you guys buy your epsom salts? I'm in ontario Canada and I can't find any (Covid definitely makes this harder). Even online the bags are almost $100.

Little update:
1 - (Pic 1) The plant has less of those spots now. Although it has become notably stretched. I guess that would mean it started flowering and is now re-vegging. I would prefer it just flowers now (it would give me a trial run since it's my first grow) but how can I tell if it's revegging? Just wait for the flowers to start showing or not?

2 - (Pic 2 and 3) One of my plants is still making yellow lower leaves. Of all my soil mixes I would expect this to be the richest (all soil are 1:1:1 peat : manure : pearlite but this one has pure 2 year rotted manure from a dairy farm, unlike my other plants that have store generic manures).
Some leaves turn yellow and curve up, some just turn yellow and fall off. Which from my reading mean N deficiency and N overdose :/


3 - Plant 3 is still happy, but the smallest (and started latest)

 

[Greenthumblady]

You can find epsom salts at any shoppers drug mart for example. They're also used for relaxing baths so make sure to get one without extra scents.

Re: revegging do your research about hours needed to induce flower in photoperiod plants. If you're in Ontario they're not gonna start flowering until likely late August. This is why I changed to autoflower. Much faster turn around bc they dont rely on number of hours of darkness.

Give some time for them to uptake the nutrients. It's only been a day.

 

[Greenthumblady]

You'll probably find a bottle of cal mag at your local grow shop for cheaper to be honest and then you get magnesium and calcium. Ontariogrowerssupply.com if needed.

 

[etownpaul]

Are you feeding your plants any fertilizers? There are lots of micronutrients and trace elements required for plant growth that are lacking from just manure and peat (perlite is inert, it’s just there for drainage/aeration). Head over to the organics forum and look at a couple recipes for homemade super soils.

If you want to keep your current soil mix, I’d recommend top dressing with a complete organic fertilizer to address any nutrient deficiencies. I’m a fan of the Gaia Green 4-4-4 all purpose garden fertilizer, it great for the veggie garden as well.

 

[JimmiP]

Your plants aren't revegging. They are reaching for the light. See if you can find a place in your yard with more direct sunlight.

Epsom salt (as mentioned) will help. Just put a teaspoon in a gallon of water. Also, since you are outside, you should do a foliar spray with BT. It will help keep away a lot of the nasty little bore worms and other caterpillars. When you mix your gallon of BT add a teaspoon of Epsom salts to the solution and spray all over the plant
Silica is also something that could help you out as. It makes cell walls stronger and helps stave off powdery mildew and also helps to deter other plant munching bugs too.
Good luck! And happy growing!

 

[chico1st]

• Hmmm so the mystery stuff didn't go away in the long run. Nor did it get any worse. So I don't know what's up with that.
• I foliar sprayed with BT and added epsom salt
• I also started adding my pure blend pro 3-2-4 vegging fertilizer and espom salt to the waterings in case they needed nutes
  • Didn't help
• I topped them all, since I didn't do that before...due to my newby-ness.
• They have all some holes in the leaves but it doesn't seem bad nor is it getting worse.
  • 
• I checked runoff and input with my ph test strips and I think it's about 6 for both cases. Although im going to replace those strips soon.
• Confused

1 of 3 plants has the funny leaves

2 of 3 plants have yellowing leaves on the bottom.

1 of 3 plants is totally fine.

 

[JimmiP]

Well, I can see bug damage on them. Pretty sure I even see a bug in one picture. Looks like thrips, leaf miners, and probably aphids too.

My next move would be to use some neem based insecticide or spinosad. And make sure to get the underside of the leaves and stalks and even the top of the soil.

It's a situation that shouldn't spell doom to your plants. I'm still concerned about the soil mix you are using. But that bridge has already been crossed. When you move them to the next pot, use some better medium. Any good soil will get you through. Well anything but what you have now and (for the love of God) not anything from miracle grow.
Hope it all goes well. Good luck friend!

 

[chico1st]

Oh these were the last pots I was going to use. They are 5 gallons. I can't fit anything bigger I could try planting in the ground but I think I'd get less sun where I have a plot. I'll check the sun tomorrow a few times to see if it's a reasonable move.

OK I can grab some general insecticide. In canada it seems neem is banned? I can buy this though (link). Fits the bill?

Also those are two different soil mixes ( They are both bad T_T. Can I just amend my way to victory with manure liquids or topdressing?

 

[JimmiP]

Wow was unaware of the ban on neem. Seems the government don't particularly like spinosad either. But,,, there's always Amazon. As to that insecticide, I haven't used that one. So I am not sure of how effective it is. But it should work.

 

[chico1st]

Wow was unaware of the ban on neem. Seems the government don't particularly like spinosad either. But,,, there's always Amazon. As to that insecticide, I haven't used that one. So I am not sure of how effective it is. But it should work.

OK I opened up a separate thread about the insecticide.

So what is maybe the more pressing issue? Can I topdress something to make my soil more happy? Maybe just some manure / compost on top or is that just dumb?

 

[JimmiP]

First the idea is not dumb. And if I thought your thinking was dumb I would find the most polite way to tell you that I could muster. That being said, I am not sure what if any top-dressing would be appropriate.

Were these commercially available composted manures? And if so what did the labels say about n/p/k values. And was there a general chemical analysis printed on the labels?

Beyond that my friend right now your plants do not look that bad. So dont stress too much. I have taught a bunch of people about growing this plant over the years and the one thing I always emphasize is to take things one step at a time. If you try too many things at once you could do something that fixes your first issue and cause yet another. All the while not knowing which thing did what. Last year a fellow grower whom has been at this with me for a while and should've known better made the mistake of looking at one thing wrong with the plants and tried more than one thing at once trying to fix the issue. And only made it worse... my advice to him upon looking at the plants was to just let them go and do nothing else but water. He asked if there was anything else he could do. And again I said just watering. His plants looked way, way worse than yours. And in the end he still got s decent harvest.
Your lower leaves do not bother me. Nor should they you. Your plants have a long way to go. And lower leaves do yellow and fall away as the plant grows, because they cease to be useful to the plant when they get shaded out.
If I were you I would either pull them off (as the plant has already drained them) or let them fall away. If you pull them and the yellowing continues up the plant, watch how it starts.
So far, I do not believe you are going to end up in bad shape in the fall. Especially for your first grow. That is as long as you keep an eye out for pest activity. Do not forget to reapply the BT every so often and after it rains on them. And also get some silica blast or other silica product to help stave off other bugs, powdery mildew and bud rot. It also helps your plants with a whole list of other things I won't get in to now. But it is amazing stuff.

Another thing I would recommend is potassium bicarbonate foliar applications. It mixed with few drops of soap will end PM.

My main concerns for you right now are pests. And eventually pot size. But the pot size is less of a worry. People (myself included) use/used five gallon sizes and do great.
Let us know how it goes.