2010 #1 - Indoor Coco-Perlite Hindu Kush & Hailley's Comet 400w

so yeah, I've been a bad farmer. Didn't mind the pH in the res. I think I have high pH lockout that causes deficiencies of zinc, manganese, perhaps iron and maybe other elements. upper leaves are curling up a bit on the sides; chlorosis (very light green like bleach spots) between the veins, starting at the base of the leaf, in mid-high leaves; leaves are a bit twisted; and new growth seems to stay closed (90deg. to the surface) longer than usual. This is with all coco plants. two of them also show mild to severe wilting of leaves, which does resemble at least to overwatering.

I have seen roots (white, healthy looking) popping out of the bottom pot holes. This could indicate successful rooting, but also i've noticed that plant drive their roots below when the are missing something, be it water or something else; and while the lack may promote robust roots, it may also indicate a grave problem for the plant. But maybe I'm wrong about this. Either way this is a concern - I don't want them to become root bound. They're not there yet, but I may not have much time. I need to find out their sex so I can get some of them out and have more room to transplant the females into bigger pots. I thought of cloning them and flowering the clones to figure out the sexes but it seems this would take way too long. Is there a better way to do this? There is the way of going to 12/12 to sex and then quickly revert back to veg. anyone ever done this? to me it sounds like way too much stress for them. am I wrong?

another thing I can do is to use my double pot method i've mentioned on all of them. simply remove the bottom out of their pots and put them on top of identical (or larger) pots that will fit them. I can do this for all of them but I will have to get many pots and much media for that

very soon they will awake and i will see if there's improvement today. yesterday i gave them water with ph a bit higher and since then the drips have been closed.

so they kinda look the same as yesterday. one has shown improvement, another seems to be a bit worse, the others no change. I will let them dry for another day and then try to figure out what to do. With no digital meter I cannot test the pH of the medium directly, only the runoff, and that only when I water.

I can imagine the plants may be in shock right now, I may have caused damage. I will let them dry for another day or two. Then I will try watering again, perhaps try something else, maybe epsom salt.

Smoke one, relax.
Don't do anything. Let them grow.
Water as I've explained in my previous message and DON'T LOOK AT YOUR PLANTS for 2 days.

mcfonz said:

smoke one, relax.
Don't do anything. Let them grow.
Water as i've explained in my previous message and don't look at your plants for 2 days.

Click to expand...

promise.

View attachment 1518017View attachment 1518018

overfeeding? anyhow, don't do anything about it for a few days.

McFonz said:

overfeeding? anyhow, don't do anything about it for a few days.

Click to expand...

Alright then, so it will be. It seems a little better now.

Looking back at photos, I can see that these problems all started most definitely at this point, Mar 23:
"So I have a res now - I put 9.4 liters of RO water in it, ~25ml of HESI coco for EC @ 1350mS; 2 drops of SuperVit; about 15ml of Biobizz root juice; 5ml of Bioheaven; - Perhaps a bit low especially for the new more mature plants.".
It could be either one of these ingredients, including the supervit, or overall ppm too high. It could also be the fact that in a couple of days that followed I watered without readjusting pH. This is important because I must know my mistakes to learn from them. However even more important is allowing the plants to recover, and that I shall do until they dry up a bit at least. I will consider flushing one or two of them with pH 6.2, with the same amount of nutes with no additives (last feeding was only hesi coco @ 1000uS, pH 6.5), only giving them some more runoff this time.

It could also be cal-mag deficiency from the RO water.
Its usually best to mix 1 part tap water to 4 parts RO water to supplement calcium and magnesium.
It will also lower your water costs. (RO filters flush down the drain 4 times as much water as they put out)

You should check you EC after adding the additives. Always shake your fertilizers well before appliance. Always check for sediments on the fertilizer bottles and smell your fertilizers before appliance - bad fertilizers can cause a LOT of problems.

Cheers.

looks like things have taken a turn for the worse. one the plants had its fan leave all turned against the light. Also spots have expanded. I flushed it with 1L of pure water in pH 6.5~. The runoff was very high - over 7.5. so I flushed it with another L, this took it down to 7ish. At this point I stop because I don't want to shock it too much. I'll give it the rest of the day maybe in the shade, and before lights on tomorrow I'll give it some nutrient solution at low strength, with some tap water like you suggested. Hope it will recover.

asaph said:

looks like things have taken a turn for the worse. one the plants had its fan leave all turned against the light. Also spots have expanded. I flushed it with 1L of pure water in pH 6.5~. The runoff was very high - over 7.5. so I flushed it with another L, this took it down to 7ish. At this point I stop because I don't want to shock it too much. I'll give it the rest of the day maybe in the shade, and before lights on tomorrow I'll give it some nutrient solution at low strength, with some tap water like you suggested. Hope it will recover.

Click to expand...

seems to have responded well to that. the leaves have opened. I'll go on with the plan, perhaps flush another plant.

When plants droop in veg and not from overwatering I foliar feed them with Alg-A-Mic or straight water.

McFonz said:

When plants droop in veg and not from overwatering I foliar feed them with Alg-A-Mic or straight water.

Click to expand...

tried that! no avail :\

24 hours since two were flushed. they *look* a little better, but no real improvement with the symptoms. I guess I should start them on a new solution. the other plants also look a little better. like, more alive. but I can't really tell.

I think you just touch them too much.

McFonz said:

I think you just touch them too much.

Click to expand...

the other ones, i have not touched many days. no improvement on any, though some are worse than others. I may be a bit over reacting, it's not THAT bad and they are still growing I think, already passing those in soil, despite the initial fore-run the latter had. I will try to take a good shot today so you can see.

flushing seems to have worked. Plants were flushed with 3L of ph 6.2-6.5 water, for the last L they also got 0.500EC of HESI coco and some epsom salt. Since then there is recovery:


The coco plants are outgrowing the soil plants. Growth is pretty monstrous, and I have already filled a canopy of 1 sq meter, pretty much:

This canopy is mostly monster-size leaves, sometimes over 2" wide and 6" long. I'm going to fim all or most of the plants, to get some multiple flowering branches with smaller leaves. Thus, I can achieve decent flowering that will still leave some light for the large fan leaves below, but they will mostly serve to provide their energy storage and slowly deplete. any comments on this.

It's just too many plants for a scrog, my next grow will be much more fitted for that. Assuming there will be mostly females, this will be closer to a SOG I think.

I wish I could sex the plants now. This would allow me to put the females in bigger pots before flowering. But it's too soon to clone and anyway I don't have an extra veg room. I could try the flowering then reverting to veg method, but it sounds too damn risky!I think in 10 days they should be ready to flower, but I doubt if I can tell the sex by then. What should I do?

When I scrog I let the plants go wild for the stretching period and then I defoliate most of the fan leaves to allow air circulation and light penetration.
My aim is to get the defoliated canopy that covers my light footprint with as little direct light as possible getting to the walls and floor.

I think you better veg until they show preflowering.
You could put them into 12\12 for a week and then go back to 18\6 but you'll need 2-3 additional weeks of veg to get rid of the stress before flowering them again.
They still look too small to get flowered in my view.


Anyhow, they look good. Don't overthink stuff.

McFonz said:

When I scrog I let the plants go wild for the stretching period and then I defoliate most of the fan leaves to allow air circulation and light penetration.
My aim is to get the defoliated canopy that covers my light footprint with as little direct light as possible getting to the walls and floor.

I think you better veg until they show preflowering.
You could put them into 12\12 for a week and then go back to 18\6 but you'll need 2-3 additional weeks of veg to get rid of the stress before flowering them again.
They still look too small to get flowered in my view.


Anyhow, they look good. Don't overthink stuff.

Click to expand...

as always, excellent info. rep. i'm not sure how I feel about defoliating. I think I'm gonna go for folding and bending to keep the energy stored in the fan leaves while allowing light to get through, what do you think?

also - have you had calcium deficiency? I don't think I've had that yet, but I wanna be prepared for it as I hear it's very likely to happen in coco. I wonder how I can avoid this, I dunno where to buy dolomite lime in our country, and I was thinking perhaps some of these calcium additives meant for humans would work? something like this: http://www.doctorteva.co.il/tevashop/product_info.php?products_id=544, or ca carbonate. of course, I started mixing some tap water in my water for calmag, but I dunno if it will suffice. I wish I had that "calmag+" thing!

i'm starting to have some odor problems. It's not so much the neighbours, but rather my adjacent room that's the problem. The smell is constant now, and I guess will only get worse. It's the best smell in the world, to smell for a few minutes, not through the whole day. Kinda driving me nut(e)s. I'm not sure how to go about this, even if I get a carbon filter, it will only filter to the outside, and my box isn't air-tight - odor will still come to my room.

Yep if you are smelling it now is the time to do some odor control. I'm cheap and cant afford the $200.00 carbon filters so I build my own with ducting screen and aquarium carbon. It works perfect...no smell. I know there are less expensive ones out there but for less than $50.00 I can build one just as good. I got my design ideas from other diy links I found. Just do a search for diy carbon scrubber. If you want narrow it down by the duct sizing you have. For the record, I used to breed fish and propagate corals so I have tons of stuff to use that I have lying around. Hope that helps a little bit for ya.

Edit: I missed the last part of the post in regards to where the exhaust exits, If you look at my first post on my grow, I vent out the ceiling of my box and into the room. My carbon filter will be at the end of my ducting AFTER the fan. You def will have odor when you are working or viewing the grow. I use a filter with an ozone generator for the room itself. Just be careful if you go the ozone route as too much can be bad for you in high concentrations.

looking real healthy mate looks like you got the hang of it...........