HELP please

I started a fine young girl at the same time as the solo cup people. I've kept quiet for awhile but heres the issue. They are all doing amazing and mine is just… sitting around a couple inches high with 4 nodes very closely spaced and still hasn't even shown sex yet.

Specs:
Lighting: previously 200 watts of cfl, switched yesterday to 400 watt metal halide
Airflow: two 6 inch fans about 240 each.
Water: 1/3 cup every 3-4 days (when the soil near the roots feels dry)
Soil: Mix of perlite and a bag of dr. earth starter (purple bag)
Nutes: gave less than 1/4 of a dose of dr. earth nitro big 2 weeks ago, saw some terrible burn, flushed 5 times and repotted from a solo cup into a 2 gal. Since then have given no nutrients and the leaves are small but green.
seed type: ww

What am i doing wrong? (or what are you all doing right?)

hi how old is the plant and can you give pics?

Im at 45 days today. I just took a few pictures. One includes a 6 inch hammer handle for scale. You will notice that the lower leaves are burnt and some are completely dead, the new growth is beautiful but very slow. Also I recently removed my side lighting but i used to have side lights so there is small new growth on lower area that is currently shaded.

I also just realized that one potential answer to my question is that the solo cup comp people are all using blooming light/ light schedule. Since plants just about double or possibly even triple in size during bloom (so i have been told) that could very likely be the key to their growth and maybe the reason they showed sex so fast.

If anyone has any other ideas for what is slowing this plant down… thanks so much.

Get some Rizo from Canna. Roots need love too. I would scoop her out of the big pot and put in 4" square soil pot. 10-20 cents. Water her in there. With rooting agent at full and cal mag at half. Then wait 3 to 5 days till she's light. Then she should be an inch or two taller. The 400 will be better. But put it 2 feet above to start.

Sometimes plant get stunted and take weeks to come around.

newGrows said:

Water: 1/3 cup every 3-4 days (when the soil near the roots feels dry)

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Do you ph the nutrient solution? Using a pen or strips? Are you using tap water? If so, what is the TDS (ppm)? A high ppm and chlorine/chloramine can stunt a plant.

you said you had airflow, but are you getting fresh clean air into your grow room? i had this same issue with my grow 2 years ago my plant was soo tiny for only 2 months old i had 2 fans blowing but to find out it was stale air an not growing, also the leaf stomata opens an closes an if there is no clean fresh air surrounding it it crates a dead zone which causes the leaf to grow slowly,stunt growth an make the plant small, not saying this is what is going on with your issue just curios if you had clean fresh air an not stale air, good luck!

Looks real light green and needs food, I had the same thing on my first grow When I used soil.

I transplanted to coco and used canna a+b nutes. Fixed it all up and I now have healthy plants 70cm tall.

Did you all READ his second post?
If your 13hrs of light or less. Your flowering!
If you turned that up to go back to veg? THAT is why it's taking so long.

Ok i'm gonna answer as much as I can here in this post. but first an update.
After just 2 days with the new lighting, every leaf, even the bottom ones in the shade have shown massive increases.
the total wattage increase from cfl to metal halide has only been about 100 watts, but the difference is like night and day. Its like she was just chilling out, waiting to grow until she got morel light.

One new potential problem is these little gray spots on some of the top leaf. What is it?

@Cannastrorganics Can't buy a whole new nutrient system now, can i use indolebutylic acid mixed with water as a rooting agent? As for adding cal mag, I'm very hesitant to start feeding nutrients again after a solution rated 7-2-2 and diluted to 1/4 strength burnt the plant so badly.

@az2000 Have not been because I know the ph of my tap water is about 7.2 from previous measures…. I really should though, next watering I willi aim at 6.5, I dont have a tds meter yet so I can't say ppm on anything. Using tap water and small amounts of ph down from general hydro. I have access to purified water, do you think I should switch?

@Rebs4220 Thats probably a good point. I'm relying on vents so fresh air may not be moving in. Would there be any visible signs on the plant if that were the problem?

@Mac-daddy I'm still very nervous about adding nutrients because a massively diluted 7-2-2 solution burned her. Maybe I have the ratio wrong? I thought nitrogen is the most important addition early?

@Dr.Who i'm wondering if maybe i should try the 12-12 schedule? I don't want her to flower though so maybe there is something else I can do to speed up growth?

newGrows said:

I have access to purified water, do you think I should switch?

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If you can't identify a likely culprit for stunted growth, I'd switch to RO water. That's an inexpensive way to rule out high PPM and chlorine/chloramine. But, you'll have to pay attention to your ph because changing the water source might throw it off. You'll probably also need to add 2ml of a calmag product to replace minerals lost from filtering.

Your city's water department should have an annual water quality report telling the range of TDS, whether they use chlorine or chloramine, etc.

The way you said you burned the plants "easily" makes me think your water's ppm is too high. If your water is 700ppm (like mine is), that doesn't give you much room for nutes. A normal dose of nutrients might be 600ppm, now you're at 1300ppm.

Your baby's are just that baby's. Give them time as they will not flower until forced or mature. Also you're burning the shit out of them. To flower these plants give them 12/12 light. Them little gray spot's I find they show up when it's too hot and the leaves are perspiring, Doesn't seem to hurt them though. I read most of this thread but are you checking the PH when you water and feed? If not you should as that will cause lockout and that could be why your plants are so small and dying. Check the PH. Good luck.

Definitely sad roots bro.
Canna said it. Id repot her into a much smaller pot and focus on growing strong healthy roots in fresh soil. Meaning, no nutes, jus fresh water. Let pot dry out real well between waterings and let the plant fed off the soil. She'll tell yu wen she needs mo food.

That or you cud clone it. Jus take the whole plant, trim up them bottom nodes, and start over with a "new" plant.


Sir KK

az2000 said:

If you can't identify a likely culprit for stunted growth, I'd switch to RO water. That's an inexpensive way to rule out high PPM and chlorine/chloramine. But, you'll have to pay attention to your ph because changing the water source might throw it off. You'll probably also need to add 2ml of a calmag product to replace minerals lost from filtering.

Your city's water department should have an annual water quality report telling the range of TDS, whether they use chlorine or chloramine, etc.

The way you said you burned the plants "easily" makes me think your water's ppm is too high. If your water is 700ppm (like mine is), that doesn't give you much room for nutes. A normal dose of nutrients might be 600ppm, now you're at 1300ppm.

Click to expand...

My tds meter finally arrived! My tap water (purified with a pur filter) is 200. I added 1/2 ml of cal mag to 32oz of water (full strength for a seedling). That brought the ppm from 200 to 347. pH to 7.9 (i forgot to measure before). added 10 drops of pH down to get pH at 6.5 brought tds to 356. Which seems pretty low for nutrient water. Gave about 1/3 a cup to the plant. And I'll come back in a week with the results. (I'm guessing i should add more cal mag because the spots are showing up on the new leaf as well but a bit smaller, but i'll see in a few days)

I've got an update and it doesn't look good. As you can see there are 3 colas one main and two tiny ones on the top left and bottom left of the picture, though you can only really see the top left one, just trust that the one on the bottom left looks about the same.

Why is the main cola having what appears to be multiple nutrient issues while the two smaller ones are looking great?
Also can anyone suggest what those issues might be. You can't tell from just looking but those leaves one node from the top with the dark spots are getting crispy.

(sidenote, i've got some eggshells that have been in white vinegar for about 3 days, when will they be ready?)

Guys I'm stressing hard over this. I self diagnosed yesterday as potassium and phosphorous as well as a possible continuation of the mg/cal and gave 900 ppm total consisting of 250 ppm cal/mag 350 ppm potassium and 300 ppm of phosphorus.

I'm seeing the same problems spreading to the new growth today but i don't want to jump to an extreme here and feed again and mess things up in that direction so my questions are:

How long should I wait to see if this improves before i feed her again? (and i know this is from another thread but… ) would a foliar spray be useful and not potentialy harmful?