Over or under fert? I'd love an expert take on this one!

Hello everyone,


first off, let me quick introduce myself: I don't live in America or nearby, and have tried to grow outdoors a few times with no great success. Since January I've been studying and planning a nice growbox for when I have the money for it. A month ago I created a small poly tent to create a 12/12 photoperiod for two Sensi Early Skunk plants that were in my balcony. Both turned out to be male and so I got rid of them.


2 weeks ago I germinated 2 bagseeds and my last Early Skunk bean. They're into small party cups with a 60/40 mix of sunshine/coco, and I've fed them once with the GH FloraNova simple program – FloraNova Grow, RapidStart and Floralicious Grow – at half the indicated dose for seedlings. This was when they were one week old.
I am allowing 30 or more percent runoff and my water is filtered and gets 24h of aeration before feeding the plants. I don't have any ways to meter ph and ppm for now, since the meters are way too costly here in my country and I am on a very tight budget right now.


Here are the pics.


All of them together



Early Skunk is the one with the deformed leaves, 13 days old in the pic. I wonder what goes?



Bagseed 1 is also 13 days old in the pic, and has been yellowing and now has burnt tips.


NOTE: Bagseed 1 and Early Skunk were yellowing before I first fed them. Also, I sort of rushed them out of the seeds, "helping" maybe too much in this process. Early Skunk has recovered from yellowing since I fed, but bagseed 1 is showing no signs, actually getting worse.



Bagseed 2 is 10 days old in the pic. This one has been brought up straight into the cup, no moisting it before or paper towels or anything. Has bigger leaves and stronger stem, and shows no stress signs. Guess I'l do it this way from now on.




Now, what really concerns me here is bagseed 1, for I first thought it was nitrogen deficiency. Today is day 6 from feeding and it's worse than it was…
I know that without knowing my ph and ppm all gets harder to detect, but I wonder if anyone could help me on this one. My temps are running between 70~80ºF and RH is constant 60% (which I guess is good for now).



Well I guess this is it. I am back to more reading! Any help would be incredibly appreciated!

i help all i can. i just dont know were to start. is so hard to tell.
ok first fo all. drop the 30 percent run of for now. i dont give my coco 10 to 30 percent run of till week 3 of veg this is when the root system should be developing to the stage were it can stand been saturated. sometimes it can go to week 4 and 5. the plants let you know by the reaction.. its not needed this early. it will cause more problems than good at the minute. i know the above depend to on drainage. i use pure coco. no perlite.

i realy do think you need some idea of the ph. could you pull yopu water reports up. that's tell you. just to give us some idea. as coco will not respond well at all to high ph. cause lock out and i sure this is were youre troubles lie. 5.8 to 6.0 is what i am for

u can buy ph tester kits from hydro stores and diy stores for a few qiud.(dollars)ect i use them for back up...

Thanks a lot man!

Yeah I've been thinking of getting some cheap ones at least to have a clue of where my p.h. is at. Will do it asap. As far as drainage goes, it seems to be pretty good. What I am feeling is that I have too much sunshine into my mix and this may be holding a bit of water... I'll keep from letting the water run off then. Since my cups are transparent (this is why I am using this 'poly skirts' in them), I can see that there is no burnt roots or fat tips or anything. They just keep growing and growing. Will transplant them next week to bigger pots.

OK! I re read your post three times and you are helping me way more than I thought. The run off you mean is letting more water on the ground for the plants to take, right? If it is this, I am not doing it at all, I just let like 30% of water run off the pots and then take it out from the tray, so if it is this what you were thinking, I am letting no run off at all.


Just got the price for a Hanna Instruments combo meter here and it costs *just* 350 dollars! I really need to find someone going to america to bring me one of this!


Thanks again!

i mean by run of. youre waste. i feed from top to bottom and feed till at least 10 to 30 percent of what i put in comes out into the trays.(then throw it) i then test the run of. only the ppm not the ph as that will just cause you big head aches and have you adjusting youre ph when there is no need as ph swing are normal. thing such as the roots sweating can cause ph swings. but the ppm i do check they can be inaccurate to in coco but give you a good idea of whats going on. i only start to use run of once the plant is strong enough to be saturated as a use 15 litters pots start from seed. about 3 week on. as there no need to this early. youre salts are not that high in 3 week. also youre buffers are establishing there self's and ru of only interferes with them at this point. also once you hit 2 week flowering plus. the plant can be saturated with no ill effect. i feed 3 small feedings daily with the last feeding getting me my 10 to 30 percent run of. i also give a dry day to(so feed dry feed dry feed) i found this to be more beneficial for rapid growth in coco.
idk what else to tell you as i dont want to bomb bared you with what works for me. but if you have any questions im always here to help

Sounds like some good advice so far personally I dont use any nutrients other than some root drench when the plants are that young you can burn them very easily using nutes when they are that small so just be careful...they look good so far though

http://www.hydroponica.biz/management/ph-test-kits.html
here a cheap test kit. i order/buy from here all the time. swear by the place.

Thanks again man!

I have a aquarium store right by my house, I'll try to get strips like these tomorrow... So all in all, while I don't get any readings, the better would be to just give them water right...

Could be pH and a bit of over watering? It is a bit early to tell. Lowering your nutes will help.

ph testers are the key to good growth and limited or no nutes when they are young.

you dont need fertilizer at all until the small round "leaves" turn yellow and shrivel. it will cause more harm than good until then. then start at like 1/4th suggested application.

Thanks everyone for the inputs! I've managed to sell an old camera on my local eBay and got the money for an EC meter and a pH meter. They're both arriving tomorrow and so I should be able to be more precise on the feeding part. Since last week I've been regulating water pH with aquarium test drops and lemon, since I found out that my water has very high pH...

About the plants, I think I've tracked down the problem to pot bound + fluctuating pH. There was too much sunshine mix in my cups, holding too much (alkaline) water over a long period and the cups were too small to have room for the root system to expand. Should've kept it in this cups for the first week only. They sort of stopped growing at the same rate and I could see a lot of roots packing up the bottom of the cup...
(I've read double the usual this last week, after practice begins, lots of more theory are required!)

So what I did was getting big(ger) 7l pots for them, and fill them with 80% perlite, 10% coco coir and 10% Sunshine mix #4. Did a hole to fit the plants and got them in safely (the small cups were very dry so it was very easy to take them out). This was on monday, when I also fed a very light solution to them, hoping they don't suffer a lot from the transplant.


Bagseed #1 had gotten worse from the yellowing during the rest of last week and is now already showing some green again. Even being yellow, it is strong, and already smells good. The tip burns are from before monday's feeding.


Early Skunk had the deformed leaves, the new shots are coming out like they should (apparently). The stem is still weak and I don't know if it'll grow like it should.


Bagseed #2 is the healthier of them all and even being younger, is picking up fast. The cotyledons are yellowing but the green is getting stronger and it has the bigger leaves of them three.



I guess they're recovering alright, right? Hope they grow some more this week and get good, so I can turn this into a journal!



Thanks again everyone, I am learning a lot everyday, so good to try and do the best for our plant friends!

Gee... Impressed by the amount of replies since last week...

calm down wae the nutes and give some extra ng for the green colour ,

that is a lot of perlite , i would think it would hold to much moisture..

jofey said:

calm down wae the nutes and give some extra ng for the green colour ,

Click to expand...

Hey Jofey thanks for the heads up. Let me clear something, you meant Mg or N? I am posting pics from yesterday right now, they've grown a bit since then. I have foliar fed them with CaMg+, and apparently they liked it. Should I go with some plain Mg foliar feeding?

I am back to feeding them this week, 0,9 EC and 5.6 pH solution, so far so good...

thanks!

90cody said:

that is a lot of perlite , i would think it would hold to much moisture..

Click to expand...

Hey Cody, thanks for the input. This is a 80% perlite, 15% Sunshine mix #4 and 5% coco coir soil. It really doesn't hold lots of moisture, but I like it this way I guess. You water it more often but the oxygen is always there in great quantity. Also, pH variations are a lot smaller so far...

Just an update, so maybe someone spots any new problem:


Bagseed 1.


The foliar feeding with CaMg+ has apparently unlocked growth and stopped the yellowing from keep coming up.



Bagseed 2.


Now growing better, still the healthiest one of them.




Early Skunk.


Seems to be better in the new shots, even tho I have some purple stems now. Am trying to find out what sort of nute lockout I might have created here, since I am considering they aren't hungry...



Any ideas anyone? Thanks a lot as usual!