This is what overwatering does... Now what?

Serpentz

Serpentz

Well-Known Member
First of all, I want to say hello to everyone and intro myself a little. This is my first time growing and I've spent a lot of time here reading and getting the information that I needed to get started. I decided the best thing to do was start to grow with a single plant. No sense in wasting a lot of money on good seeds just to kill them off in my opinion. I started my grow and was surprised that everything was going ok. I started to grow my first plant in garden soil that has absoltuely no nutes in the soil. Just nice dark soil I found in a bag. Nothing special. After two weeks I transplanted my seedling to a gallon pot with this soil. I watered the soil until it drained from the bottom and that water had a 1/4 strength of organic plant food that has California Earthworm in it. I think I made a mistake here by doing this and overwatering and adding plant food too early. Days later I saw that the two bottom leaves started with the tips looking dark green and wilting. The soil was way too wet still and I knew it. I used some bamboo sticks to aireate the soil all through the pot and around the soil. I should mention my setup for lights and air. Its a custom thing I built from stuff bought at the hardware store. I didn't want to spend a ton of money, so I just McGuyver'd this xD. I will just post a photo. I have 4 cool blue CFL that surround the plant with a pc casefan (I'm resourceful) that is built in the top of the lighting on a 18/6 timer for veg growth. I move the plant into the sun during the day for a few hours and it is VERY responsive to this. But my problem now is that I am seeing more wilt on a couple more leaves today. I am still drying out the soil. I have noticed something else today. I got brown tips showing up and I am guessing its nute burn. Its not from heat. I got my grow cabinet staying at 28c so its not that. Lights are not too close for sure. The plant seems to be really growing fast for just three weeks, going into week four from a seed, and the new growth looks healthy. So I will get to the point of making my first post here..my question. If this were your plant, what would you do now? Will it recover from me almost drowning it? If it truly has nute burn, then what do I do now? I cant flush the soil because its gotta dry out. Should I just wait 8-10 days without water and see what happens? Should I cut those dying leaves? Am I crafty enough to keep around after the apocalypse? These are things I must know. I want to thank everyone for such a cool place to hang out and I give thanks in advance for tips and advice.
 

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Serpentz said:
First of all, I want to say hello to everyone and intro myself a little. This is my first time growing and I've spent a lot of time here reading and getting the information that I needed to get started. I decided the best thing to do was start to grow with a single plant. No sense in wasting a lot of money on good seeds just to kill them off in my opinion. I started my grow and was surprised that everything was going ok. I started to grow my first plant in garden soil that has absoltuely no nutes in the soil. Just nice dark soil I found in a bag. Nothing special. After two weeks I transplanted my seedling to a gallon pot with this soil. I watered the soil until it drained from the bottom and that water had a 1/4 strength of organic plant food that has California Earthworm in it. I think I made a mistake here by doing this and overwatering and adding plant food too early. Days later I saw that the two bottom leaves started with the tips looking dark green and wilting. The soil was way too wet still and I knew it. I used some bamboo sticks to aireate the soil all through the pot and around the soil. I should mention my setup for lights and air. Its a custom thing I built from stuff bought at the hardware store. I didn't want to spend a ton of money, so I just McGuyver'd this xD. I will just post a photo. I have 4 cool blue CFL that surround the plant with a pc casefan (I'm resourceful) that is built in the top of the lighting on a 18/6 timer for veg growth. I move the plant into the sun during the day for a few hours and it is VERY responsive to this. But my problem now is that I am seeing more wilt on a couple more leaves today. I am still drying out the soil. I have noticed something else today. I got brown tips showing up and I am guessing its nute burn. Its not from heat. I got my grow cabinet staying at 28c so its not that. Lights are not too close for sure. The plant seems to be really growing fast for just three weeks, going into week four from a seed, and the new growth looks healthy. So I will get to the point of making my first post here..my question. If this were your plant, what would you do now? Will it recover from me almost drowning it? If it truly has nute burn, then what do I do now? I cant flush the soil because its gotta dry out. Should I just wait 8-10 days without water and see what happens? Should I cut those dying leaves? Am I crafty enough to keep around after the apocalypse? These are things I must know. I want to thank everyone for such a cool place to hang out and I give thanks in advance for tips and advice.
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hey, looking good, IMO let it dry out and only water with mycrobes and enzymes or plain water for the next week. just give it little sips every three days. Nitrogen derived from fish emulsion would greatly benefit you. or some super thrive. But once again, she has to dry out so I suggest a heating mat or pad, as well as airflow. You might try adding more per-lite to the soil for proper drainage next round, or if you feel like transplanting her.

By the way welcome to RIU, you can always PM me for more hints for soil growing.
 
marquezmurder said:
hey, looking good, IMO let it dry out and only water with mycrobes and enzymes or plain water for the next week. just give it little sips every three days. Nitrogen derived from fish emulsion would greatly benefit you. or some super thrive. But once again, she has to dry out so I suggest a heating mat or pad, as well as airflow. You might try adding more per-lite to the soil for proper drainage next round, or if you feel like transplanting her.

By the way welcome to RIU, you can always PM me for more hints for soil growing.
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Hello and thanks for the reply. Ok... I will follow your suggestion. Now to try and find out how to get fish emulsion. I am not in the USA, but am from San Diego. Over here in Ukraine stuff is a little hard to find. I am guessing that same garden shop I got my soil from will know. Cheers
 
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ugorg said:
let them dry out the should be fine
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Thanks, I'm doing that and I picked up the gallon pot she's in and it's pretty heavy, so you can tell that there is still a lot of moisture. One of the leaves (the bottom most leaf) is drying and obviously dying. I am wondering if I should do something about that or not. I have seen people cut these and try to stop this from spreading, but I don't want to shock this plant or stress it out anymore. Tips are fried on some leaves, but the new growth looks great. In fact I swear this plant jumped a full half inch today. I move it to sunlight for part of its 18 hour lighting and it goes crazy. I need better lights, and I am looking at LED's. Should I clip those leaves or leave (pun not intended) her be?
 

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Serpentz said:
Thanks, I'm doing that and I picked up the gallon pot she's in and it's pretty heavy, so you can tell that there is still a lot of moisture. One of the leaves (the bottom most leaf) is drying and obviously dying. I am wondering if I should do something about that or not. I have seen people cut these and try to stop this from spreading, but I don't want to shock this plant or stress it out anymore. Tips are fried on some leaves, but the new growth looks great. In fact I swear this plant jumped a full half inch today. I move it to sunlight for part of its 18 hour lighting and it goes crazy. I need better lights, and I am looking at LED's. Should I clip those leaves or leave (pun not intended) her be?
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just snip them in half. your plant is wasting energy trying to bring them back to life. LEDs are good and all but pricey. I would get a HPS
 
marquezmurder said:
just snip them in half. your plant is wasting energy trying to bring them back to life. LEDs are good and all but pricey. I would get a HPS
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Why would you snip them in half? If they are for sure dying, which you might not be sure until the soil dries. I've over watered before and had the same wilt issue. They recovered, but I transplanted to new soil instead. At that time I had fox farm light warrior, so its very easy on young plants, traspotted on week four to a soil I made following super soil threads. Easy to make and cheaper to make by the bulk. Do you have soil you can transplant to? It won't kill her. Just be gentle with roots. I am a new member also. But have been growing for years. I'm going to follow along with your plants man.
 
Transplanting always good, I suggested snipping them because the plant will wast energy trying to heal them. If you snip them off it does the same thing as topping, the plant says oh shit and releases hormones signaling the plant to continue on with rampant growth, or any growth that has not been FIMed or topped.

IMO its just half of two water leaves, you not destroying all of the photosynthesis of those leaves, why not?
 
RestOnSundays said:
Why would you snip them in half? If they are for sure dying, which you might not be sure until the soil dries. I've over watered before and had the same wilt issue. They recovered, but I transplanted to new soil instead. At that time I had fox farm light warrior, so its very easy on young plants, traspotted on week four to a soil I made following super soil threads. Easy to make and cheaper to make by the bulk. Do you have soil you can transplant to? It won't kill her. Just be gentle with roots. I am a new member also. But have been growing for years. I'm going to follow along with your plants man.
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Thanks for the reply! Sorry it took so long to get back with working two jobs and all. I snipped the ends of the wilted leaves. The plant is doing very well. I don't have a way to gauge the deep soil moisture. I have some things on my list like a moisture meter for getting down to the roots to check the moisture there. Until then I am using small bamboo sticks placed in 4 corners around the plant. When I pull those sticks out, they are still wet at the ends, you can see actually how moist the soil is...kind of good idea I think, and the 1 gallon pot is still heavy. So I still haven't watered. The good news is, that there is no more wilting. There are some tips that turned brown, but they have stopped. There are no more signs of damage. The plant is just going crazy now and growing like a weed :mrgreen: I have a set schedule where she is sitting in the sun for most of the day in a well lit window, and then I move her to the growing cabinet I built. 18 hours on 6 hours off. My cabinet has built in fans and its growing strong. Now to just make sure that I do things right from here on out. I really appreciate you guys! It's really cool to have people helping you out along your first grow. It will be interesting to see what happens. So a big thanks! :leaf:;)
 
Yeah that's a good idea. Don't water it till its COMPLETLY dry. To let your roots get bigger by letting them search out for water. You're on track man. Are you going to be Topping?
 
RestOnSundays said:
Yeah that's a good idea. Don't water it till its COMPLETLY dry. To let your roots get bigger by letting them search out for water. You're on track man. Are you going to be Topping?
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You know I was just about to find out more about topping and when I should start doing this. By the way, I decided to transplant her after all and I did this. The plant went into shock soon after, but then rebounded in 20-30 minutes like nothing happened. She looks good now and I'm done messing around with her. I downloaded some guides and I will read those, but if there are some threads here about topping, then throw them my way. Thanks!
 
Serpentz said:
You know I was just about to find out more about topping and when I should start doing this. By the way, I decided to transplant her after all and I did this. The plant went into shock soon after, but then rebounded in 20-30 minutes like nothing happened. She looks good now and I'm done messing around with her. I downloaded some guides and I will read those, but if there are some threads here about topping, then throw them my way. Thanks!
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Uncle Bens topping method is a good read
 
dont let the pot completly dry out when you start to flower though! Wilting from under-watering is extremly harsh during flower too.
 
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