watering 1000 times asked, sorry

Hi, i have difficulties to decide when to water. Ive shown Pictures in this Forum and People go like "ur overwatering" when in fact i didnt water them for 5 days. People say water them when pot feels light, for me it doesnt. I feel its lighter but the bottom of the pot kinda feels heavy. For me this contradicts with "water them when first centimeters r dry". I have pots with 7cm height of soil with 30% perlite. For the first 3cm its like totally dry. But after that -i feel moisture. I had to burry them deep in the pots because their stems grew so Long because of poor sunlight at a window (now under light, indoors), so the plants roots are below those 3cm of dry soil/Perlite. I kinda feel bad because its been like 6 days of no water, but my feeling Kinda tells me not to water them yet. Can u give me some advice? I just had a heat stress Problem with a lot of leaves dieng, I dont want to put them into the next accident.

You are much more likely to overwater than underwater. There is no exact schedule someone call tell you because its going to depend on the size of the plant and the pot at the a given moment. I usually let the leaves reach a very slight droop and then water, along with other tell-tale signs such as a light weight pot and just the general appearance of the soil. If you really want, the moisture meters at garden stores can be pretty handy for getting the hang of it.

This is exactly how I do it...
Before the roots have taken over the pot .......I water slowly until I see the slightest drop come out the bottom. I take note of how much water is being used and usually never have run off., I then wait till the leaves show first signs of droopage, I mark how long that takes in my brain and repeat, sometimes if the top dryers out too soon from light and heat or what have ya, I will mist with spray bottle to help roots find their way to the top...

When the roots have taken over the pot like before transplant or in their final pot and situated....I water until the pot is full (at this point I know how much water to use and I don't watertill run off, I've never had to correct a deficiency by flushing) when the top of the dirt is dry I can push down and it feels like a sponge I water again.. I'm not able to insert NY finger into the dirt as my roots are concentrated pretty heavily..

That's how I do it, not saying its the best but it works for me... I don't like shoving things in my dirt and I can't lift my plants soooo...
Also I should mention I run equal parts perlite and soil and water daily or every other depending on the stage its in

Let's try to fix this

Any pics?

How old and big are the plants?

What size pot did they start in and how many gallons of dirt would you guess they are in now?

potting up-more perlite are gonna be your future fixes

only way to tell if she needs water, stick your finger into the soil. if the top is dry and inch down or so, water it. don't go by time. one thing to keep in mine veg plants, drink a lot of water, and as soon as you throw them into flower. they drink a lotttt more, and in late flower not so much water, finger trick only way to know , even for experienced farmers, we do it as well.

Your root structure isnt dense enough (not potting up could be part of it) and or your soil mix isnt aerated enough.

You have to give her a chance to breath

if it doesnt get better i would suggest lower your feeding by a little under half of your normal dose and feed every time -if already in flower.

if in veg still i would translplant to an air pot of similar size...Put a fan blowing by , through , and around the pots. Help them dry.

In the future More perlite..

i also do a 50/50 mix

water from the bottom up. fill your saucer with water let the soil suck up what it wants, dump out any left over water from the saucer.
You can let your soil dry out quite a bit before your plant needs water.
The perlite idea is a excellent idea for next time.
A moisture meter is a good investment.

thx a lot for trying to help.
Here r pictures of the misery.

What is kind of most difficult for me as a newb is to seperate good from bad advice...this damage was caused by me listening to some of those...
Sry Topfuel but ur answer just reminds me of that. I write i use perlite and answer is "use perlite next time", this is harmless but u get the idea...

Hopefully after saything u r still willing to help me

Last picture 3 days ago.
Most annoying: healthy looking mini tomato in first picture front left....


The pots feel heavy and dense (cant squeze the pot very well) because there r the roots i guess, as soon as i reach the area with my fingers i feel there is moist, so that means though there is the rule "water when first cm feel dry" i dont need to water yet, right? Just scared of making it worse...look at them and u know what i mean...

In topfuels defense he said "the perlite idea".. bloody corn and I (hehe sorry, no offense) both suggested equal parts soil to perlite you stated you were using 30%.......anyways.....

Thank you very much, i got that and i will use more perlite next time. It might not have been the best example i agree, but i think u got the idea what i mean. Or on the other hand, why did i use 30% perlite, because I read that as a receipe, thats what i mean with its hard for me as someone who knows nothing about it what is best.

Now looking at the last picture with in mind what was going to happen, i think you can see first signs of "over heating" more then over watering, do you agree? upper leaves slow upcurling, lower leaves hanging straight down at the tips.

Plz tell me if u think its something else then a former heat problem showed in the pics.

What are your temps at canopy?
You can bury the stems up to the first set of leaves, help em out alot

And as always, you have a bit of a magnesium deficiency..foliar some Epson or in the water, never with lights on till completely dry

...I'm no deficiency expert. But I'll do what I can

Thx.
Temps now r at about 26-27°C at canopy. About 20-22°C at "night time".
I put them as deep as i could, mainly the reason why i transplanted the "biggest" into that bigger pot... still not enough. Stems r freaking looong because i had to give them poor sunlight, because my "light delivery" took suddenly much longer than expected.
This pot is quite big, imo . I have a growspace of about 50x50cm. What else can i do? Go even bigger? In what way does it help the plant?

You should really try to not let them go over 28. But they're fine at those temps..yea I was gonna ask if you upgraded lighting as it appears the internode distance suddenly decreased lol. What kind of light and what distance? It looks like in that first oic a couple have white/light brown burn marks on the leafs, make sure you never mist with lights on and wait till dry to out back.. but yea if you don't have space the plant will be fine, but roots will come out of any stem put in the dirt. Weed also likes to have a very long tap root. If you notice the bigger the pot and space for roots, the bigger fan leaves ect will be.

thx again qwizoking

yea I was gonna ask if you upgraded lighting as it appears the internode distance suddenly decreased lol.

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You see my dilemma now? I wrote in my first post bad sunlight just like that time... this leads to "OMG LOWER THE LIGHTS AND INCREASE OUTPUT!"
And that led to those damaged leaves

Light height is about 30cm above canopy. Its about 84W total in 2W Leds. 18x Warmwhites, 6neutral white, 3x Coldwhites, 2x Red, 2x deep red and 2 blue.
It was suggested with a picture to put them @ 5cm height above the canopy, i put them at 10cm and...

make sure you never mist with lights on and wait till dry to out back..

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I waited till one hour to darkness. But thx i will not do it when there is still light.

but roots will come out of any stem put in the dirt. Weed also likes to have a very long tap root

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omg thx, this is totally new for me. Just to make sure i got it right: "the stem becomes into root?" If thats true that would answer the question i was going to ask... if its a problem when i put it so deep because then the roots are just at the bot of the pot, lol.

Ah you got me a bit with the led's , I don't really know anything about them, distances nothing...
Yea its not uncommon in a humid environment to see roots coming out of stem that's not in dirt, some equatorial varieties will root out of side branches as well, like a vine effect. I've heard of some that don't like to produce seed but clone themselves along the ground this way.....yes I only grow landrace sativas

lax123 said:

thx a lot for trying to help. Here r pictures of the misery. What is kind of most difficult for me as a newb is to seperate good from bad advice...this damage was caused by me listening to some of those... Sry Topfuel but ur answer just reminds me of that. I write i use perlite and answer is "use perlite next time", this is harmless but u get the idea... Hopefully after saything u r still willing to help me Last picture 3 days ago. Most annoying: healthy looking mini tomato in first picture front left.... The pots feel heavy and dense (cant squeze the pot very well) because there r the roots i guess, as soon as i reach the area with my fingers i feel there is moist, so that means though there is the rule "water when first cm feel dry" i dont need to water yet, right? Just scared of making it worse...look at them and u know what i mean...

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Fucking hell son wtf did you do to those poor poor plants?!

thx qwiz.
You said distance decreased, so thats a good sign its working, right?

Fucking hell son wtf did you do to those poor poor plants?!

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Id say it was caused by excessive amounts of heat

Hehe nice....

They'll be alright, give em a week to recover and growth will take off. Before too long you won't even be able to tell it happened

And for some reason even with my experienced eye(my opinion ) the "runt" or my least fav of the bunch always turns out best at the end

You helped me a lot, thank you.

Fortunately you could answer within minutes and took the time to really read, so it was a dialog that helps. Because i think the problem here is sometimes, after a couple of answers people barely read carefully the first posts or its just the long time inbetween answers, or if another post is written with something important in it other than the first post.

Too bad, when i have another question i will have to explain it all over again

Because if not exactly you answer no one will have read the posts inbetween and knows what going on.

Are you sure about those mg salts? I grow big 1m tomatoes with a lot of fruits in that soil only, and never add any nutes, so i cant imagine i have in that small mj state any deficiency :-/
Im trying to be carefull because I read that like adding nutes because of a problem and then if nutes werent really the problem, then things really could downwards.

And for some reason even with my experienced eye(my opinion

) the "runt" or my least fav of the bunch always turns out best at the end

Click to expand...

I also read that people sometimes would aggree that their shittiest plant becomes the best. I think that could make sense, because their "happy times stuff" is a defense mechanism, so if they really got treated badly...

Mary Jane especially sativa doms eat up mg. It can lock out molybednum I believe in excess. I foliar feed my plants most of their Cal mag requirements to keep ppms low. I recommend foliar feeding to most people. You want a fine mist slightly warmer than room temp and don't saturate the plant or the stomatas will snap shut, most are under the leaves.
This will prevent any lockout or any weirdness in the root zone.
But yes I believe you have an mg deficiency.. magnesium shows as yellowing between the veins on the lower leaves, first, top leaves closest to the light can point upwards as well snd is probly the most common deficiency along with calcium
possibly some ph issues, or at least ph swings. And heat or light burn. As to over watering,I don't know that I saw the tell tale signs(in my opinion), lower leaves yellow center blade outward and turn crispy. Phosphorus also gets locked out in damp conditions

I should also mention, mag deficiency is exasperated by intense light, the switch in lighting could have made the deficiency appear