In the organic soil I first had them in, I was under the impression I wouldn't need many nutes, that it would get most of them from the soil. But now im not as sure, because I know the peat mix has some nutes in it but not a ton. I didn't imagine that it would be this difficult to get a serious answer. Thanks for your help. is there a substitute that will work till i'm able to order something like the general hydro kit online? Something I would be able to get locally at like lowes?
Weird Issues
- Thread starter DrShiny
- Start date
R1b3n4
Well-Known Member
Tomato food
JungleTime
Well-Known Member
When there young they dont need much at all, the n-p-k rating should be a ratio of 1-1-1. During aggressive veg they can handle a ratio of 3-2-1. So I wouldnt recommend anything harsher. Finding something from lowes is kinda sketchy but it can be done. Just make sure you dont burn them alive lol.
SamsonsRiddle
Well-Known Member
3-1-2 or 3-1-3 works better all through life in containers
JungleTime
Well-Known Member
From my experiences lucas formula beats them all but to each their own, 3-1-2 for a 3 inch plant in soil will fry it to death.
Is this considering that the mix they are in now is just peat-moss and per-lite with "1 month" of miracle gro plant food? Shouldn't I basically treat this as a soil-less medium?
polishpollack
Well-Known Member
all potting soil is soilless. it doesn't require special treatment. you just fert them as needed.
Alienwidow
Well-Known Member
No pollack, potting soil is a mix of organic matter that contains enough food in it for a plant to stay healthy for about a month. Soiless are products like promix or coco coir which contain little to no nutrients. Theyre made from mining peat bogs or grinding coconut shells and they require constant feeding because the plants grown in them rely on you for all of the nutrition supplied. Where potting soil usually has added lime, oyster shell, quano and other stuff like decaying wood and other composts added to it. They are two totally different styles of growing. One you feed every second or third watering at 3/4 reccomended dose max, and one you feed every watering at up to 1000% dose for huge 6 oz plants. Just a heads up because ive seen you mix this up many times now.
Yes! this is what i'm asking. Should I be feeding them like they are in soil or soil-less?
Alienwidow
Well-Known Member
Well what are they in?
SamsonsRiddle
Well-Known Member
dyna gro foliage pro is 9-3-6 and produces great results with just one bottle (it has all 16 essential macronutrients/micronutrients). 3-1-2 ratio, and with a silicon supplement (protekt is 0-0-3) added at an equal rate makes it 3-1-3 - works like a charm. Dosing is where many people run into problems.
DrShiny - My friend used to swear by this shit, and he would feed from first sprout. He used the red tomato stuff from MiracleGro at about a pinch per gallon (dry stuff). His plants loved it, but he had a real good handle on when to water. He also fed with it every watering. However, he used some 24 oz plastic cups with holes drilled in the bottom which don't hold any water like the Styrofoam cups you are using. That soil dries rather quickly, and gets crispy. If you feel like you need to start feeding, only use a very very small amount because your plant needs to recover from the overwatering, judging by the pictures. Best advice is to transplant into something that doesn't retain water in the container.
So I went and got the normal miracle gro plant food 24-8-16.
I am going to use 1/16th a teaspoon of it per gallon of water. This is 1/4th of what the instructions specify. I'm going to feed it once, water twice, repeat.
I already gave them food today about 5 hours ago and the big one is already looking better. The yellowing is going away and the very tips of new growth are not curling up anymore.
The smaller one finally seems to be picking up too. I think severe over-watering is what was stunting its growth and making the leaves grow in all funky. The new growth is very healthy looking just very slow going.
I am going to use 1/16th a teaspoon of it per gallon of water. This is 1/4th of what the instructions specify. I'm going to feed it once, water twice, repeat.
I already gave them food today about 5 hours ago and the big one is already looking better. The yellowing is going away and the very tips of new growth are not curling up anymore.
The smaller one finally seems to be picking up too. I think severe over-watering is what was stunting its growth and making the leaves grow in all funky. The new growth is very healthy looking just very slow going.
SamsonsRiddle
Well-Known Member
Everything sounds good, but i'm not sure if that food has all the micros and shit you're going to need to really flower that girl. Once again I would recommend DynaGro for all the reasons above.
They have both improved tremendously. I think their root systems have finally recovered from the over watered conditions, they appear much more dynamic responding to the watering. The growth rate is picking way up. Color is way better. I will post more pics in a few days, but on the one plant at least I appear out of the woods for now. The smaller one is still concerning me, but I think it will be ok. It's just growing so incredibly slow and small. I must have damaged the roots pretty significantly when transplanting it.
polishpollack
Well-Known Member
To the Widow,
Soilless means "does not include topsoil like what is outdoors." All potting soil is soilless. Dr. Shiny's recovery only proves that the plants needed fertilizer, which according to the first post, wasn't being done even though Shiny made mention of the plants being in organic mix. The term potting soil doesn't mean that it is soil. It would be more accurate to call the bagged products "potting soilless," but in the mind of the consumer this wouldn't make sense. When we see the word "less" we tend to think less than good, so the term potting soil was born. According to Widow's definition, I'm wrong because only potting soil contains fertilizer, but when you Google the term soilless growing medium, you get a return of potting soils that have fertilizer, like this:
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=soilless+growing+medium
So something is wrong, either Widow is or Google. The truth is that both are partially right. The term potting soil really doesn't mean anything. It's just a term that people can relate to. All potting soils are soilless because as they may or may not have fertilizer or bacteria, it's not TOPSOIL, the stuff you find outdoors. That's the difference. It's the only difference. Just because a potting soil has nutes in it doesn't mean it's a soil. It's a soilless mix with nutrients that manufacturer's like to call potting soil. The idea being this: that if you buy potting soil, you get the nutrients like what topsoil will provide for plant growth. This is distinguished from soilless as soilless has less components to it and by itself won't grow plants. You have to fert them. So in this Widow is partially right. If you took potting soil and removed all of the nutrients, what would you have? Soilless, right?
"They are two totally different styles of growing."
Gotta disagree. One just has more stuff to it.
"One you feed every second or third watering at 3/4 reccomended dose max, and one you feed every watering at up to 1000% dose for huge 6 oz plants."
Huh? The whole point to using a nutrient-filled potting soil is so you don't have to add much in ferts. Using 1000% seems like such a silly statement... I'm stunned.
Soilless means "does not include topsoil like what is outdoors." All potting soil is soilless. Dr. Shiny's recovery only proves that the plants needed fertilizer, which according to the first post, wasn't being done even though Shiny made mention of the plants being in organic mix. The term potting soil doesn't mean that it is soil. It would be more accurate to call the bagged products "potting soilless," but in the mind of the consumer this wouldn't make sense. When we see the word "less" we tend to think less than good, so the term potting soil was born. According to Widow's definition, I'm wrong because only potting soil contains fertilizer, but when you Google the term soilless growing medium, you get a return of potting soils that have fertilizer, like this:
https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=soilless+growing+medium
So something is wrong, either Widow is or Google. The truth is that both are partially right. The term potting soil really doesn't mean anything. It's just a term that people can relate to. All potting soils are soilless because as they may or may not have fertilizer or bacteria, it's not TOPSOIL, the stuff you find outdoors. That's the difference. It's the only difference. Just because a potting soil has nutes in it doesn't mean it's a soil. It's a soilless mix with nutrients that manufacturer's like to call potting soil. The idea being this: that if you buy potting soil, you get the nutrients like what topsoil will provide for plant growth. This is distinguished from soilless as soilless has less components to it and by itself won't grow plants. You have to fert them. So in this Widow is partially right. If you took potting soil and removed all of the nutrients, what would you have? Soilless, right?
"They are two totally different styles of growing."
Gotta disagree. One just has more stuff to it.
"One you feed every second or third watering at 3/4 reccomended dose max, and one you feed every watering at up to 1000% dose for huge 6 oz plants."
Huh? The whole point to using a nutrient-filled potting soil is so you don't have to add much in ferts. Using 1000% seems like such a silly statement... I'm stunned.
Ok here is an update/ another cry for help.
Bear with me here, i'm a beginner.
The smaller plant is just stagnant. I'm not really investing much more into it. If it pulls out great, but i'm counting it a loss.
This larger plant though. Notice how the new growth looks fantastic, but the older stuff is yellow and spotted? Should I just take the health of the new growth as a sign to keep doing what i'm doing?
Also, check out the tip. I sorta FIMed it but at a strategic time when there was a young fan blade developing so that I'm going to get 6 tops out of it! NEAT! I had to carve up the stem a little for the tiny top tips so they could get some light and air, but now all 6 tips are definitely there and growing! I'm so thrilled about that.
Bear with me here, i'm a beginner.
The smaller plant is just stagnant. I'm not really investing much more into it. If it pulls out great, but i'm counting it a loss.
This larger plant though. Notice how the new growth looks fantastic, but the older stuff is yellow and spotted? Should I just take the health of the new growth as a sign to keep doing what i'm doing?
Also, check out the tip. I sorta FIMed it but at a strategic time when there was a young fan blade developing so that I'm going to get 6 tops out of it! NEAT! I had to carve up the stem a little for the tiny top tips so they could get some light and air, but now all 6 tips are definitely there and growing! I'm so thrilled about that.
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Think I should trim some of the lower, sicker looking leaves or branches? Maybe Like 1 leave every day or so till I eliminate the 2 bottom branches? I don't want to shock it too much right now because I want those tips to grow in strong. But I'm thinking the plant could use the energy and nutes to make new healthy growth rather than draining itself trying to repair those damaged (over-watered during development) leaves.
polishpollack
Well-Known Member
The only thing I can guess at this is you're missing a micronutrient, like boron, sluphur, similar. I can only guess because I haven't seen a plant struggle with this kind of color. It could also be water related as that soil looks like it's compacting and won't breathe much. plants need 16 or 17 different elements in nutrients. If you're soil has none, you might give the fertilizer dynagro a try. just a real small amount like 1/8 or 1/4 tsp in a gallon of water. maybe you can find the small 8 oz. bottle because when you use so little, it's hard to justify buying the quart.
SamsonsRiddle
Well-Known Member
lol, he's almost got it.
only remove a leaf once it is 80% dead, otherwise it is still bringing in energy and giving the rest of the plant whatever nutrient you are starving it of (as long as it's mobile, which seems as though since it's on the bottom).