Royal King: Panama Red
• Method: Top Soil - Fox Farms Strawberry Fields
• Soil brand and type: Fox Farms Strawberry Fields
• Vessels: 10 Gallon nursery grade plastic buckets
• PH of Water, Solution, 6.5,
• PPM/TDS or EC of nutrient solution if applicable
• Indoor or Outdoor: Indoor
• Light system 2 King LED 2000W – 18 hour on, 6 off
• Temps; Day, Night: precisely: trying to keep temp 78-82 Day, 68-70 Night
• Humidity; Day, Night approximately 50% - 60%
• Ventilation system; no
• AC, Humidifier: cheap unit I run when humidity drops below 40%
After a month of attempts, I finally got the PH of my runoff between 6.4 and 6.6 and nutrient consumption is finally happening, but I’ve also got a white fly issue or at least so I believe. With my eyes they look like little gnats. I’ve killed thousands of these microscopic pest with an organic chrysanthemum oil and water mixture while dumping hundreds out that drowned in my runoff water. At least I.m only seeing a few every now and then, but look at the damage done to the plant in the back.
The vendor claims this strain reaches harvest in 77-84 Days. This is approximately day 67 and the buds aren’t any where near the size I’d expect them to be. My hands are too shaky to see a clear indication of trichome color. This is my third grow. My first two, I got lucky and just harvested at the last day the vendor stated it was ready for harvest, but the pistols on these two plants are 805% brown,
All advice is welcome, Will this harvest be any good at all? Is this damage permanent? What can I do to salvage what I have?
Cannabis will nearly always take 9 weeks for flowers to mature from the start of flowering. That is 63 days just for flowering stage. Add to that the vegetation time and you can see that estimate was unrealistic. Many sellers do that. It takes what it takes and you simply cannot rush the grow process. I have had a couple GDP plants finish up after just over 7 weeks once, but that’s a rare occurrence.
You should harvest based on two criteria…
1- the pistils should nearly all be browned and
2- Once the pistils are brown then check the trichs. Trichomes can be cloudy weeks ahead of the buds finishing their growth. We see lots of new growers chop the plants too early. We generally congratulate them on a successful harvest, but if they had waited for true maturity they would have had a better yield.
Are you feeding them something. If your post says I just missed it.
Also chrysanthemum oil is basically pyrethrin and not good for you to consume. Unless its made for consumption, but burning it might not be great.
I fed them 1000 PPMs of the fox farms trio (big bloom, grow big & Tiger Boom) + FF CalMag, and after watering three days later PH was 6.59 and PPM’s were below 300. They’re taking the nutrients now, but I fought PH issues for almost a month and I’m a little scared that between the PH issues and the white flies, this damage may be irreversible,
I finally got a good run off reading of less than 300 PPMs. I’ve only been measuring PH and PPMs after their watering. So I watered with nutrients at 1000 PPMS, then three days later just watered with 6.5 PH water and immediately measured the run off. PH was between 6.4 & 6.6 and PPMs were all under 300 for all four plants. I’ve only included a picture of the plants with issues, but yes they’re finally drinking their nutes, they get another feeding tomorrow.
Notice the PPM reading on the second row shows a much higher reading than you have.
Many say its too high but even cut back 25% it should be much higher than 300.
Most growers here like their runoff to be between 800 to 1000. Remember its Parts per million, so even a reading of 1000 is only one part food per 1000 of water.
But my PPM reading of 300 was three days after a feeding of 1000 PPMs with nutes. Then 3 days later I measured the runoff within an hour of watering with no nutes at 6.5 PH. If I still had 1000 PPMs three days later would that mean the plants aren’t absorbing the nutrients?
With Jack’s I don’t even bother to monitor runoff as plants look good throughout the grow. Using other nutrient lines I counsel growers to monitor runoff and to not supplement until TDS of runoff is below 2,000 ppm. You being at 300 absolutely is starving plants.
FF does recommend periodic flushes to maintain a certain salt level in the medium. However; monitoring runoff and adjusting your supplements accordingly works just fine.
I’m confused. You guys have to measuring your run off right after a nutrient feeding to get PPMs that high; Otherwise, if you feed 1600 PPMs and your runoff is 1600 PPMs, would that mean that the plants received nothing?
You have to prioritize what the plant looks like over readings. What is it telling you.
The plant above is showing definite signs on starvation.
This is what I see…
Red arrows point to leaves where nutrients are being pulled out by the plant to use for new growth.
Blue arrows show a little green on new growth that the plant has redistributed.
White arrows show old nutrient burn that OP mentioned when he had a very high PPM count in his soil.
The sweet spot is higher than 300 ppm. The plant is at its highest need right now.
1600 in and out means the soil is fully wetted with food. If it was higher than the 1600 then it would indicate leftover food. If its lower than 1600 then there was water leftover in the soil and you are probably over watering.
But the main point is the plant is yellowing from lack of food.
Each individual plant can have different needs. Some eat like a hungry lion, another like a baby bird. You have to let the plant tell you what it wants.
Makes sense. I thought the yellowing of the leaves was from the flies feeding off of my leaves. I’ve already fed them 1000 PPMs of nutrients today. Next week I’ll bump it up to 1600 and check the runoff again.
