Hello everyone and thanks in advance to anyone who replies with any help for me. Very novice grower and have only done outdoors this being the 2nd year. Last year I did quite well in just plain old garden soil and yielded close to 2lbs off of 3 plants. So this year I decided to take a bigger plunge and try seeds from ILGM and a more controlled outdoor grow on my patio in 5 and 7 gallon containers. Here’s the info, strain is super skunk as I read it may be an easier strain to grow for newbies, soil is FF OF. I started them in a mixture of the OF and a seedling starter
soil before transplant and plants have been hardened off and acclimated to sun for about 7 days now. They began beautifully and sprouted and grew quickly but now as there hitting their 3rd node it seems to be curling down and a few leaves don’t seem to be completely formed or don’t have a sharp point. Found a few brown spots as well and done a lot of reading and seen possible cal/mag, pests and several other possibilities. I have 30/100mag loupe so I inspected and seen 2 or 3 aphids so I removed and killed em. Transplanted hoping maybe they just needed more root room but have same issue in larger pots. I believe I may have seen several mites but I’m truly not sure as I’ve never really seen one before. Mixed up a 32/1 H2O to H2O2 and sprayed plants in hopes of removal if was this case. If I read correctly it wouldn’t hurt the plants so I figured better safe than sorry. Been using tap water and don’t have an instrument to test water or run off yet. The water droplets on plant are because I took the pics shortly after sprayed them down with mixture. Only for soil PH. Just not a real skilled grower yet and would love anyone’s opinion on thoughts on the matter. Thanks again to anyone who has suggestions
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What are your watering practices? Sometimes wilting is from overwatering with seedlings. Do you let the containers fully dry out before each watering?
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Yes I had been allowing them to dry when they were in their smaller 1 qt containers prior to transplant. Actually the bottom 1/3 of soil was fairly dry when I transplanted. Have only watered once since transplanted on Saturday and the issue was occurring prior to moving to larger pots. Soil now is 3/1 OF and Perlite for drainage. I soaked the medium after transplant and lower leaves dropped a little bit but not real bad. Looks worse than what they really are now because had just sprayed them prior to pics. My main concern is the new growth is curling down which I understand it alone could come from my watering practices but also the few brown spots and the new growth also looks strange. Some of the developing leaves look as if they don’t have points or aren’t fully developed and hook downwards and some leaves hook inwards as well. Meaning they hook right and left towards the center leaf of the beginning new growth. As far as I can tell the transplant went really well. Root balls came out with all the soil and had prepared a hole already and put micorrhizae on roots before placing in hole. They were exposed the to air for maybe 15 seconds but again I transplanted because of this issue so was happening before that. I have 9 plants and seems only 4 have this issue. Tested soil and it’s about 6.5/6.6ph. Using just well water for watering. Just worried about making a wrong decision trying to correct a nutrients issue, pests, or should I just be patient and see how it plays out. Thanks for your help.
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Be patient and let them dry. They look wet, a plant that size will stay saturated for weeks. small amounts of water in a circle around the base to force the roots to look for water.
Overwatered is far more deadly than lack of water. If you think it needs water, wait longer.
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Ok thank you. I won’t water for at least a week or more and then just check em after that to see if soil is drying out. I do have 1 more question when comes to the watering. I’ve seen many others say exactly what you’ve just said as well so I know it’s good advice but when I do water and I use the circle of water outside the roots method do I water until I get run off or just until I believe it’s enough water? I ask because I have a half dozen in food grade 5 gallon buckets with about 5 1/2” holes in the bottom and another 5 1/4” holes in bottom and a half dozen around the sides. I see a lot of people watering until run off but it just seems like a ton of water to me so wasn’t sure which way to do it.
Neither. Save watering till runoff until your lady is larger. How much to give her now? Depends on your style. I use a 3 day double method. Start with 1 cup for established seedlings, 60ml for babies. Check each day if soil is dry at 2 or 3 days, I increase by a cup if not wait till soil is dry (varies by plant but usually another 24 hours is all it takes) then I give another single cup. With a plant your size I would start with 2 cups.
Less water is needed during veg then in flower since wet soil is harder for roots to move through. Let your soil dry out really well before watering again, lift the pot each day and wait until it feels like the only real weight is the bucket itself. Light as a cork you might say. Then start the method described above.
Good chance the brown spots you see are from water on the plant, then being in the sun. Try to avoid getting the plant itself wet unless the sun is going down. It gets argued by many that this isnt true but I live In AZ (maybe you do 2 I dunno) here the sidewalk gets scorched from being wet after the sprinklers in peoples yard go off.
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Like doc mentioned I do not recommend watering to runoff, the only time you should ever water to runoff is when you are using synthetic nutrients, ocean forest out of the bag is an organic soil and needs to be treated as such until synthetic practices are used. Watering to runoff will leach plant nutrients and soil ph buffering minerals out of the soil allowing peats naturally acidic tendencies to show.
I hope this helps! Happy growing!
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Yes it does help thank you guys very much. All of that makes sense. I’m in Md but we’ve already had several days up over 90 and using a mist sprayer bottle when they were in smaller containers could very well have been water droplets and then the sun hitting them later on. Thanks again!
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I just wanted to make time to say thank you to Doc & Autos Only as you were the 2 people willing to respond to a newbie seeking advice and I truly appreciate it. I believe your advice was spot on as well and my watering practices were most if not all of the issue. Took your practice of the 2 cups method and check soil to see when really dry before watering again and they’ve take off wonderfully. No more abnormal growth or major curling of leaves. Attached pics previously of what they looked like before and this is what they look like now in just 1 week. Their growing like weeds now…Lol….Thank you both again!
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