Hello guys, this is my first grow and it’s been like hell for the last 14 weeks, I’ve got these seeds while i was in Egypt, so it’s unknown strain, my growing medium is SOIL, I had lots of problems with these two babies ( overwatering, heat stress, light stress, root issues), i transplanted them around two weeks ago and i used Recharge and it helped a lot, they grew a bit and looked happy, as i did some low stress training and turned the brightness up a bit around 10 days ago they started to show droopy leaves and got stunted,I checked the runoff water using 6.3PH RO water, ppm’s were around 300 and 6.6 PH, I would appreciate some help guys thanks.
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Answer these simple questions the best you can.
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NA (non applicable)
-What strain, Seed bank, or bag seed (photo or auto)
-Age of plant
-Method: Soil w/salt, Organic soil, Hydroponics, Aquaponics, KNF
-Vessels: Type and capacity of container (fabric, plastic, etc)
-PH and TDS of Water, Solution, runoff (if Applicable)
-PPM/TDS or EC of nutrient solution if applicable
-Method used to measure PH and TDS
-Indoor or Outdoor if indoor, size of grow space
-Light system List brand and wattage/spectrum
-Actual wattage draw of lights
-Current Light Schedule
-Temps; Day, Night
-Humidity; Day, Night
-Ventilation system; Yes, No, Size
-AC, Humidifier, De-humidifier,
-Co2; Yes, No
If growing Hydro some additional questions:
-DWC? RDWC? Autopots? Ebb and Flow? Other?
-Distance of liquid below net pot (DWC)
-Temperature of reservoir
-TDS of nutrient solution
-Amount of air to solution
Always try to upload a clear picture in white light of any issues you may have to allow the community to assist you.
-unknown strain, photo.
-Age of plant 14 weeks.
-Method: I’m using Soil
-Vessels: 7 gallons plastic pods.
-PH 6.3 and 20 TDS of RO Water, runoff was 6.6PH and 300TDS.
- when i first transplanted them into their 7 gallon pods i fed them using General Hydroponics flora series PPM’s were around 500.
-Method used to measure PH and TDS: I’m using PH meter and TDS meter.
-I’m growing indoor in 3*4’ space.
-Light is Viparspectra XS4000 480watts.
-Actual wattage is 480watts. - Light Schedule: 18 on 6 off.
-Temps; around 68 to 75 day and night time.
-Humidity; Around 47~53.
-Ventilation system; Yes, I have 4 inch inline fan.
-I’m using a humidifier.
-Co2:No.
Welcome to the forum.
Wow, you’ve had a lot going on. This is my my standard How I Grow answer. Some may not apply. Hope it helps.
- The first rule of how to grow is to learn to stay out of the plant’s way. Your job is to create and maintain the best possible environment balance. The plant will take care of the rest.
- Before you feed, water, brew teas, spray anything, or take action in any other way: take some cheap and easy environmental readings.
- Ensure the fresh air is exchanged about every minute so stale hot air is removed and the plant has a steady supply of fresh CO2 rich air. Not a hurricane but a gentle leaf flutter is all the air circulation it needs.
- Take room and leaf temp, a humidity reading, and plug those numbers into a VPD calculator to understand where you are as far a transpiration is concerned. Shoot for 1 kPa in veg and slightly higher (~1.4 kPa) in flower. VPD Chart
- Optimal humidity: seedling/clone: 70%, Veg: 40-60%, Flower: 40-50%
- Your canopy leaf temp is more important than room temp. You’re growing a plant not heating a room. Veg: 70-85F, Flower: 65-80F.
- To increase the VPD, moisture must be removed from the air, or the moisture holding capacity of the air must be increased by raising the temperature. Moisture removal can be accomplished by using dehumidifiers (expensive), or by replacing moist air with drier air (typically through ventilation). This is the standard practice for avoiding direct condensation onto crop or greenhouse surfaces.
- To decrease the VPD, operate fog or misting devices to add water vapor to the air, or cool the air. Both would reduce VPD level and the evapotranspiration stress in the crop.
- After any leaf temp issues are resolved, then ensure your lights are set to proper DLI to optimize photosynthesis. Start low in seedling/clone (100-300 PPFD) and work up to an avg 35-40 DLI across the canopy in veg and flower.
- Don’t adjust lights with a tape measure or % of rheostat. Get a light meter such as the Photone app for your phone. It toggles between PPFD and DLI.
- After adjusting lights recheck VPD (leaf, room, humidity). Find a balance between VPD (transpiration) and DLI (photosynthesis) by controlling the environment (raise/lower lights, lower/increase exhaust fan speed, defoliate, add heat/AC, etc). Automation makes this SO much easier because the environment is constantly changing.
- As the plant grows, when the lights come on/turn off, when you transplant, when the weather changes, etc., adjust the environment balance based on the VPD and DLI requirements for the stage of growth the plant is in. Ck often (more often than feeding or watering)
- Then if using soil, pH test a soil sample. It’s easy. Hanna has a great tutorial. If it’s 6.5 +/- .3 you should be good. Correct the pH if not.
- Another consideration is water source. Does it contain chlorine, chloramine or other contamination? What is the pH?
- Using soil only water when the plant is dry. DO NOT water based on a feeding chart or other schedule. Water is heavy (~8 lbs/gal). Pick up the plant to ck the weight. Only water when it’s light. Consider adding Ca, Mg and Fe when you water.
- Also consider using microbes. They help the plant take on nutrients. Real Grower’s Recharge, Mammoth P, others…
- Then look at your nutrients to ensure you are providing 3 primary, 3 secondary, and 7 trace minerals in your nutrition of choice. Use the mfr feeding schedule when you water (see No. 15). DO NOT water based on a feeding chart or other schedule.
- If you get a deficiency or pests address the environment (temps, humidity, air circulation, pH, water, nutrients) to ensure it’s still in balance. Then address the symptom(s).
- IOW, address the root cause. If your environment is not balanced treating plant symptoms will be a short term solution to a long term problem.
- In general, pests don’t bother healthy plants and a balanced environment with proper water and nutrients won’t cause deficiencies.
6 Likes
Very informative thank you, i need to check leaves temps I didn’t checked that, I think the environment is good grow space temps vary from 68 to 75, humidity around 50, air ventilation is good also, around 10 days ago they got droopy when i did LSD and turned up the brightness what’s confusing me is that light was around 25 percent dimmed when I turned it around 40 percent brightness leaves got droopy, i have the app Photon I measured the PPFD and it was around 300 ( light dimmed to 25 percent brightness), it’s confusing to be honest… I’ll check leaves temps and see where they at!
What KIND of soil??
What KIND of meter?
If that’s runoff then plant is starving.
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Pokon potting Soil
I’m using Hanna ph meter and some cheap Chinese TSD meter
And my recent runoff test using RO water was around 300 PPMs ( i was checking if it was having some nutritions lockout)
I don’t have much information about runoff and how much PPMs you should get, if a plant is starving is it gonna get droopy leaves? I thought it would show some spots in leaves or something similar!
How much PPMs should i feed these plants in their vegetative stage?
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A good well-crafted soil suitable for cannabis will give you a runoff number between 3,000 and 5,000 ppm. As the media acts as a buffer your plant can tolerate the high salts. What you are reporting is either a severely depleted soil or some kind of soilless medium like coco or peat.
I see by your location that you may have some challenges getting everything you need.
I would try to verify calibration of your PH meter to avoid any chance of a lockout, then do a runoff test as well. Then plan on adding supplements as if you were in coco. You may also want to start running some Cal Mag.
It would be really good to know just what your soil is.
Most bottled supplements would have you feeding at somewhere around 900 ppm and PH’d to your particular media. Hope that helps.
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This is the description of the medium im using, you’re correct in here it’s a challenge to get the right stuff that i need to grow in, I’ll keep a track on what I’m doing (PH and TDS or what i feed and the runoff, etc) let’s see where this ends up.
Thank you, appreciate your help.
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It’s a soil, but based on your readings completely used up. Definitely need to start supplementing.
The thing that bothers me is the timed-release stuff, but maybe it too is depleted.
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They say it has enough food for 180 days! Bothers me as well, so the plants still wilted/stressed started to get yellow crispy leaf tips and leaves are dying slowly, i can’t feed them now cuz pods still wet a bit, last time i watered them was this Saturday (8th of Jan), I’ll be definitely giving them some 600-900 ppms of nutritions I’ll set my ph to 6.0 this time cuz I think I’m seeing Phosphorus deficiency, hopefully they bounce up again.
Normally you won’t see any P or K def’s until flower. If anything you may need to add some Calcium and Magnesium. Cal mag may or may not be available in your area but you could top-dress soil with dolomitic lime (C) and Epsom Salts (Mg).
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I have cal-mag, and I always add it when i feed, if we wanna narrow down the problem I’m having according to forums I’m reading it should be either ph problem or the plant is starving, what do you say?
Your soil listed the PH of the media (nice of them) which leads me to think it’s not PH related. The low TDS supports the plant is hungry. What I see is primarily N def with possible C due to the slight interveinal chlorosis.
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So the reason plants are wilted/droopy is because of N and maybe C deficiency?
Not necessarily. I’m looking at color of the plant and data on the medium.
There are several reasons a plant can show wilting: near lights out some plants adopt a ‘guard’ posture, anticipating night hours. A plant with root issues will show a much greater amount of ‘guarding’. A pot bound plant will show guarding. And an overwatered plant as well. Plus plain old wilting 'cause it’s dry lol.
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Hahaha, well even though these babies r showing me hell but im never giving but on them!, I’ll keep you posted.
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This is exactly what they need because
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You mean turning the brightness up while plants are having Cal-Mag deficiency causing them to get droopy leaves?
Turning the lights up makes them want more of everything
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