Great Lakes “Water Only” Soil (a regionally sold living soil)
5-Gal fabric pots
pH of runoff is 7.11, pH of water was 7.05
I don’t know PPM
Indoor
240W Quantum Board Light at 18" from canopy
Day temps: 70, Night temps: 63
45% humidity
4" exhaust fan
No humidifier or dehumidifier
No CO2
I have 4 plants that are about 2 month old (I think). Started as clones in aeroponic bucket, then to solo cups in Roots Organics Original Soil then into 1 gallon air-pots in Great Lakes “Water Only” Soil (I think kind of similar to super soil) and now in 5 gallon fabric pots (2 days ago). Same soil. Shortly after transplanting into the living soil (about 3 weeks ago) I started to notice light green top growth, a little bit of droop (probably the claw) and the light green leaf/dark vein thing. I just rode it out for a week then tried watering with Recharge. Didn’t seem to make a difference. Now the problem seems more pronounced. Less droop but now there are brown spots on a couple leaves and browning on the edges of a couple leaves (and the edges kind of curling down like reverse taco). Oh, and when I transplanted from 1 gallon to 5 gallon I was really surprised at how poor the root ball was. In my previous air-pot transplants the root ball has been bursting with roots. Any ideas what could be causing my issues?
your issue is you depend on what manufacture provide as info on there soil.
first do a slurry test
1 part soil and 2 parts distilled water.stir it up in a clear glass or jar
let it settle for 30 min
then take your ph pen and stick it in the liquid,not the bottom with silt and sand,not the top floating organic matter ,tight in the middle of the liquid,get your reading
next with that same liquid you can take one of them cheap NPK test kits off amazon and do a NPK test to see were you stand on your soil
the best practice from there is simple,go to the hannah feed schedule and feed your plants by that scale,it tell all stages of growth and what ec you need to be feeding at.
some folks dont aprove of ph and ppm checking of soil,well mate you have issues,testing is how you solve those.
the folk that dont check those things usally do there homework first,by checking ph and ec of any bag soil they buy,i do,knowing before planting is ideal.
when i make my own soil i cook the soil for min 30 days,then get a cheap test kit off amazon and send in a soil sample.soilsavvy kit 30 bucks for a piece of mind i call it,when i get my results back i adjust or use the soil from there.
from the looks of your gear you didnt do this ,so i sugest feeding ph water only until the plant gets hungry,as we all know fox farm ocean forest does not need nutes for first 3 weeks,your soil might just be the same,and nutes are causing your burn
I’ve used this soil previously (figured why not give it a shot to see how it did vs my own) and stopped using it without adding more pearlite or lava rock because it does not absorb water like other pre mix soils i’ve used. I think your problems are very likely due to overwatering because this can create imbalances and deficiencies when that happens. try to let the plant dry out and start by watering half of what you’ve been doing and do that for a week. remember, less water more often keeps the root zone where it likes to be.
here’s a pic of my current flowers about 5 weeks into flower. I switched to raised beds this round, but have had some issues with overwatering due to not setting up the blumats correctly.
I’m quite sure I did overwater a couple times, however when they were in 1 gallon pots (two days before the pics I posted in this thread) I took an extra day off from watering (48 hours instead of 24) at the advice of someone on ILGM. The next day they were a floppy mess. Bad news. This soil just dries out so fast. It’s kind of a nice feature but I’m definitely struggling a bit to figure out how much water to give. I Know when to give it. The struggle is the amount of water. Someone advised roughly 20% of the container size so that’s what I’ve been doing basically (I realize there are a ton of factors that can affect this).
the amount of water to give it is going to depend vastly on the size of the plant and the root mass. if you just transplanted, the roots have not spread to the entire soil so 20% of container size is way too much. water more like they are still in a 1 gallon pot. I’ve had this similar issue when transplanting and overdoing the first few waterings with the same end results.
How about an overall shot of the plant in question?
You got good advice. The only thing I would add is you will likely need to supplement when you get deep into flower. Adding vermiculite will help with moisture retention should you go that route but frankly would prefer soil that drains readily. You will be watering to runoff soon and many of your issues will go away at that point.
I don’t see anything particularly unusual with your grow. Clones do behave a bit differently as they are essentially mature plants but small.
Here’s a pic of right now. I wanted to get a pH reading last night so I knowingly watered when they didn’t need it just to get some runoff. The plant bottom left is what they all pretty much look like when not overwatered.
Why didn’t anyone just tell that guy to move his lights up higher. He has a little bit of light/led burn/light stress on the tips. Not a problem just move your light up.
