Hydro to soil conversion complete. This is day 3 and plants seem none the worse for wear. They seem to be thriving. Color looks good. The tent is going to make all the diff. Height and temps no longer an issue. I have very good ventilation. Now I won’t have to constantly worry about water temps and such. I can relax more and let nature do it’s thing. They don’t appear at this point to be stressed very much and are young enough that they should adjust well. That’s my hope anyway.
@Graysin: I took your advice and made a hole just deep enough to fit net pots and roots. I gently and loosely coiled roots and put them in the hole and put the net pots on top. I guess I was still in hydro mode when thinking about trying to place roots straight down in a deep hole. I realized that the soil is their new home. They don’t have to grow straight down to reach water or nutes. From what I read I need to give lots of water first few days. Roots are used to living and getting nutes in water. They need time to acclimate to getting water and nutes from soil. The smart pots keep over watering a non issue. After a couple of more days I will back off on the water and just water when necessary.
I have another question. The two plants in the middle pot of my pic were a stressful transplant. They had stretched very badly much more so than the others after sprouting. I became concerned and decided to take a chance and cut back the stems and replant. Obviously this was very stressful to them as you can see. I didn’t use rooting hormone or anything else. I really expected them to perish. But as I have read cannabis is quite resilient. Hard to kill unless you’re trying to kill them. But they have survived and are growing. I don’t want to discard them. I would like to see what they become. Should I be worried that they could herm on me even tho they are fem seeds? Are they young enough to recover and be somewhat productive? Should I separate them from my two best plants? Is there a strong herm trait in Bruce Banner strain? If I need to separate them, I could put them in the grow box I originally had to see what they become. Any thoughts on this? Thanks very much for your advice.
Be mindful that it’s a possibility due to the stress of transplanting. I don’t think you need to remove them from the tent - while vegging they’re non-harmful even if they were full blown male. Watch them as they start to exhibit signs of flowering. For me, my Herms have exhibited male features lower on the stalk - I can’t say why, but I started looking low when @TheVirginian had an issue and gave the same advice. Sure enough that’s where nanners form on herms - or maybe it’s just the easiest to see because flowering doesn’t tend to start low.
Anyway, I suspect you’ll be okay but just keep a watch - honestly on all of them - because transplanting like that is a stress.
I’m getting some worrisome numbers. Ph and PPM way off. Tap water Ph 7 PPM 151 Runoff water Ph 4.6 PPM 1875. I have heard FFOF soil can be very “hot” at first. I was giving lots of water at first, so I thought, but not to point of runoff. My fabric pots felt damp on the bottom and sides. Today I watered to point of runoff to test Ph and PPM. Got the above numbers. Can too much water affect these numbers?
Not enough water will give you false reads. I.e. if you’ve just watered to runoff for the first time but never given a flush, your first runoff numbers may be unusually high. My understanding is that what you’re seeing is all of the salt buildup and other excess material collecting in the water. This is especially true in soil, where your soil will develop “channels” where water runs through faster than in other areas in the pot.
A good solution is to water a little at a time, nice and slow and evenly around the entire surface area of the soil until a little runoff begins. Then let it sit for a minute or two, and go back to adding more water. Some folks will discard that bit that comes out in the first minute or so, just because it contributes to false readouts. They’ll collect the rest of the runoff and use those numbers. I collect literally everything, but also anticipate my numbers to be “close but not quite” when I do this.
