What's new
  • ICMag with help from Phlizon, Landrace Warden and The Vault is running a NEW contest for Christmas! You can check it here. Prizes are: full spectrum led light, seeds & forum premium access. Come join in!

Seedlings' first leaves severely curling

Olum!

Member
Strain of Mj? BOG Blue Moon Rocks
Hydroponic or soil? Soilless LC #1 Organic Mix (Coconut Coir, worm castings, perlite, lime)
From seed or clone? Seed
Age of plant in question? 8 days
What stage (Veg/Flower; how many days into)? Seedling
Container/Pot size? 16 oz cup not filled entirely with hole in bottom
Have they been transplanted, if so how long ago? No
Water runoff Ph? Unknown, PH meter seems broken (unless my soil, Coke Zero, and tap water all just happen to have a PH of 7.5)
Nutrients added? No
Feeding schedule? None
When were they last fed/watered? 3 Hours ago very lightly
How are you determining when to feed/water (weight, wilting, etc.)? Sight, touch
Tap/RO/Distilled water? I was using tap water but accidentally started using mineral water containing "purified water, magnesium sulfate, potassium bicarbonate, and potassium chloride"
Is your Ph equipment properly calibrated? Doubtful
Light intensity/Age of bulb/Wattage? 21,700 total lumens using 13 CFLs total actual watts 226 (supposedly equivalent to 1,300 watts incandescent). Half are 2700K and the other half are 5000K
Distance to the canopy? 6 inches, but separated by glass
Temps at canopy? 73 Fahrenheit
Day/Night temps (Min.-Max.)? Min 73 Max 80
Current air flow (CFM)? Unknown, but air is being circulated by fans in grow cabinet, though doors on cabinet are off and ceiling fan is on though it cannot blow directly onto the seedlings.
Is there air blowing directly onto plant? No
Using CO2? No
Relative humidity? 35% - 45%
Pests? None apparent

The first tiny set of true leaves on all of my seedlings in are curling down to the point of nearly touching the stems and appear lighter than in my one previous grow. I'm very inexperienced but have looked around for some answers on this and I suspect it may be that I'm hitting the seedlings with too much light or that something in the mineral water, like potassium, is messing everything up. For right now I'm turning off the cab lights and giving the seedlings a little night time and in the morning I will probably leave on only 6 of my lights for a total of about 150 watts at 10,000 Lumens and start using bottled purified or distilled water instead of mineral.

So have I really messed things up or what? Too much light? Mineral water accident isn't a BIG accident I hope. Please tell me I haven't killed them or irreparably harmed them. Also, I apologize for the lack of photos. I'm having a problem posting photos and using the site's search function while using a proxy and though I've been looking around on the site and have found a lot of info on security, nothing seems to answer the image posting behind proxy thing yet.
 

Olum!

Member
Well I'm slightly disappointed that no one has commented on this posting but I will assume it is probably because my assumptions are correct. After giving them a night period to recover from my theorized light damage I have reduced the 18 CFLs to 3 for the time being, have provided a cooler constant temp of 71.5, have not watered them anymore or touched them and just left them under those three lights. They seem to be recovering quickly! The first set of leaves is growing quickly again and all are either mildly curled or not curled at all. I'm not entirely sure what if anything the mineral water has done/will do. I think if I just stop messing with it so much and over doing everything it will do well in the new environment provided for it. I just need to be careful about what I put into it and determine a better method for determining when to water/how much to water and how much light is acceptable to how many plants and at what stages so I don't give them some kind of light shock. I'm really hoping for this to be a magnificent harvest with many large, dense, aromatic, tasty, colorful, and THC laden buds filling a ScrOG. Wish me luck and if anyone can give me any advice or tell me if I'm headed in the right direction, I would appreciate it. Thanks for reading!
 

420shooter

Member
I would guess that they were over watered. You need to learn how to tell when to water them by the weight of the container. Seedlings are VERY easy to over water. How are they doing now?
 

Olum!

Member
The curling is completely gone and the plants are on their second sets of true leaves. The second set has a better color but all of the leaves are kind of crinkly and slightly deformed. I have them under six 5,000k 27 watt CFLs, 15 hours of daylight, between 37% and 43% humidity and steady at 74 degrees. I've switched to using a moisture meter to determine when it needs water. Here are two examples:
 

Olum!

Member
Newer, better photos. Leaves are no longer curling but they are not the congruent pairs I expected either. Indeed, some of them look quite deformed. Am I worrying too much or am I potentially doing something seriously wrong here? Thanks for looking!

The first six photos are of the six (of eight) surviving seedlings. Clearly one of them is dwarfed but coming along. The last two photos are close ups of two different seedlings. This is only my second time to grow and it's my firs time to grow BOG's BMR, so I'm not an expert by any means, but the leaves look deformed and sort of crinkly. The first set of true leaves even has a big vein running down the center of it which you can see on some of the seedlings' photos.


 

stihgnobevoli

Active member
Veteran
based on what you wrote and the pictures they look fine now, look all perfectly healthy to me. you said you are growing blue moon rocks which if im not mistaken is a blueberry cross using dj shorts original blue berry. blueberry plants tend to have mutations either early in seedling stage or all through their life. its sort of like a "genuine" stamp. i don't think anything you did caused the plants to look like this i think its just genetics. aside from the mutated leaves looking weird they look perfectly healthy. no spotting, colors aren't off, nothing burned, etc. its good you turn the lights back to 3 bulbs instead of 18 though. kind of a waste at this early stage. you should be back to using all or most by week 3 but for the first couple weeks as long as there is light within 3 - 5 inches they will grow fine and well. as they get bigger and you have to spread em out then turn on more lights.

anyway these plants are pretty common even though they are very rare if you search up mutated, mutation, blueberry, deformity etc you will find lots of blueberry threads with plants that look just like yours.
heres a couple i just popped, offspring from a bagseed male that mutated and smelled berry/grapey so i hit a couple of my moms. looks like it breeds true so it might be blueberry.
picture.php

picture.php

looks weird but they should grow at a normal rate and eventually grow out of it.

i shouldn't post when im high. you said something about your pH being 7.5? i followed you from the organics thread, if you used those mixes you should have dolomite in your soil. did you add too much or is your pH tester broken? i use the drops pH tester on my runoff water. try getting some drops or strips as a secondary. at any rate 7.5 shouldn't be high enough to cause those kinds of deformities. if it was pH you would know as your leaf tips would be all burnt too. but you definitely wanna check your pH again even though it should stay around 7 with the lime you added.
 

Olum!

Member
Thanks for the info stihgnobevoli, that really makes me feel better. BMR is a Blueberry cross of some kind. My pH tester is a cheap POS so I don't really trust it. I'm going to have to get something better when I can afford it.
 
Top