Droopy and Yellow Young Ones

[KernelPanic]

Hi all!

I'm growing some mother plants in a double PC case:


Two weeks old they've started to go yellow and wilting a little.




Was watering them about 20ml each every second day as I was afraid of over watering. The last two or three times I gave them 50ml each. The soil seems dry right through to the bottom. I haven't given them any nutes. Im using 4 cool white 20W CFL's. The stems are not very long so don't think its because of the light? Havent made any light traps over the fan holes yet. Just checked the water pH level is at +-7.6.

SOS

 

[MynameStitch]

What soil mixture are you using?

Making sure it's ph is not the issue I would say its time to give them a small dose of nutrients now....... the one in the middle at least does..... but first make sure your ph is not causing this issue, they do look like they were a bit overwatered


How old are they? and have you checked the ph of the soil?

when you watered they don't need watered every 2 days, I water them enough and let them go to 3 or 4 days without watering them When I first started to grow I made that mistake and killed a few seedlings from overwatering...... seedlings don't need a lot of water jsut enough to keep the roots moist, otherwise overwatering can cause damping off and you don't want that....

 

[Core]

can be 3 things i think.....soils PH off.....there just hungry or soil is 2 'hot'

7.6 ph is way over the limit....soil has to have a range from 6.3 -6.8 and soilless 5.8 -6.2

 

[KernelPanic]

Thanks all.
MynameStitch,
1:1:1:8 / PERLITE:VERMICULITE:COMPOSTOTTING SOIL
2 weeks since i started germing the seeds.
Dont know the pH of the soil. Will have to get a proper pH meter..

 

[KernelPanic]

I've got a little bag of Lime PH Neutralizer. Maybe I could use that to bring it down a bit?

 

[MynameStitch]

You are using a soiless mixture which means your soil ph needs to be 5.5 to 6.3

water ph will not have the final value unless it's high like over 9

you need to get some ph test strips and find out what the ph is before you add anything to it.

 

[Blackmelo]

Hi kernel,
there are 2 things I can tell so far that you are doing wrong.

First, do not only feed 20 ml at a time. That is much too little. You want to feed as much as the pot needs to soak the soil completely (so that it can hold no more). Then let it dry out completely. Then resoak etc.

When ppl talk about overwatering a plant, what they mean is soaking the soil completely and not letting it dry out. As long as you let the soil become dry inbetween waterings, it is good to completey drench the soil.

Second thing you are doing wrong is feeding your plants a very high ph water.

Things should improve much more once you have those things sorted.

One important thing to know about tap water is that chlorine is added to it and plants (and fish) do not react well to it.
Always try to let a bucket of water stand for a minimum of 12 hours before feeding it to your plants to let the chlorine evaporate and let the water warm up to room temperature.

 

[KernelPanic]

ah makes a lot more sense now
thanks very much!

PEACE

 

[Blackvelvet]

Time to begin ferts. Since most ferts are acidic, ph will drop. Like Melo said, soak the pots till some runoff occurs then allow to dry out well but not till they wilt. Learn to pick up pots and feel their weight to tell how much water is there.
This will be handy when you start using larger containers.

 

[KernelPanic]

hmmm, thanks Blackvelvet. What about rain water? pH seems to be about 6.5-7.0.. i've added a weak mixture of BioBizz Fish-mix yesterday. not sure if i should with every watering?

 

[KernelPanic]

also tested the tap water for chlorine just now. got a reading of 0. so i dont think chlorine is one of the bad guys.

 

[eugenegreen]

You could just let your water sit out overnight and let the chlorine evaporate... I always repot into "neutral" soil whenever I see problems arise... Thats me though... JAH Bless


eugene

 

[KernelPanic]

ya might be a good idea thanks..

 

[KernelPanic]

yo.
looking worse.









flushed them this morning with ph downed water. the run-off water was way high at probably around 7.8+. difficult taking accurate reading coz of the yellow run-off water, but after flush it is down to +- 6.8...

 

[Blackvelvet]

yo.
looking worse.

Get some better ferts than fish mix. I posted this yesterday for someone else...maybe it will help you somehow.

Plants require nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, sulfur, calcium, magnesium and the micros: iron, manganese, zinc, copper, boron, and molybdenum.

Its probably easiest to provide the plants calcium and magnesium by using powdered dolomite lime (not pelletized) mixed into the soil at planting. Best thing is to make several small batches of soil mix and test a couple of different lime rates. 2-4 teaspoons dol. lime per gallon of mix is a good starting point. Wet the media well. Wait 1 week. Take 1/4 cup soil mix and mix with 1/4 cup distilled water. Stir. Wait 30 minutes. Test ph of the slurry. You will then get an idea of how much lime to use accurately rather than guess. (You can use this same soil testing method while the plants are growing by scraping the soil off the plant rootball carefully.)

Also, sulfur can be added and mixed into the soil by geting some powdered gypsum. A common rate to use with the gypsum is 1.5 pounds per yard/27 cubic feet. This works out to be 1 1/2 tablespoon per cubic foot or 3/4 teaspoon per gallon of soil mix.

This leaves n p k and the micros to add to the water. Peters (new name Jacks classic) 20-20-20 is an example of such a fert. There is better ferts that are high in nitrate nitrogen (preferred) rather than urea or ammonia nitogen. If your fert also contains calcium, magnesium, and sulfur too use a reduced rate of lime and probably no gypsum. An example of such a complete fert is the floranova series or pure blend pro.

Since your basically soilless, you want a ph range between 5.6 and 6.2 Adjust your fert water after you have added everything to about 5.8 using ph up or down.

20% of your fert water should pour out the bottom of the cups/pots. You want runoff to occur.

CLF = constant liquid feed; feed weakly with every watering

After sometime, dolomite lime runs out. You can add calcium and magnesium (and sulfur) by adding 1/4 teaspoon of both powdered gypsum and epsom salts per gallon of water (3.8L) along with the regular fert with npk and micros. Even with dol. lime, I like to add this along maybe every third fert or so. Of course if your fert contains cal mag already, this would not be needed.

Easy method to test soil ph: After the pots have been watered and ferted, wait 30 minutes. Then apply a small amount of distilled water...like maybe only 1 or 2 ounces till runoff occurs. Catch this on a plate/saucer. Test the ph. This will give you some idea of what ph your at.

 

[Blackmelo]

Hiya Kernel,
sry to hear plants are looking worse.

I might be wrong, but looking at your latest pictures, it still looks like your soil is very dry. Did you not give them a good watering?

Even if you have got the ph in the right level now and you feed the plants the right nutes, it would still take the plants a good week to recover imo. Try to get your ph (feeding water and ideally run-off too) down to 6.5. Blackvelevet might have a point about your nutes. Fish mix is not really a complete nute.

PS: I am very curious how you measure the chlorine concentration in your water...

 

[KernelPanic]

hi Blackmelo,

the pics were taken before the flush.

i've got a HTH test kit for pools. i tested clorine levels of my tap water with that. got a reading of approx. 0.0 - 0.1. not sure how accurate the thing is..

well the plants are not dead yet so maybe they'll recover.

these are the nutes i have atm:

BioBizz: Fish-Mix 6.0-2.0-4.0
BioBizz: Bio-Grow 8.0-2.0-6.0
BioBizz: Bio-Bloom 2.0-6.0-3.5

 

[Blackmelo]

hey kernel,
hope your plants do recover.
If you have got the bio-bizz grow, use that instead of the fish mix.
I was not impressed with the fish mix tbh and the grow contains all you need for the vegg stage.

I would recommend feeding 0.5 ml per liter of grow from now on, once the plants have perked up again and gotten a bit bigger, feed them 1ml per liter.

Have a look at the nutrient schedule I came up with for Bio-Bizz in my last grow diary in my sig.
Like most nutes on the market, bio-bizz is not made for growing weed but I have worked out the right combination of grow and bloom (and a few extra cheap nutes) that I have found covers the nutrient need for cannabis nicely.

Ps: the important "extra" nutes that I highly recommend with Bio-Bizz is the PK 13/14 and Epsom salts.

 

[bounty29]

Mine are looking exactly like that. It's my own fault, I'm just waiting on my pH meter to get here. I'm pretty sure mine are looking the same due to high pH and they need some food. It should be here in a day or two, so I'll give them a little dose of nutes and a good watering 2with the correct pH.

 

[KernelPanic]

thanks, blackmelo. will have a look at your "extra" nutes..

bounty29: ye i also think the main problem here is pH. However, in my case, it might be the chlorine levels as well. got a reading of 0 the other day, but this morning i could actually smell the chlorine when i got into the shower so i tested again - sample turned pink to show chlorine levels of 0.3+(scale doesnt really go any higher so i take it as "high")..