FIRST Grow -Seedling problems

[wvkindbud38]

This year I used a really loose mix and my seedling never got past their 3rd set of leaves then stalled. They were rootbound faster than I'm used too and transplanting into a larger pot got them going again.

I mixed up some Promix and perlite and it was horrible trying to grow seedlings. I always use a quality seed starter from Wal-Mart or Lowe's but didn't have any on hand. So the seedlings just didn't grow right in the Promix/Perlite. I'll never try it again. Don't get me wrong I use Promix and Ocean Forest for my plants after the seedling stage, but definitely won't try mixing the Promix up for seedlings

 

[Switcher56]

Actually I read a few books. Did a bunch of research and decided on my set up. I have the grow bible and a few others. I didn’t go in without any knowledge. I gave a range of ph due to the buffer the soil creates and my ppm are around 200-300 which is decent for seedlings. I’m not an idiot, I’m just requesting support from season vets. I have the fox farm line of bloom grow and booster as well as microbial brew. I also have liquid kelp , liquid fish fert made with no heat. And microbial powder for the rootst

Never said you were OTOH "based" on your questions it is readily apparent from my angle that, your foundation is somewhat shallow. e.g my pots are now dry. Now what?

There is no such thing as under-watering, it just means you have to water more often. OTOH spending a week for the pot to dry, is tooooooo much. A day you can live with and adjust but...

If you are talking about ~ The grow bible by Robert Bergman, it is a light read that will get you there but, not by itself. I printed that PDF out. I also have Ed Rosenthal's Growers Handbook. A good reference but I prefer Jorge's encyclopedia. Hand in hand with Ed's volume, makes for a nice set. The encyclopedia has a great troubleshooting section. Worth the price of admission if you ask me.

OTOH Jorge's ~ The indoor outdoor medical grower's guide ain't worth the price of admission (extremely dated, lots of pictures but little substance.

Do you know why many vets don't bother posting to these threads? They're longer (vets) in the tooth than beavers LOL. It becomes repetitious after a while.

I am here to help you along but I am not responsible for your education.

 

[wvkindbud38]

... and that is the easy way out IMHO he needs to learn from his mistakes and, once again IMHO tossing them and starting fresh doesn't teach diddly. He will be further ahead, figuring out where he went wrong and see them to fruition, regardless if he doesn't hit the proverbial 1g/W, which IMO is overrated. Any bud will be a victory for him. You can't buy confidence in a book. We all started at one point!

Yea honestly Id read Jorgres indoor grow bible until it was memories if I were him. And no offense but did you see his pics?, I don't know if they'd even survive with a greenthumb by looking at them. Ive did this along time, he's knows he overwatered them. Maybe it would be better to start some more fresh and give it a try?? I definitely don't see a problem starting a few more. I'm trying to help him grow some weed. And my experience is saying start some more plants. Yes he needs practice, but on plants that look nearly dead Id put my money on starting more plants. He's not gonna learn today how to grow, it's gonna take time guys. Like I said trail and error....which means practice things with your plants. Hey if he wants to try and save those and practice that's ok JUST START MORE. I'm not trying to be hurt any feelings, heck I accidentally watered some seedlings with a jug of water Id had mixed for some older plants and killed most of them. Marijuana plants are super delicate plants you gotta baby those little roots for a few wks. I'm by no means calling anybody a idiot or anything I just wanna make that clear with my above comment lol....we all mess ok. He's gonna be ok

 

[wvkindbud38]

i am not a soil grower but i wouldnt ph at ph5.5 in soil i would do ph6 to ph6.3
but i hope you get it sorted.also leave your tap water overnight put airstone in it
if you can All the best with your grow.

Yea I was off the forums for awhile but it usex to be like 6.5 in Veg and down around 6ish in flowering. When I came back most guys were flowering way down in the 5s. Ive went to 5.7-5.5 a few times in flowering and most do ok, you just gotta what the sativa is easy to burn. I'm not so sure if I wouldn't rather keep mine around 6.0 in flowering. Ive been at it 25yrs or so and still try new things and see if it works better.

 

[Switcher56]

Yea honestly Id read Jorgres indoor grow bible until it was memories if I were him. And no offense but did you see his pics?, I don't know if they'd even survive with a greenthumb by looking at them. Ive did this along time, he's knows he overwatered them. Maybe it would be better to start some more fresh and give it a try?? I definitely don't see a problem starting a few more. I'm trying to help him grow some weed. And my experience is saying start some more plants. Yes he needs practice, but on plants that look nearly dead Id put my money on starting more plants. He's not gonna learn today how to grow, it's gonna take time guys. Like I said trail and error....which means practice things with your plants. Hey if he wants to try and save those and practice that's ok JUST START MORE. I'm not trying to be hurt any feelings, heck I accidentally watered some seedlings with a jug of water Id had mixed for some older plants and killed most of them. Marijuana plants are super delicate plants you gotta baby those little roots for a few wks. I'm by no means calling anybody a idiot or anything I just wanna make that clear with my above comment lol....we all mess ok. He's gonna be ok

Agree

I'm not there to evaluate in person if there is a lesson to be learned here but, if he is able to nurture them around to fruition, well that then becomes experience and, only fools do the same mistake twice

 

[Spacejeezy]

Watered lightly with a microbe booster a day ago and they are looking better

 

[Switcher56]

Watered lightly with a microbe booster a day ago and they are looking better

We often overthink things! FWIW seedlings do not need added nutrients. The soil will provide that. IMHO the last thing we want to do to "stressed plants", is stress them even more. If the plant isn't ready to uptake nutes and, it doesn't like its environment, it shuts down, or at a minimum doesn't recover. I would have lightly watered them with plain appropriately PH water only. Once they recover then start adding nutes @ 1/2 strength IAW the recommended mfr dosage (1st feeding).

My girls don't see nutes until the 3rd week from seed (1st week of veg) and at that point they're in 4" pots. Up to that point they are seedlings. I veg for 8 weeks as my grows aren't conveyor belts. The 8th week is transition week. I flower IAW mfr recommendation. As we get closer to those recommendations we start paying closer attention to the trichomes and harvest IAW with what "you" are after.

Why? Unless you have "unpoted" them to have a peak at your roots, you have no idea what's going on below the soil. What damage (if any) occurred due to over watering, (normally root rot)? The litmus test was to nurse 'em back to health. If they resume their growth etc... then we can chalk it up as merely a bump in the road.

This is simply what I do. You will have to develop your own routine to suit "your" environment and growing practices. Do your due diligence and your plants will tell you what they need.

 

[Spacejeezy]

Soooo, I raised the lights slightly, the only reason I added some microbe was for the roots which are doing great. I can see them through the clear cup and they are not developing root rot. I enjoyed the grow bible but I have the cannabis encyclopedia by Jorge Cervantes and I am thoroughly enjoying his readings. They haven’t been watered since my last post. Which is fine. They are looking good. I have been reading up on the lift test and have a dry cup of soil next to them for comparison. I started two more with a better perlite ration but have kept 5 out of 10 of the girls I first had. The others were doing ok but weren’t growing and I needed to devote my time on fixing the 5 good ones. They have shown Significant growth since my last post and I’m thoroughly enjoying the recovery. My two new ones have already popped through the soil and have their first set of true leaves. I appreciate everyone’s help and I understand the repetition of help you all give so it’s even more appreciated that you all stuck it out on this thread.

 

[Spacejeezy]

Pictures for progress

 

[Switcher56]

Cool beans

 

[wvkindbud38]

Agree

I'm not there to evaluate in person if there is a lesson to be learned here but, if he is able to nurture them around to fruition, well that then becomes experience and, only fools do the same mistake twice

Yea it's good to practice, I still do it alot. I took a break from growing for awhile and there's alot of newer ways Ive picked up on.


Yea those look alot better man!!! Usually when I overwater or F-up I'll try to leave the plant along for a few days until it drys out. Heck sometimes Ive put plants aside outdoors to scrap and forget about them, and see them a wk later looking good enough to keep. You just gotta be patient when you overwater and let them dry out

 

[Spacejeezy]

So I upgraded to a HLG QB288 135w v2 quantum board and my plants are coming back to life with that and watering. They have just began serious growth again and the old leaves are permanently damaged on a few. I’ll take new pics but currently I have a few day old picture!

 

[peng]

Hello bro,

I read the whole post and couldn't help myself posting a reply, i hope everything will go well for your crop from now on!


Firstly, new plants don't require any nutrients at all, until the cotyledons have naturally wilted, this usually occurs at 4-5 nodes? maybe even later... so, forget about fertilizers at least for the first month from starting to germinate your seeds, you will only add stuff to the soil, but the plant will not take it.


Second, i can see you have your seedlings in a transparent cup, and that cup is inside a beer cup? I wonder if the transparent cup has any holes in the bottom? If it does, then remove that red beer cup... it has no use at all, and even can accumulate some water that runs off the transparent cup, making the holes useless and therefore choking your roots to death.



Third and lastly i think, is to think about the amount of water of each irrigation. So, what i do to not feck up: i pierce 3 holes in a plastic cap of a cocacola bottle with a screwdriver or whatever i have at disposal, and use a 500 ml bottle with it to water my plants. It is a basic version of a dripper and i only water each seedling with 4-5 drops per day... and that is all. With each pair of leaves and increase of leaf surface, you should be increasing each irrigation. Always keep in mind that is much better to constantly feed or water your plants with a small amount each time, than to do one big irrigation or fertilization event just every now and then.






By the way, i cannot agree more to post #43. Just go to your local square or public garden, take some soil, wash it with tap water with 4 times its volume, let it dry a little and sprout some bagseeds in cups on the back of your garden or somewhere you can. Maybe some 30-40. See how the plant develops, how it reacts, experiment, and further more, just try to be observant. Plant time is different than animal time, and patience only rewards the weed grower.



Soil mixture for seedlings until the cotyledons wilt is just a structure to sustain the roots and allow water intake, but it doesn' supply any nutrients whatsoever, and will never do until the cotyledons wilt. I always use the soil mix from previous harvest for my seedlings. It is basically completely devoid of nutrients and is light enough just to sustain the first stages that require almost no care at all.



For irrigation, i only use tap water, directly from the tap to the bottle to the plant.

Coming to your current issues, what i would do is let the soil mixture dry a little, then transplant to the red cup which is slightly bigger than the transparent cup. I have two points to state this. One is let dry a little, so when you transplant, you will not take the whole volume of soil mix, but it will rather crumble a little. This way you will get rid of some of that saturated soil.
Second is you don't need more space right now but surely you need to push the plant for new growth, and a small increase of cubic centimeters will allow for 1 or 2 new nodes at least.

Remember to put some stone or arlite in the bottom of the new cup.



The current state of those leaves will not come back and they will never be healthy again but you can have hope in new growth. If you want to buy a new soil mix from the growshop or a place like that, i would highly recommend BioBizz light mix. Very hard to fuck up that soil mix.



I'm sorry for the wall of text and poor english, and wish you the best

 

[Spacejeezy]

Update on the plants, growth has come back. Transplanted into 3 gal , leaves damaged by over watering are gonna die but that’s it! Thanks for the help everyone.

 

[grayeyes]

Remember : Less is more. When the plants are dry they send out roots to find water. More roots, more to harvest.

 

[Spacejeezy]

Hello bro,

I read the whole post and couldn't help myself posting a reply, i hope everything will go well for your crop from now on!


Firstly, new plants don't require any nutrients at all, until the cotyledons have naturally wilted, this usually occurs at 4-5 nodes? maybe even later... so, forget about fertilizers at least for the first month from starting to germinate your seeds, you will only add stuff to the soil, but the plant will not take it.


Second, i can see you have your seedlings in a transparent cup, and that cup is inside a beer cup? I wonder if the transparent cup has any holes in the bottom? If it does, then remove that red beer cup... it has no use at all, and even can accumulate some water that runs off the transparent cup, making the holes useless and therefore choking your roots to death.



Third and lastly i think, is to think about the amount of water of each irrigation. So, what i do to not feck up: i pierce 3 holes in a plastic cap of a cocacola bottle with a screwdriver or whatever i have at disposal, and use a 500 ml bottle with it to water my plants. It is a basic version of a dripper and i only water each seedling with 4-5 drops per day... and that is all. With each pair of leaves and increase of leaf surface, you should be increasing each irrigation. Always keep in mind that is much better to constantly feed or water your plants with a small amount each time, than to do one big irrigation or fertilization event just every now and then.



View attachment 495607


By the way, i cannot agree more to post #43. Just go to your local square or public garden, take some soil, wash it with tap water with 4 times its volume, let it dry a little and sprout some bagseeds in cups on the back of your garden or somewhere you can. Maybe some 30-40. See how the plant develops, how it reacts, experiment, and further more, just try to be observant. Plant time is different than animal time, and patience only rewards the weed grower.



Soil mixture for seedlings until the cotyledons wilt is just a structure to sustain the roots and allow water intake, but it doesn' supply any nutrients whatsoever, and will never do until the cotyledons wilt. I always use the soil mix from previous harvest for my seedlings. It is basically completely devoid of nutrients and is light enough just to sustain the first stages that require almost no care at all.



For irrigation, i only use tap water, directly from the tap to the bottle to the plant.

Coming to your current issues, what i would do is let the soil mixture dry a little, then transplant to the red cup which is slightly bigger than the transparent cup. I have two points to state this. One is let dry a little, so when you transplant, you will not take the whole volume of soil mix, but it will rather crumble a little. This way you will get rid of some of that saturated soil.
Second is you don't need more space right now but surely you need to push the plant for new growth, and a small increase of cubic centimeters will allow for 1 or 2 new nodes at least.

Remember to put some stone or arlite in the bottom of the new cup.



The current state of those leaves will not come back and they will never be healthy again but you can have hope in new growth. If you want to buy a new soil mix from the growshop or a place like that, i would highly recommend BioBizz light mix. Very hard to fuck up that soil mix.



I'm sorry for the wall of text and poor english, and wish you the best

Thank you for this! My plants have recovered and are growing ridiculously fast. Could be the new quantum Boards , they are 135 w adjusted to 90watts, giving off about 35,000 lux (had a lux meter for work), no exhaust just open top vent and side window, gave them some liquid kelp and some myko for the transplant and growth was immediate, no shock.

 

[Spacejeezy]

Thanks for the help

Thanks for the help

After long consideration, I decided to keep my plants. After figuring out a water issue and schedule. My girls are 1 week into flower now and doing so damn well. Thanks to everyone!