I have been experiencing some issues lately that have me stumped, I have checked many abuse charts and guides and still cannot determine what can be happening. I have been cultivating indoors since 2000, started out without any issues, huge harvests, bought a house in 2003 and it all started going downhill since. Shortly after moving into my house in ’03, my yields started to drop, cloning was less productive to the point where I stopped altogether and have been working strictly off seeds. Things I have tried since then is: replacing all of my bulbs; installing a fresh air system duct; using a variety of dirts, not much of a choice around here, Miracle Grow seems to be the medium of choice for the local stores; and adjusting pH, water from my tap produces a pH level of 8.15, I was using the inexpensive fish aquarium pH tester for a couple of years, I have recently purchased (within the last 4 weeks) a digital pH water tester and soil pH tester. With the digital meter being more accurate than the aquarium tester, I realized that I needed to add more pH down to get to a level of around 6.0. This still does not seem to fix the problem.
On 3/6 I dropped 13 seeds in Peat Pods, the result was 9 seedlings , I placed them under my flouros for a couple of weeks, during week 2-3 the problem began, I did not have my digital pH tester at this point, so they started out with water that was probably high 7s. Unfortunately I do not have many pictures, but “2009.03.25 - Grow 1 - 01.JPG” shows one of my plants, notice the yellowing along the center vein. Picture “2009.04.07 - Grow 1 - 01.jpg“ shows my plants on 4/7. All of the lower leaves are dead, very brown and crispy. Some plants are drooping. I know drooping can be caused by over-watering; I do wait until the dirt is totally dry before watering. Picture “2009.04.17 - Grow 1 - 01.JPG” shows what one of them currently looks like, the yellowing of the veins appears to have stopped but overall color of the plant is not a nice dark green, I have been watering with a consistent pH of 6 since I received my digital meter.
On 4/8 I dropped 12 seeds in Peat Pods, the result this time was all 12 seeds germinating, I had my digital pH tester by this point and have been dropping the pH to just above 6 since day one. I was hoping that was why I had a 100% germination rate and thought that I had finally figured out what my problem was. My seedlings are now entering the stage where I noticed all of my past grows started to take a turn for the worst. Picture “2009.04.17 - Grow 2 - 01.JPG”
On 3/6 I dropped 13 seeds in Peat Pods, the result was 9 seedlings , I placed them under my flouros for a couple of weeks, during week 2-3 the problem began, I did not have my digital pH tester at this point, so they started out with water that was probably high 7s. Unfortunately I do not have many pictures, but “2009.03.25 - Grow 1 - 01.JPG” shows one of my plants, notice the yellowing along the center vein. Picture “2009.04.07 - Grow 1 - 01.jpg“ shows my plants on 4/7. All of the lower leaves are dead, very brown and crispy. Some plants are drooping. I know drooping can be caused by over-watering; I do wait until the dirt is totally dry before watering. Picture “2009.04.17 - Grow 1 - 01.JPG” shows what one of them currently looks like, the yellowing of the veins appears to have stopped but overall color of the plant is not a nice dark green, I have been watering with a consistent pH of 6 since I received my digital meter.
On 4/8 I dropped 12 seeds in Peat Pods, the result this time was all 12 seeds germinating, I had my digital pH tester by this point and have been dropping the pH to just above 6 since day one. I was hoping that was why I had a 100% germination rate and thought that I had finally figured out what my problem was. My seedlings are now entering the stage where I noticed all of my past grows started to take a turn for the worst. Picture “2009.04.17 - Grow 2 - 01.JPG”
