Plants drooping..WTF

[B00st3d]

Ok I took a few months off and killed my mothers, couldnt regret it more either oh well. I was runnin recon and chocolope, best strains I ever grew in almost 10 years btw. Now Im back and Im growing beans I got of off seedbay and nothing is doing all that great. Im also runnin some beans that I made summer of 07 right before I stopped runnin my blueberry skunk strain. All the beans that I made resulted in very healthy plants but for some reason all the seedbay stuff is growing very mediocre.

Im runnin sweet tooth 3(only 3 lived out of 10), Hashberry, DSD, MoscaNegra HP X C99 and all of em start drooping after the lights have been on for about 12-13 hours. Im running two 600 watt Solarmax metal halide conversion bulbs thru sunsystem reflectors on two 4 foot light rails in a 12 foot section of a bedroom. Like I said my blueberry-skunks never ever droop, they are always healthy lookin.

So why do all the other plants get so droopy. I have everything in 5 gallon buckets with a 50/50 mix of cococan and big n chunky perlite fed with Advanced nutes basic line. Temps stay between 77-85 degrees depending on where the lights are along the rail at any given time. Humidity is always right between 40-45 percent. I PH every gallon of water at 6.4

I know sometimes plants droop a lil at the end of the day when running stationary lights but these are on rails. And these are drooping alot more then I have seen in previous grows. I keep the reflectors 15 inches above the canopy, no glass in the reflector, no cooling for the hoods at all. I do however have a good sized fan oscillating all the time to keep temps down and air moving. The room isnt sealed, I usually keep the door halfway shut. So what gives? Are these strains that tempramental? I have grown several strains over the years and none were from seedbay and I never had so many problems as im havin now. Out of all the packs of seeds I started, only 3-4 per 10 pack lived. Im doin everything the same way I have always done and usually get about 85% success on seedlings that make it thru veg-flower stages without fail.

I know sumtimes overwatering will lead to droopy plants but I only water till a little bit comes out of the bottom, bout half gallon of water per 5 gallon bucket so they are def not overwatered. And I know they arent underwatered either cuz Im constantly liftin buckets and stickin my finger in. As soon as the top starts to dry out a little, I water. I did this the same way all last year with my recon and chocolope and never had any issues. I consistently grew 5-7 ounce plants using the same materials but on GH nutes when I was growin the con and lope and never saw anything really droop much at all. So what gives? What am I doing wrong?

 

[MickTheBrag]

need to water every day man. and cold temps at night can lead to drooping.

 

[B00st3d]

Has nothing to do with night time temps cuz if you read my post , I said it happens after the lights have been on for a while. Also it isnt not a watering issue cuz the plants arent even close to being dry when this happens. Im thinkin it might be an air exchange issue or maybe not quite enough humidity. I do not water every day till the plants get to a mature size. Most of these are only 10-12 inches tall and not that bushy . I know when its time to water, I have used cococan with Recon and chocolope with amazing success. Im not new to cococan. I do have fresh air being blown into the room via a Can50 filter but I dont have anything pulling the old air out of the room, could that be leading to the drooping?

 

[MickTheBrag]

right half a gallon of water for a 12 in plant is too much. its overwatering. getting watering right is not easy just let the plant tell you how much to water. a 12 in plant does'nt need more than half a litre a day. so you work it out.
anyways no worries its not a major problem . peace mick.

 

[mexilandrace]

Half gallon of water in a 5 gallon bucket seems really low to me.

Could it be that all you are really doing is saturating the top layers?

how big are the plants?

edit: so they are 12 inch plants in 5 gallon buckets? that's not ideal

 

[B00st3d]

They range between 111-15 inches right now. And the 5 gallon buckets are perfect trust me, I been doin this the same way for years and years with FFOF and then 2 harvs in a row with the cococan. I grow them in small square containers for the first 3-4 weeks till they get rootbound and then transplant into the 5 gallons, then I usually flip em after about 2 weeks after I transplant on average. Out of almost 20 grows now I have only had 1 unsuccessful grow and that was actually due to mass herms back in 2005.

Maybe its possible that Im only gettin the top half of the bucket wet sometimes but still why would they start droopin about 12 hours into the day? If they were underwatered wouldnt they be droopin all the time ? These look great when the lights come on and thruout most of the day. Plus in all my years of growing with 5 gallon buckets I have never given more then 3 liters of water to a plant at a time.

I noticed in my flowering room the last few days they started droopin also . When the lights in there went on today it was 68 degrees and 60 percent humidity, my day time temps in there are usually around 82 degrees. But the room I was origially posting about is my veg room, I have 2 rooms both with two 600 watts. The flower room has stationary HPS goin which are cooled via dedicated intake/exhuast room.

What is ideal temp and humidity for nighttime during flowering? I have had success with night time temps around 70 and Im wondering if just a few degrees low is makin a difference. Its crazy how I take about 3 months off from growing totally and I come back only to feel like I've lost my touch. Im always a little rusty after time off but this time I feel like I've really lost my edge that I worked for so many years to attain.

 

[overmind1632]

Do any of your plants have white/bleached leaf tips? Cause if so, I had the same problem.

 

[B00st3d]

no bleached leaf tips or any thing like that. I made alot of progress tho. I went ahead and raised the lights about 3 inches and it made a huge difference. I guess I had the hoods too close to the canopy. This is what happens when you take a break and come back to growing, even a short break. Since I had only used the light rail on one previous crop I forgot how far I needed it without glass. I put my hand under there for a minute and it felt hot which means the plants were gettin hot also. I still get a tiny bit of droopin on a few towards the end of the day but not nearly as bad as it was. So now I went ahead and closed down my flower room and put those in the veg room and flipped the lights to 11/13 so everything is flowering as of last night. Now Im hopin when I take the MH bulbs out in the next week or so that the HPS dont get them droopin again. How much hotter do you think a 600 watt HPS bulb burns then a 600 watt MH conversion bulb? Last harv with just one 600 watt hps on the 4 foot light rail produced 20 ounces of tastey dank, altho the buds were somewhat smaller then what Im used to, however the quality was great. I also noticed the same cuts I grew under the rail took about 7-10 days longer to finish then they did under stationary lights. The flip side is that they look way healthier when grown under rails. Wish me luck guys, I have about 16 females to flower. I hope the clones I took end up being from the best plants, total roll of the dice.

 

[overmind1632]

I dont think the HPS will be much hotter than the MH but I think it will be a little hotter

But you're plants stopped dropping after raising the lights you said?

 

[B00st3d]

ya everything looks great now. I raised em and now need to raise em again since they have all gotten bigger. Only a few get a slight droop now at the end of the day but for the most part I'd say I got it under control. The mosca negra hpxc99 are lookin especially fantatsic. I LST'ed 3 of em, 2 of which are females and the male Im gonna keep around just to hone my cloning skills with before I take any more cuttings from my girls. Only 8 out of the 13 I took made it Interesting how none of these strains have much of a strong odor compared to what Im used to.