What the hell is going on with my plants!?

[Guest]

This is my 2-3rd time posting in this forum for the same reason. I am a first time grower but this issue of my is becoming more and more frustrating day by day. The strain is Casey Jones. Soil is Moonshine mix to the T. Believe it or not these tiny plants are nearing day 50 of veg from seed. They are only about 3 inches tall with many missing 2-3 sets of bottom leaves. I have tried everything from transplants to lightly ferting using fish fertilizer, to watering more often, to waiting until all were bone dry and light before even thinking of watering, non of which is working. I was watering with pH 6.8 straight out of the tap, but now I am using pHed water 6.5 with zero results. Run off is 6.0ish. My test kit does not go below 6, but the moonshine mix shouldnt be having run off far below that; i've added some lime to it as well - no improvements. All of my plants look like limp palm trees from the leaves turning yellow from the bottom up sometimes with a redish tint then falling off. I put one outside to see what would happen, and the plant has taken off like these should have. It can't be overwatering, because the outdoor plant has been exposed to nearly a week of rain and is still flourishing while the pot remains waterlogged. The only thing that seems to help is to transplant into pots with fresh/unused moonshinemix that is slightly damp. The plants perk up for a few days then begin to do this again.

another edit with my info. temps are now 75ish with lights on, 65ish lights off. they were in large pots and filled up sum of the pot with rots, but they begin doing worse so i put them back in to these cups keeping most of the rootball intact.







edit- re-reading it looks like from my tone I am upset with the community. This isn't the case at all. I am deeply grateful to any help I can get. I have no doubt the problems are from a lack of experience on my part, I am just very very frustrated, but refuse to give up.

 

[Dr Pepper]

Maybe some of the ingredients that went into your mix were bad?
Looks just like overwatering and what happened to my plant, but you swear it isnt that. Try 4 plants, 2 in normal soil and 2 in your mix, and water each one either pretty well or very lightly, and you should root out your problem, if it isn't ph.

 

[Guest]

The only thing I added other than the what was in each bag was a bit of dolomite lime. It wasn't in powder form(was somewhat chunky), so I crushed it into powder and mixed it in well. I would love it if it was just overwatering. At first I firmly believed it was so I cut back considerably. I store my moonshinemix in a 50 gallon tub. If I was to remove as much "old" soil as I could from the rootball and place in fresh mix, I have no doubt the plants would cease being 100% stunted like they are now, and they would perk up. THe only thing you could see that would be a tell tale sign is all sets of bottom leaves would fall off. However, within I would say 5 days a few of the plants begin to droop just like in the pic, even having not watering and the cup being bone dry all the way through. Naturally I water at this point and things just get worse from there. Lights are 6x26 watt CFL @ 6500k right now. They are around 2-3 inches from the tall plants and 4-5 from the others. Nothing has changed much as these things grow at a snails pace and are the same size they were a few weeks ago. Fan is blowing gently across the top and the air at the top of the plants (below the lights) is cool after a minute.

 

[Guest]

The only thing I can think of right now is the soil is too acidic. However, does my plant look like this could be the case? Possibily a lockout due to very low soil pH? I don't know... I haven't seen this to be the case with other peoples moonshine mix. Also, I have read that overwatering will cause a plant to drop away from the stem. Mine seem to literally have the leave tips touching the stem drooping inward. Other than that, it does look like overwatering, I agree.

 

[Guest]

Did you moisten the soil before you transplanted?
Do you have some kind of drainage in the bottom of those cups?

Any time I had any type of problem in soil I always flushed the soil out with a lot of water. If you flush it will help to balance you ph too. From what you said the outside plants got a bunch of rain and perked up....I'd flush them out and go from there. After they are lookin a little healthier I'd throw them into bigger containers for sure.


The community around here is great, sometimes a little slow to reply, but the knowledge these guys have is unmatched.

 

[Guest]

I have 5-6 decent sized holes at the bottom of each.

 

[Guest]

In that last post I meant to say I'd flush them out and then let them dry out well. Shove your finger down into the soil about 3/4 of an inch and see how moist it is. Once its dried out really well, water again. Those cups should be really lite when then need watered....you will pick them up and be surprised because they are so lite. I cant say much about your mix, ive only used fox farm. It looks like you have a good amount of perlite in there, so it should be drying out ok.

I wouldnt even bother adjusting the ph of your water if it is 6.8 and your runoff is 6.0

First time I grew I started in a plastic container like that, then I tried the small 1x1 peat pots, I'll never go back to plastic again. Its so nice to see your roots pop out, then just drop the pot into a larger conatiner.

Good luck!

 

[Guest]

Thanks. Any other opinions?

 

[Lady 420]

temps are now 75ish with lights on, 65ish lights off.

Seems a little chilly. Maybe you saw improvement in the outside plant because it gets warmer.

Problem with something like moonshine mix with a recipe is that it leaves you guessing what and when to add more stuff later on. Better to have a neutral soil mix (no bone meal, no blood meal, etc) with maybe only dolomite lime. Then add a constant feed weakly with every watering. This gives you much more control and you know what's going on.

 

[Guest]

The plants outside do not recieve temps above 70 with a night time temp of around 45-50. Also, this problem with the yellowing/stunting/red leaves etc began when I had first planted, when temps were closer to 85ish day/night.

 

[MynameStitch]

Your prob lem is very simple; your plants are underwatered and are very hungry; how often you giving your plant food man?

50 days from seed the plant should be bigger reason why it is not is it can't grow without food.......

what do you have access to where you live? Hardware store? garden shop or hydro stores?

How often are you watering her?
WHat soil mixture is this?

 

[Blunted22]

50 days form seed i know it aitn big but maybe rootbound? It looks like over or under watering to me but that soil is only good for like a month but first thing that come to my mind is a watering problem whats the temps in there?

 

[greengnome]

this looks like a clear case of over growing, you are doing to much and you are stressing your plants.

First off, when you transplant, expect 2-3 days of 'bla' cause the roots need to become bound again.

DO NOT TRANSPLANT until you are ROOT BOUND! very important transplant is stress, only do it as necessary.

what does root bound mean? well dry your plant out then lift it from the pot (not recommended cause it will cause a little slight stress) and if the roots are wrapped around the soil, you are in need of a larger container.

DO not cut into your root unless you want at least 5 days of stress out of the plant to become adjusted to the soil again.

And... dude, you are over watering horribly. (I assume cause you are transplanting then water, then transplant then water.... just let your plants adjust. They can become horribly root bound, and will just need a little more water, good rule is if the soil is dry 2" down, it's time to water. Do not use your fingers to check!) So how do you check, get a probe!

Other than that everything looks perfect, except I would run temps a little hotter.. say 80's. But that's just me. That would force things to dry out and for it to become root bound again.

dunno, that's what I would do. oh yes, and obviously change your food to something different.

 

[Guest]

See, I understand alot of people were going to say "they are dying from lack of food". The point of the moonshinemix is to basically set it and forget it besides a light fish fert and bloom food in flowering. I have done both ends of the scale as far as watering goes. I allow a slow run-off at watering then I do NOT water until the cups are light. The plants are not completely root bound. Most of the bottom is rout bound but the middle is not. I began having these "problems" 2 weeks into growing, so I sway away from the feeding theory. After I had transplanted before into fresh mix, I did NOT water and the plants took off and doubled their small six in 3-4 days. The soil was bone dry throughout at that point and the plants began to droop a little, so I gave them a nice watering and the already drooping plants just became worse. Again, I have no doubt this is my fault. The thing that gets me is the plant outside has a pot that is extremely moist from rainful every day, rarely becoming even somewhat dry, and yet it has taken off. I am most certainly not watering as much as the rainful we have been getting here. That anomaly is what throws me off. If I was to go in right now, and water the plant in the pic, it wouldnt respond. Is it underwater? If so, why doesn't watering/light feed produce results. Is it overwatering? I haven't watered in 3-4 days and nothing has changed, while the POTTED plant outside with the exact same soil is flourishing while being in nearly pure mud. The only difference being the water it is recieving and even cooler outdoor temps. My water is tap pHed to 6.5, I am going to venture a guess rain water is around 6.0. However, measuring run off I see my run off is around 6 right now INDOORS. How can it be a pH problem? The outside plants run off should be the same or even lower due to the acidic rain water. On the other hand, pH 6.5 shouldn't be too high of a pH in the first place, so how can it be that? You see, I started these off in MG Organic and when I started having these problems I blamed it on the soil mix prior to switching to moonshine mix. They took off just like they have a few days after every "transplant" I've done then begin to die again. Very frustrating.

 

[greengnome]

I have grown in anything from sand, gravel, coconut fibre, soiless, etc. To me all are going to do the same thing if you dont' treat them right.

I have perhaps an idea that you may not be giving them enough light, but on the other hand I have seen this before, it can happen from water temperatures. I found to age the water is to do the right thing. Straight tap water always in my case have detrimental effects.

I let water adjust to room temp.

And, if I were you I would take one and feed it properly based on the instructions on the label. Some straight 20-20-20 *old school* and full strenght and feed about 1 ounce of ph water to 6.1 - 6.3, then if I seen results in 15 -30 minutes (for example leaves starting to lift) I would then water 2 ounces of fresh (aged) ph 6.1-6.3 about 1 hour after the first feeding, as to give the plant a little relief from the fertilizing hit.

See if that corrects things, cause, it does look underfed if all else fails.

 

[Guest]

All the water has been aged atleast 24 hours openly to evaporate chlorine. At one point out of desperation, I used bottled spring water with a ph of 6.0-6.2. Same thing.

 

[MynameStitch]

Get them food a new potl feed weekly and you will have your plant back.

 

[MynameStitch]

Hydrated lime is more available in quicker form that dolomite lime is.
Dolomite lime last longer than hydrated lime,because dolomite stays in the soil and is slow releasing.

I do not remember why it is much safer to use dolomite lime than hydrated lime....

If someone knows please enlighten me,because I can't find the sheet I read from about hydrated lime.

 

[Guest]

Transplanted into larger pots and added 1 tablespoon per gallon self-pulverized dolomite lime. LIGHTLY watered with full dose of 5-1-1 fish fert. Still no change in the insane droopiness. We will see.

 

[MynameStitch]

It's going to take al ittle time before they fully recover; how long has it been since you did this?

Soil takes longer to show recover/errors than hydro does..... so give it a little time.


What size pots you have them in now? Can you upload pics? Also what soil did you use? What full strength did you use? How much?