Colorado High - Soil - CFL - Super Skunk - 2013

[sst4life]

My plants did almost the same thing in FFOF. I couldve sworn it was over-watering so I went 8 days without water then transplanted them into FFHF about a week and a half ago and they just went crazy. Dont know if it is the same thing as mine but virtually the same symptoms. Hope the best for you and your babies Ill be following along. Also your soil looks pretty dry ...... It makes me kind of wonder if maybe it was a hot batch of FFOF. WHo the hell knows I think Im just looking for excuses on where I fucked up

peace

 

[David Bowman]

Welcome sst4life. That's what lured me in the last water/feed, the soil looked so dry, but apparently it wasn't because I got run off with only a quart of water/feed in a 5 gallon pot. The soil may indeed be too hot even after cutting the FFOF in half like I did. I'm open to that but given the above it makes me wonder if it isn't just overwatering. I gave each of them a half gallon of water/feed a little over 2 weeks ago and they did not have this issue, just slightly burned tips, which I was expecting with the big feed right at the start. So that is why I'm proceeding the way that I am, to determine the root cause to this issue. Regardless of the outcome, I will learn something from this little endeavor, hopefully not too much at the expense of my babies..

 

[sst4life]

yeah I hope you dont lose any of the babies. Wish the best for your grow looking forward to hearing how you combat the issue.

Peace

 

[The303Stoner]

it over feeding for sure you must have an atmospheric problem. heat or air

 

[Kusharella]

So that is why I'm proceeding the way that I am, to determine the root cause to this issue. Regardless of the outcome, I will learn something from this little endeavor, hopefully not too much at the expense of my babies..

Thanks for letting us learn along too

 

[David Bowman]

it over feeding for sure you must have an atmospheric problem. heat or air

Temps range from mid 60's over night to maximum of 85 degrees during the day. RH is low at around 25% during the day and 50% at night. I've been running the humidifier at full blast but with the ventilation running, it's a losing battle. Lights are at the same level as they were for my last grow - 26,800 lumens/434 watts (14,000/250 @ 6400K and 12,800/184 @ 5000K).

 

[David Bowman]

Thanks for letting us learn along too

Even though learning can be painful at times, you're welcome!

 

[KingJohnC]

The photographs you posted showed either too high of nitrogen and/or over watering. before you water again stick your finger 2 inches in the soil to feel how moist the soil is. I start my plants in 5 inch pots and transplant to 1 gallon pots then to 5 gallon pots, I find it easier to water them properly when they are transplanted in stages to larger size pots. If the air in your home is dry consider boiling off several large pots of water to raise the humidity.

 

[David Bowman]

Thanks KJC and congratulations on your new position with 420 Magazine! I think you hit the nail on the head with the pot size. In trying to avoid shock and stress from transplanting, I put them into the largest pot size that can fit in my grow box and with only 2 plants, that turned out to be 5 gallon pots so in essence I traded one set of stressors for another. I'm concentrating on learning the subtleties of watering/feeding a small plant in a large pot and I have a long way to go it appears.

 

[Growology]

ColoradoHigh, I've been following your grow closely and I think this is the problem: your growing medium of half FoxFarm Ocean Forest Potting Soil and half Steer Manure Blend (which is itself half steer manure) is exceedingly rich to begin with, so adding Growology to it at full strength is resulting in overfeeding. Ocean Forest itself is nitrogen-rich enough that lots of people add no additional nutes to very young plants until the nitrogen is depleted a bit. I appreciate your following the D&S package instructions, but those instructions are for use with a plain, non-fortified medium like Pro-Mix, not something as rich as the blend you're using. I would cut way back on the concentration, or even revert to plain water for the next watering or two, and see how your plants react. Virtually every time I've heard from a grower with a problem, it has been because he or she was using Growology in a fortified soil. Our formula is nutritionally complete for cannabis plants, and so many growers use these super-rich soils that overfeeding can result. I would recommend to anyone reading that they use Growology with something like a plain Pro-Mix. Great medium and very cost effective. I think you'll be fine, CH, if you adjust accordingly.

- John Simpson

 

[David Bowman]

Ok, it sounds like the vast majority of opinions believe the root cause to be overfeeding rather than just overwatering. To that end, I will change my experiment around to test without causing any more stress to my babies. I will only give molasses water for the next few waterings and see how they respond. I just gave each plant 1 quart of molasses water, the same amount as a week ago only with no Step 2 this time, as the soil was bone dry 2-3 inches down. Hopefully there will be no issues this time and my babies can have a stress free week. Thanks to everyone for all of your help and opinions which are very much appreciated by this newbie.

 

[The303Stoner]

I would suggest a swamp cooler as the air intake and a filter out . make sure the exhaust is exhausting far from the grow area to not add the dry air back to the humidity controlled room.

 

[The303Stoner]

I honesty think your air is just not moving enough Im in Denver and have those conditions except low lights on humidity but my humidity only get out of range when its raining or foggy. I run a 6" in into my 400w hood no glass my air exits through a big filter and out the same type fan than out of the room. I currently only need A/c in its over 65 out side

 

[David Bowman]

I would suggest a swamp cooler as the air intake and a filter out . make sure the exhaust is exhausting far from the grow area to not add the dry air back to the humidity controlled room.

I already have a swamp cooler of sorts, a cool mist evaporative humidifier, and it goes through a half gallon of water every 12 hours. The problem is the exhaust fan/filter as it is always running when the lights are on and that just pushes out any humidty created by the humidifier. I 'm looking into getting a fan controller to turns the exhaust fan on at say 85 degrees and turns it back off at 75 degrees.

 

[David Bowman]

I honesty think your air is just not moving enough Im in Denver and have those conditions except low lights on humidity but my humidity only get out of range when its raining or foggy. I run a 6" in into my 400w hood no glass my air exits through a big filter and out the same type fan than out of the room. I currently only need A/c in its over 65 out side

I have 2-6" Clamp fans running providing air flow within the grow box. They did a good job during my first grow. If I only use the overhead lights I can turn off the exhaust, close up the grow tent and maintain a stable daytime environment of 80-85 degrees and 40-60% RH. Once I open up the tent and especially if I turn on the exhaust, it is drawing in air with a 20-30% RH. Unless I humidify the whole house, which is not currently feasible, I'm not sure what else I can throw at this problem.

 

[The303Stoner]

you can go the other route a closed system. use A/C air, your humidifier and add CO2 and pump up the plants anf you can 90 degrees with no damage and increased photosynthesis .

 

[The303Stoner]

have thought about a new location for your box. I think that basements are the most stable.

 

[David Bowman]

I used CO2 when I closed the tent up earlier during sprouting and early seedling stage. The grow space is kind of tight for any sort of air cooler, I barely got the humidifier in the 2'x4'x5' grow tent. How high can the temps get before over-stressing the plants? With all of the lights on and no extraction it can get well over 90 degrees, but it might make sense to go that route with additional CO2.

The grow box is already in a closet in a room in the lower level of a split-level house, where the lower level is 2-3 feet underground with full size windows for light and ventilation.

 

[David Bowman]

Day 41 since the start of germination and the plants appear to be doing much better. None of the new growth has any of the burn or other stress marks that are visible on the older growth. Since the last update a week ago, I've only given them a total of 1 gallon of molasses water. In an attempt to deal with the low humidity issues that we have here in Colorado, I bought a Titan Controls Zephyr 4 Cooling Controller. With the exhaust fan running continously, the humidity really cannot get much higher than the outside air which during the winter hovers around 20%-30% RH. Now with the controller, I have it set up so the fan only runs to lower the temperature back to a preset level. This allows the humidity to get up to 50%-60% RH inbetween exhaust cycles and it does not take that long to recover either once the exhaust cycle has ended. Another modification I made to the setup was to close all of the lower intake ports and open the 6" duct directly opposite of the exhaust fan/filter for intake purposes. This allows air intake for the exhaust cycle but leaves the lower environment relatively enclosed and stable to help preserve the grow environment during the exhaust cycle.

Once I had implemented these modifications, I realized that I could now add CO2 on a regular basis since now the exhaust fan would not be constantly removing the supplemental CO2 I was adding to the grow box. To that end I purchased an Autopilot Desktop CO2 Monitor to see if the supplemental CO2 was actually doing anything or not. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the CO2 would reach a high of 1500 PPM between exhaust cycles and only drop by about half to around 700-900 PPM during the exhaust cycle and recovers relatively quickly between exhaust cycles as well. Supplemental CO2 will only be used during vegging since the temperatures for flowering are not high enough for the plants to effectively use supplemental CO2 and also due to the fact that the CO2 monitor employs red, yellow and green LED lights to indicate various CO2 PPM ranges which would causes issues during the night cycle in flowering.

The current environment is 85-90 degrees F and 50%-60% RH during lights on. During lights off the temperature drops to around 60-65 degrees F and the RH rises to a maximum 75% or so. I plan to continue with the molasses water until I see signs that the plants require more nutrients but they seem to be happy for now.

Group shot of the plants on day 41 since the start of germination -

Close-up shot of the 5" inch tall left plant -

Close-up shot of the 3" tall right plant -

 

[TheWizard]

looking good. subbed!