Beginner grow - Thoughts appreciated

[jollyroger]

Hi all... New to the forum, seems a good bunch who can hopefully throw in some pointers for first attempt.

So, my friend has started his first grow, using DWC system. There are 4 auto flowering on the go currently.
They are 3 weeks in, after some slow starts things have really started to speed up.

I have noticed that there seems to be some droopy leaves going on, the tips of some of the leaves are slighlty curling, nothing major, but slightly. I was thinking the drooping may of been caused because the leaves are a fair size, possibly weighing them down a bit.

One of the plants seems to have a few yellow ish leaves lower down, the new leaves are coming through nice and green, but there is still a few lower ones with discoloration.. Since adding the nutes things have speeded up and the leaves are a fair size. Stems seem quite thick and healthy.

Can anyone see any issues with how they look at the moment, anything that may need to be addressed from the pictures below. (excuse the poor pics)

Any advice would be much appreciated.. Thanks in advance!

 

[Wallu]

I want to say that you have a cool setup. The herb look healthy. I wish you success in gardening.

 

[Papageno]

Leaves do not "droop" under weight. You can see many pics of large plants on here with large leafs that are nice and extended flat. Those don't look that bad. Heat is a common cause for leaf tips to curl up. First try moving the light farther away but if you can try upping the vent fan speed for a day or 2 and see what happens.

Pics 1 and 3 show possible signs of Cal Mag deficiency. Please post what your nute regimen is at the moment.

In soil the leaf can Droop for over watering or under watering. In DWC it is common to happen when under oxygenated. What size air pump are you using and what is the total volume of water? It looks like you have 2 smallish air pumps there...you really can't put too much air in there.

In fact your system looks to be a top drip. I did those...they don't really matter and you are putting water into the basket where you want the roots to get oxygen. What matters is the res gets circulated some way. At the size the plants are now you may want to relocate the return lines to just go into the res. A good airstone / pump will bubble water up to the basket which will wick up the water.

Your plants are big enough you can start letting the res drop so you get air roots. That will help. Remember Roots need oxygen more than water. DWC only works with a good air supply otherwise the plants die. Every other form of Hydro exposes the roots to air a lot more than water. DWC was invented to be a lazy hydro method instead of using EnF or Aero or NFT which all expose the roots to a ton of air and only moisten them as little as needed. It takes a lot more effort to manage those than dumping a res twice in a DWC grow.

Best of luck!

 

[jollyroger]

Hi guys. Sorry for late reply, internets been down. Thanks for your thoughts and comments.

Heres an update:

So after my last post things have improved massively!!!! Things are really coming along nicely.... FLOWERING has begun!!!!
Droopyness has now stopped, flushed the system and topped up, so thats all good.
We are using the canna nutes, 2 part ones.. putting in 75% of recommended amount. obviously built them up to that rather than just going straight in with a strong feed... All seems well.

Even the little one is looking good, still a bit stumpy but hey ho.. Its all improvement.

2 are massive now... Looking like a really good yield from those alone... (fingers crossed)

 

[jollyroger]

Again, sorry for the poor pictures...

The one that had a few yellow ish leaves, still has a few on the lower leaves, but the new ones are coming through green...
The only issue I can really see is that 2 of these are probably going to be ready to harvest before the other 2, so these will require flushing earlier than the rest, and with them all being connected to the same DWC it could be a bit of a pain in the arse trying to only flush 2...

Would it be safe to remove the 2 from the rest of the system (still keeping then in the same pots) and then just keep giving then fresh water ever couple of days to ensure a good flush is done, or is that a bit risk at that stage still?

Any thoughts/ideas again will be much appreciated...

Thanks guys

 

[Papageno]

So first off nice job looking good.

Most forms of leaf discoloration are permanent. Stalks will repair themselves but leaves do not. So that is to be expected.

Yes it can be totally safe to transfer the plant to another bucket. That setup is best for clones.


So just some food for thought...

Personally I typically use soil for seed and hydro for clones. Its not a bad Idea to start a femd seed (not auto) in soil and use that mother to clone into hydro. Putting things into a shared res means you want to know they are a the same genetics and age preferably. If you want to run seed into hydro I recommend single bucket systems or a SCROG on non-Autos to even things out.

I have run seed in hydro with great results but I like my hydro runs to be of clones for multiple reasons. Every time I put down seed they sprout at different rates. Typically a few come up and some don't so I put more down. Then the few that didn't come up do and I have too many seeds sprouted over a 1.5 week period. Smoothing that out in a single res system is a pain you don't need to create for yourself.

Best of luck!

 

[jollyroger]

Yeah, we had an issue with different stages and times. I did advise him to get the same seeds and not mix up, just to keep things easier.
We were concerned for the first week as literally nothing happened. But are more than happy with the way things are looking now.

Hoping will be done in 4 weeks. Can't wait to sample the crop.

Cheers guys