Over water and/or?

[TheFertilizer]

I think I over-watered my plants but I'm not sure if that's the only thing going on with them.

I am pretty sure I was watering too frequently, a lot of the times I can't tell how much weight is still in the cup I guess. I was also feeding them a new organic nutrient mix, I tried it last season and it didn't do well but I thought maybe I didn't use enough because the directions are pretty sloppy--they only apply to mixing in 5 gallon bucket and I mix into 1 gallon jugs, so anyway, I tried a little more of it this time around and measured the final mix with a PPM meter--not sure if that's applicable to organic nute mixes. Anyway, that was probably about a week ago, I noticed they had the tinest bit of burn on the tips of their leaves so I stayed with plain water.

They were looking like this on the 7th after their feeding

Two days later

I am pretty sure over watering is definitely an issue because I was giving them water every 3 days and then it seemed like they were drying out faster and needing it every 2 days, but again I think the weight of the pot fooled me.

I haven't been pH'ing the water or the nutrient solution as the wisdom I have read around here is it's not needed for organic grows in soil.

This is the organic mix...It says to mix that into a 5 gallon bucket, but when I mixed half of it it in a 1 gallon jug I got a PPM of 320

All other info...

Soil: Happy frog
Light: 400w MH Apollo, 18/6
Environment: 72-79F, 25-35% RH, oscilating fan keeping air moving
Day sprouted: 8/17
Day of first feed: 9/5 (about then I think)
Strains: Blackberry Kush and Platinum Girl Scout Cookies
PPM of my tap water: 50
pH of my tap water: 7.5-8.0

Not sure what other info would be pertinent.

 

[AngryBird]

hi

We do not feed our babies before 4th week... and we start with 1/4th of what it says,,,
1.Maybe a re plant is in order to a bigger pot?
You have perlite in soil so you continue with soil and perlite..
2.You have enough holes in the solo cups? make some around the bottom half a cm above the bottom too.. ( carefully so you don't hurt roots)

 

[Major PITA]

They definitely look to be way over-watered. They are just now about where I would begin light feeding. They are also ready for up-potting. They should be well root bound in those cups by now.

The plant will tell you when it needs water long before it becomes a critical need. Grab a cup. Put dry soil in it. Now you know what the weight of a plant that needs water feels like.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Yeah I think they're mostly overfed. Too much N- that soft leafy floppy look. It would be difficult to overwater plants that size in solo cups.

 

[TheFertilizer]

I was thinking it was about time to transplant too but not sure because they didn't start out in these...

They went from these into the solo cups on 8/29. They took off awfully fast so I was thinking they might have filled up the root space by now but just double checking.

Should I wait for them to bounce back first due to the stress of transplanting or just go for it asap? I'm thinking that having bound water-logged roots is going to be worse for them than putting them into fresh stuff, but on the other hand since I have to moisten the rootball to be able to transplant it, I'm not sure if that will make things worse before they get better.

AngryBird, I cut a slot into the bottom of the solo cups, about 1/8" wide and half an inch to an inch long, and put 4 of those per cup. They always seem to drain quite well, when I water to run-off it comes out of them like a spigot. Still I suppose more can't hurt, I'll put more/bigger holes in next time, or now depending on what the advice about transplanting now is...

Major PITA, one boneheaded mistake I made is I put the soil fresh from the bag into a cup and expected it to dry out like that. The plants in the solo cups got wayyyy lighter than the reference cup did in no time and I have been too lazy/stupid to dump that dirt out and let it dry out in the air. Going to get on that, just thought I should mention that in case anyone else is as heavy with the water as I am I let them get super wilted once and now I am terrified of it

Weasel I can manage to over-water anything it seems But yeah I was hoping someone would confirm it looks like too much N too

 

[Weaselcracker]

Hmmmm... I think we must have some different ideas about transplanting and watering- I would compute this differently at least in my growing situation.
I don't find that plants get shocked from transplanting. Maybe it slows them down for a day but generally for me what I observe after I transplant is that -they just grow faster.
Any shock (if there is such as thing) incurred wouldn't last long. Any overwatering that happened in the early days should be long past.

But transplanting and watering, obviously, is all based on plant size to pot size ratio. The easiest way to do it is just like you are- pot up one container size at a time. Stick a little plant in a huge container and it will be harder to keep the soil/medium at a nice moisture level without overwatering it.
The size ratio you have going now is a great one.
-Difficult to overwater because the plants will drink it up quickly.
- The plants love it at about that ratio you have now and generally grow faster in my experience.
-Generally much easier to control the feeding and watering levels- as long as you're around to water more often. You can flush the containers (if you overfed for example) and it won't slow the plants down. A small plant in a large pot leaves you with much less options and your hands are tied if you have overfed or overwatered.

This is probably coming out gibberish + it's too sunny to see my computer screen ATM so who knows wtf I'm writing here..

You really can't overwater much at this point as long as you just pay attention- water by weight and don't keep them soaked constantly. I would keep them in the solo cups a few days longer- lay off the fertilizer or at least reduce it to half for a while, water when the plants feel light, which will be fairly often, and are sure you get lots of runoff each time. This is a good chance to get your plants on track and get their root systems back on track, IMO.
You could easily grow them to twice the height in the solo cups if you want to and they wouldn't suffer for it. It wouldn't be the usual way to go- most people would up-pot around where you are at now- I'm just saying that you don't need to panic about the transplant thing quite yet, though you certainly can transplant as well. I've grown plants from seed to harvest in solo cups- 24- 27" tall. I watered 3 times a day with light nutes- saw no sign of problems from them being root bound.

Edit - I was very stoned when I wrote this in case you can't understand it

 

[Major PITA]

Hmmm... It seems like an odd size pot to start them in and then move to the solo cups.
So they've been in the cups about twoi weeks and were in those other things for a bit. When dry-ish, I'd knock one or two out if their cups and have a look at the roots. That will tell you if they are ready for up-potting. I think they will be, but if not just drop them back into their cups. No problem.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Hmmm... It seems like an odd size pot to start them in and then move to the solo cups.
So they've been in the cups about twoi weeks and were in those other things for a bit. When dry-ish, I'd knock one or two out if their cups and have a look at the roots. That will tell you if they are ready for up-potting. I think they will be, but if not just drop them back into their cups. No problem.

Yeah I was trying the smaller ones out as seed starters but yeah they wound up more trouble than they were worth for sure.

Well they feel pretty dry-ish today so I'll go have a look at 'em. I usually do that after they're wet though, any reason to do it while dry? Just curious. Learning is fun

Just went and bought enough 1 gallon pots for all of them too yay. Still only 10 three gallon ones that I'll be finishing in, but I figure there won't be any point in not letting the others finish out in 1 gallon pots. Assuming I have enough dirt...

 

[Major PITA]

Well they feel pretty dry-ish today so I'll go have a look at 'em. I usually do that after they're wet though, any reason to do it while dry? Just curious. Learning is fun

When the "soil" is dry, it shrink a little so it will come out of the cup easier. When wet, the soil swells and is a tighter fit. It is also much heavier which makes it more likely to damage roots.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Well I transplanted them, I checked out the roots and it looks really interesting, you can see the transition from where the bottom was when they were in the yogurt cups versus when I put them into the solo cups. It's like they exploded into the space they had once in the solo cups.

Anyway, things still looking pretty rough, worried about this yellowing :/ I mean I don't think it could be the lack of food, so maybe the roots started hurting a little much already?

Oh and then, am I crazy, or did these start to wilt? They were pretty dry...

 

[Weaselcracker]

Have you been adjusting ph of your tap water?

 

[TheFertilizer]

Have you been adjusting ph of your tap water?

No as I said I have been following the idea that you don't need to adjust ph for organic grows.

I think I am probably going to go back to pH'ing though as things don't seem to be going according to theory lol

My tap water is pretty alkaline though, about 7.5-8.5

 

[improvise]

I`am doing organic and always adjust to 6.3 or 6.4 which ever one i hit first. Hope they recover for you. regards

 

[Major PITA]

Organic or inorganic has nothing to do with PH. The difference is the soil or grow medium and the PH of what you put into it.
Most nute's are already acidic and will bring down the PH of your water. But if the water has very high PH with lots of total alkalinity, the nute's may not get it where you want it. Likewise, most potting soils are PH adjusted because pure peat is too acid for most crops. It is adjusted and buffered with lime. If the soil is buffered well enough, and there is enough of it, then the PH of your water is much less important. But when in small amounts of soil - like in cups, the PH can be pulled up or down temporarily when watered, and over time, can change.

They look over-watered, not wilted, but it should be obvious by lifting the cups. A Solo cup of dry potting soil weighs about 100 grams. When that same cup is watered properly, it will gain about 9 oz. and come up to something like 350 grams. If your plants weigh less than 150 grams, they need a drink. If they weigh more than 250 grams, they have plenty of water. YMMV.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Organic or inorganic has nothing to do with PH. The difference is the soil or grow medium and the PH of what you put into it.
Most nute's are already acidic and will bring down the PH of your water. But if the water has very high PH with lots of total alkalinity, the nute's may not get it where you want it. Likewise, most potting soils are PH adjusted because pure peat is too acid for most crops. It is adjusted and buffered with lime. If the soil is buffered well enough, and there is enough of it, then the PH of your water is much less important. But when in small amounts of soil - like in cups, the PH can be pulled up or down temporarily when watered, and over time, can change.

They look over-watered, not wilted, but it should be obvious by lifting the cups. A Solo cup of dry potting soil weighs about 100 grams. When that same cup is watered properly, it will gain about 9 oz. and come up to something like 350 grams. If your plants weigh less than 150 grams, they need a drink. If they weigh more than 250 grams, they have plenty of water. YMMV.

You know one thing about the cups I noticed is they never felt very heavy to me. I don't know if Happy Frog just doesn't hold as much water as most soil, but it was kind of crazy how light they felt after a full drench. Now the gallons, once I drenched those they felt like a wet gallon of soil should feel so maybe I'm just not use to solo cups, but I also wonder if maybe they weren't really taking all the water I was giving them because I'd barely have to pour a couple of ounces of water in before there was run off.

Yeah I read a couple of threads on the PH issue ( one was twenty some odd pages long ) and figured I'd give it a shot to see what happens. It makes sense a small amount of soil like this wouldn't be able to buffer it. Plus i just basically flushed them out with a ton of this tap water so yeah, probably brought the soil up to an alkaline state. Which makes sense, I was reading that's where N toxicity is more likely to occur.... And they look pretty N'd out.

I wanna get a ph meter to see where Happy Frog is at, I have heard that it's supposed to be quite acidic.

Update

Wow they look a lot happier this morning already

 

[AngryBird]

They look so much happier now