35 day auto transplant question

[gwrnonsmker]

Soil:
FFOF 40%
Pearlite 40%
E-worm casting 20%

Lighting:
After seedlings: 18-6 1000w HPS for 25 days
Now: 18-6 600w LED, 65W CFL (1000w room is now on 12-12), on day 35 of total life.

Nute's:
FF Trio every 3rd water following schedule at 50-66.6% strength.

I have never overwatered, nute problems, and this is the first time that these plants have seen any stress at all.

Auto OG, planted 35 days ago in 3 gal pots. I have never had plants like these, they are 31" and 28" tall in 35 days!!! What the crap!! I am thrilled, but it was unexpected! I would have put them in 5 gal if I knew this then.

The symptoms are leading me (who will proudly say does not now it all!) to root bound are:

I would water as needed: usually every 48 hours, 500ml ph'ed water with every 3rd ph'ed FF TRIO as mentioned above.

3 days ago they got the arc'ed fan leaves saying that they needed water. So I watered like normal and in 3 hours they were good to go. They said I need water again a day ago (just like normal) so I watered. Now they have the "I need water" but the soil is at about 50% moisture content then right after a watering. Soil damp but not soaked, the soil is at exactly where I would expect it to be.

Pic with CFL is day 35, other 2 are day 33.

Also one other question. How does ANYONE water until 10-20% run-off with each water. I would have to throw my plants a life raft if I ever did that to them! As you can see from my mix, I do not believe that my soil has a drainage problem.

 

[Spitz]

I highly doubt your plant is root bound at 35 days old. That leaves either over or under watered IMO. I would tend to think under. The fact that you mixed 40% perlite (which doesn't hold water at all) steers me this way. Add to that you left, 2-3" of pot empty at top, you've probably got a 1G effective volume of medium. Now that they are 35 days old, they are drinking more and probably need to be watered daily. I know, it isn't a great idea to water soil plants like that. Of course, you'll need to be the judge

Do you always mix your medium with 40% perlite? if so, why? Good luck! Keep us posted!

 

[gwrnonsmker]

Thanks for the reply! Always is kind of misleading, like I said, a "few" grows under my belt. 40% perlite......the common theme for noob growers (like myself) is over water over water! I just want to eliminate that cause, in a sense, put in a control measure that will help me from doing that, my answer was 40% pearlite in my soil. Even with all that, I read these post of people flushing before harvest with 3x the size of their pots and think......you mo'fo's are CRAZY, I would never do that!!

Under water recovery time: 3-4 hours
Over water recovery time: 3-4 days

When you look at it like that, the decision is easy. I am new to growing so mistakes are going to happen. I want to (as much as I can) control the mistakes that I make. If that makes any sense.

You want to talk about mistakes look at this plant. It has a missing cola cause I wanted to measure its awesome height and when I went to put the tape measure on the shelf.......dropped it and knocked a top cola off clean! To say I was mad is an understatement.........lesson learned!

 

[Spitz]

Ouch!

You've got to decide if it's over/under watered. If you keep feeding and don't flush or water to runoff, you're going to have problems with your soil in a week or 2. You can pour 10x the volume through that young lady. They key is not to do it until it's ready again. Once the soil is soaked, more water won't hurt it. Keeping the soil soaked = no good. Good luck!

 

[420Amard]

40% is to much unless you have a drip feed system

 

[Spitz]

How's the young lady doing???

 

[Papageno]

1 gallon a month is a general rule of thumb. So many auto growers stick to a 3 gallon pot. I always like to leave a little leg room so I run no less than 5 gallons just about across the board. Only exception would be if I am trying to do a fast run to take clones and sex a seed. But that is just me.