Nice rebound!
Having backups is a good plan. It's only a problem when everything works out.
Asesino, thanks for taking the time to read through my thread and for the detailed response dude. Really appreciate it.
With regards to the temps, the initial values in my thread were slightly off, right now with lights on I'm at around 75-76 and with lights off it's around 69. I've also corrected the issue with light and I now have them at around 2". I also have a fan blowing towards the plants pretty much 24/7 - think this might be causing some problems?
The flimsiness has also improved on the smaller plant but I must say her stem is not as strong as the other plant.
With regards to PPM, I'll certainly pay more attention to this - I don't actually have a pen to check PPM at the moment, I wanted to do a budget grow and I guess I compromised on things I really shouldn't have. I have been giving them 1/4 strength in nutes the last few days and making sure I get proper runoff - I think I was a little scared of overwatering up until a few days ago and didn't have enough runoff to flush extra nutes for the first 2 weeks or so of my grow which I guess caused the nute burn...
I hear you with regards to foliar feeding, I'll make sure to avoid that. I'm not sure about mold to be honest, what from the pictures made you suspect that?
I did suspect mildew before and I actually read that a mix of milk and water sprayed onto the leaves helps that issue, and I did this for a few days (right after lights off), but I guess this may have created some of the other problems you've described. I am having doubts about the possibility of mildew now though because the buildup really does feel like salt and if you look at my thread in some pics you can see similar buildup around the pot as well. It's easy to clean away with my hands and the patches don't seem to grow as far as I can tell. I'm just not sure if the salt buildup is something that can damage the plant or affect harvest at the end...
With regards to LST, are you suggesting I start doing that now with both these plants? I topped the larger plant yesterday and the smaller one appears to be self topping, and I am certainly keen on trying LST but I'm not sure the smaller plant is strong enough to handle it.
I'll definitely mix with perlite next time around. In terms of stunted growth, you're right, it does feel like they're growing at a slower rate but they're definitely still growing.
If you go back to my thread, I've posted some new pictures just now. I've heard some people pulling off leaves and I'm just wondering whether I should pull out some of the lower leaves which are really crispy and yellowish, or whether you think they might make a comeback, and just in general any further precautions you think I might need to take for recovery as I don't want to give up on these girls
Thanks again for the detailed response and suggestions!
. Let them catch back up and be patient but I'd let things dry out just a few days until they get perky and then you can start drain to waste feeding them.Those temps are more where you want them for sure. I think ideally you would like them even a few degrees warmer but thats really not bad at all. If you read the beginning of my second journal or first one you can see I didn't need to grow affordably and purchased equipment that was good quality but a good value, just not budget style. I think with better equipment you get less problems (obviously) so I haven't had a lot of these kinds of problems but I'll feed you as much knowledge as I know.
A PH meter is a must, you can get by without a PPM meter but if you grow in coco you really should have one too. You can get cheap ones that work just fine and are accurate. I don't always get exactly where I want with my PPMs each night but I know if I was over one night I just cut the next night down to make up for it. It really is more about reading your plants and determining what they need which is generally why you don't see me put down detailed notes about what I exactly feed them because it changes a bit.
I'm not 100% sure if it is mildew or not. Judging by the first pictures and it getting worse though I thought it might until you said you put milk on them and posted the new pictures today. I'm hoping for your sake it was just foliar feeding or the milk which caused the white stuff on the leaves and it all disappears now. If you carefully wipe it off and it doesn't come back, and you aren't foliar feeding anymore than that might have been the main issue. Worth testing before you make any quick decisions about scrapping the whole thing. Also keep in mind that your plant has slowed down so what normally would be week 3 for you is really like being stuck in week 2. Don't overfeed or overwater until the plant starts to grow normally again. Just because its day 20 (or wherever you are at) doesn't mean your plant is really at day 20 in health if you know what I mean? Especially if you had any sort of issues.
If the plant was getting everything it needs from the leaves then you likely have underdeveloped root growth. I highly recommend cutting your nutes down to maybe an 1/8th of the what the bottle says and to not have any runoff for a few days. Remember the roots will grow towards the water so if there is always water around they won't really grow too much. You really want established roots before you start feeding them with runoff everyday. Even then you only want 10-15% runoff. Your plant is stuck in week 2 mode which is still early and I think you are trying to feed and water them like they are at week 3
Seedlings especially do not need much. They have most of what they need for the first two weeks in terms of nutrients but I give them tiny doses to get them used to it daily. Also with these small stems I'd just have air blowing around the tent but not directly on them. Kind of like the way plants barely move in a calm breeze outside. Too much air can be damaging especially early on. Low settings on fans or just air circulating around them work really well at this stage.
You shouldn't be topping or doing anything that would cause stress until you get this first problem solved. All of that stress training should be done when the plants are healthy. If you aren't 100% if you should be doing it then ask first! Its hard to fix one problem when you have numerous other things going on. As I said before slow down a little and take a deep breath. Growing is so exciting. I remember in my first grow going down every day, 5 or 6 times, and touching and poking and getting excited. You can kill your plants with too much love and by doing too much. Topping and training will cause the plant to slow down even more so I'd really suggest now that you did that just backing off a ton. You won't see much happen for a few days. Never do these kinds of things when the plant isn't 100% healthy, just like it's not a good idea to flip to flower if the plant isn't 100% healthy either.
You shouldn't be LSTing now no, your plants look too weak. Let them grow and see what happens for a period of time. In my opinion just don't do anything but feed and water them for next week and see what happens. You might be surprised at the result. It goes with my motto for my current grow, "Less is more".
Those first leaves that just have the single tips are not going to make a comeback but I wouldn't take them off yet either until the plants get back to full speed. They may look ugly but they aren't hurting anything. The weird twisting and curling can happen in young plants, it's also nothing to worry about too much. If they were clawed up or down then I'd be concerned. Clones really can get weird sometimes until the roots are well established.
I also don't see much nute burn on todays pics on the one you topped, it is clearly doing better than "Jo". Adversity can be a good thing early on though, I've seen runts gets huge later in life. I honestly think all of these issues you saw is from foliar feeding too early. I think you will see some good things happen in the next few days. Don't feel afraid to ask as many questions as you want. I remember being in my first grow, it was hard to find good answers or who to believe. When I look at peoples journals and I see the plants they have, if I want to have results like them I just copied them for the most part. It's worked out great so far as I have taken little bits of things I like from everyone. Growing can be done all sorts of ways, there is no right way, so you have to find what works best for you. It's hard to deny the kind of evidence that pictures provide
Asesino, again first of all thanks so much for taking the time to go through what I posted and give a detailed answer. I can't thank you enough. I definitely need to take a deep breath and relax because I am way too excited and at the same time probably way too worried that somethings going to go wrong
To get back to your post, I actually had a ph meter from day one and have been using it to make sure I feed them with pH ~5.6-6.0, which is a decent range from what I've read so far. I have not however been monitoring EC or PPM, but I've order a meter for that now so I should have that tomorrow.
To be honest your last post made me think again about the possibility of mildew. The whiteness is still there, but overall it's really not that bad in comparison to most powdery mildew infected plants I've seen around here and apart from a few lower leaves nothing seems to be affected too badly and it doesn't really seem to be "spreading", so that gives me some doubt. Then again I did wipe it off a few times and it has come back every time, but when I wipe it off and have a look at what comes off it really does look and feel like salt which again has me doubting its mildew.
On the other hand, I'm probably doing my jumping to conclusions way too excited first time grower thing again but, I've heard that spraying leaves, after lights go off, with a mixture of a teaspoon of baking soda and water helps stop mildew because of its basic nature. Do you think I should try this tonight when lights go off to be sure its not mildew? The milk thing apparently wouldn't have worked because it needed to be unpasteurized milk which I wasn't able to get at that time... Or should I leave them alone for now?
In terms of the watering and feeding schedule I do have to say I was giving them relatively little water until I recently was told that coco needs to be watered every day and watered generously (I was giving them ~300-400ml each every 2 days for the first 2 weeks or so). The last few days I've been giving them about twice that every day. Do you suggest finding middle ground or should I stick with what I've been doing now?
I've lowered the fan and changed the angle so that it's not directly blowing onto them now. With the possibility of there being mildew, would you recommend keeping the fan or off at night?
I'll give them some time before thinking of LST and won't top the other one, it seems to be self topping anyway which is pretty cool! Also thanks for the clarification on the twisting and curling, I thought that was a little odd and even that was getting me worried haha.
Sorry if it seems like I'm going over the same things or whatever but I just want to clarify to make sure I'm on the right track. Thanks once again for all the help and hopefully I'll come back with good news soon!
