Autoflower - 19 days old - Something is going on with her

Emilya,

I see you have a lot of experience and your advice is always good and makes sense!

How could I go about checking this LARGE pot for when I need to water? I have slight problems unlike with the other pots knowing when to water. (Don't know whether the pics show it, but the white pot is significantly bigger than those I used earlier).

Right now I am poking a wooden stick in there to see whether it needs to be watered.

I am also aware that I might have over-watered my seedlings and especially my peppers because you see they ALL have the yellow bottom leaves problem. Right now I am giving several days to have them dry out. (Yes, TODAY I watered :). You can also see in the white, large pot that I might have had a water problem since the bottom ones are also slightly yellow.

DSCN180510.JPG


Thank you :)

(PS Should I get a moisture sensor, those with a stick?)
 
flexy123 said:
(PS Should I get a moisture sensor, those with a stick?)
Click to expand...


Brilliant idea about the stick, and I was going to suggest one of those cheap moisture meters before you did here in your PS. Those cheapy meters are next to useless except for one thing... they can show you clearly where your wet/dry line is, or the level of the water table in your container. The meter only reads moist and wet... but if you can find that line where it goes from moist, all the way to pegging the meter on the wet side, that will show you where that line is. Track it over several days to get an idea how fast your plant is using the water, and then water again when the meter shows you that you are down to the last inch. Because of capillary action between the roots and the sides and bottom of the container, that last inch never really dries out totally and the meter will always show wet down there... well, until it really totally dries out... but by then the plant would be wilting, yelling at you... you would notice.
 
@flexi-
Can you tip the pot? That's what I do with big pots. You can easily tell when they are light and need water. You don't need to lift them off the ground to tell if they are out of water. Once you get used to your plants, you can usually tell when they are getting close to "dry". When I see those signs, just give the pot a shove and see if that confirms it.

@kwingi-
I use the "My Photos" link in the lower-left corner of your posting window. It brings up your gallery photos.
 
That sprouted seed which had some problems with opening is done already. It was lying kind of flat on the soil - dead, I pulled it off. Some weak seed, happens from time to time. I'll put another one in couple days
 
Major PITA said:
@flexi-
Can you tip the pot? That's what I do with big pots. You can easily tell when they are light and need water. You don't need to lift them off the ground to tell if they are out of water. Once you get used to your plants, you can usually tell when they are getting close to "dry".
Click to expand...

I am trying to "learn" those new pots. It was easy with the small pots. They are light as a feather when they're dry. The large pot is just "very heavy", no matter what. But I will figure it out.
Today I learned that I need to water MUCH MORE (once I water, not more frequently obviously)...say as a rough guide 1L per gallon of soil. So the 17L pot needs at least 4L-4.5L until I see the first runoff, to really soak the soil entirely. I definitely watered a lot less than 4L the last weeks or so. So now I can get a better feeling about the right weight of that thing and when to water again.
 
flexy123 said:
I am trying to "learn" those new pots. It was easy with the small pots. They are light as a feather when they're dry. The large pot is just "very heavy", no matter what. But I will figure it out.
Today I learned that I need to water MUCH MORE (once I water, not more frequently obviously)...say as a rough guide 1L per gallon of soil. So the 17L pot needs at least 4L-4.5L until I see the first runoff, to really soak the soil entirely. I definitely watered a lot less than 4L the last weeks or so. So now I can get a better feeling about the right weight of that thing and when to water again.
Click to expand...

That sound spot on. In my experience a porous soil will take just over 1/4 its soil volume in water. When I use 7 gal pots, I figure on 2 gal of water for each.
 
W8_20151108071709 - 420 Magazine Photo Gallery looking good?
time for watering I think. The soil is dry. I watered last time during transplanting. When is the best time to give some nutes? Today she is 26 days old

sorry for low qualityphoto


Edit: definitely different time zones between us ;)
it has been around 5 days since transplant/watering. The soil feels dry I think. It might be a good time for watering.
I'll be back home in couple of hours, please let me know.

:420:
 
I like to try and water/feed at lights-on, or early in the plant's day.
I usually wait at least until the plant has 5 nodes of true leaves.
Some of my growing experience is in well-amended soil. I don't add any nutrients - ever during the grow. If I think they need a little something extra, it is late in bloom. There is no exact answer. It all depends on what is in your grow medium.
 
I am *trying* to water mine only when the soil is REALLY dry and the pot feels noteably lighter. If the plant is wilting slightly (because of it underwatered) and you water this is MUCH better than watering too often. Or in other words: If you have doubts and you skip a day watering it's actually a good thing.
Also, if you use normal potting soil which are pre-fertilized, like pretty much any you're good for three to four weeks. Again, less can be better. There are some folks who start giving nutes only for flowering.
 
I got just regular soil, I mixed it with perlite but I think not enough though. It was my first time so I wasn't sure how much is enough.
the soil do have some fertilizer in it but it's just for early stage of life. It's not an organic or expensive because I don't have access to it.
ok for now I will not give anything because she doesn't need (no symptoms showing)
btw what else can I add to my current soil? It's to late for mixing with vermiculite and worm casting ( I definitely will use those two ingredients next time while cultivating cannabis)
I will not water it today, will wait till tomorrow or day after.

I will update this topic with new pictures and questions.
again guys thanks for helping!
 
You can top/side dress your soil with EWC and many other amendments and scratch it in lightly. You can brew teas, too. The heaviness of the soil is set now, unless you up-pot them.
 
You shouldn't mix anything for your soil right now, especially not worm castings since they're like a fert and you already have fert in the soil. To get up seedlings you should actually use the "crappiest" soil without nutes and everything. (The seedling must develop roots. I you give nutes in seedling state the plant wont develop strong roots.) The ONLY thing which could make sense in this early state is some perlite, like if you prepare some seedling mix for next time, to make the soil airier...but it's also not really essential.

You can worry about nutes and different soil in some weeks when you repot your plant, you re-pot (up-pot) when you can see the first roots coming through from the holes in the bottom, when the plant is "root bound", that is when the roots have taken up the entire small pot. I'd guess in maybe two weeks or so.

Even then once you repotted/up-potted you should be careful with nutes especially if you repot in "fresh" soil which again has nutes in it already. Then too you might possibly be better off just watering the plant for 3 weeks or so and only then start giving nutes. (I recommend organic nutes for many reasons, one of them is that you cannot really overfeed them with organic nutes, you dont need to flush and all that nonsense. I am using "Plant Magic Oldtimer" Grow and Bloom, but there are many brands like biobizz, GHE etc. which have similiar stuff. With "teas" etc. I haven't messed with and TBH I am not really wanting to "make tea" for my plants, it sounds silly when I can buy really good organic stuff where a bottle will last me maybe a year or longer. The one I chose, one criteria was also how much nutes you need for watering. It's a difference whether one brand says 10ml per L with each watering and another 3ml..means the one bottle will last you three times as long...)
 
It has been a week since transplant. My plant is getting higher and bit wider. New leafs which are really small are coming out, they obviously get bigger every single day, I need to adjust lightings basically every day now.
still didn't water them since last week. Will not give them nutes for at least 2 weeks but I have one organic made of some worms... (fuuu).
please go ahead and check my todays picture

some comparison first.
====>>> W8_20151102174801 exactly one week ago after transplant.

=====>>> W8_20151109194332 today

another one from a side W8_20151109194349
 
looking great! keep it up!
 
MUCH better!
 
beautiful Beautiful! Such a turnaround, you are headed for great things! You even have your own cheering section, all of us are wishing you the utmost success!
 

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