First Grow - Can I Recover?

[2Chimps]

To begin with I got a pack of Feminized White Widow, and another pack of Auto Revolver seeds from Crop King. Germination went great and I started the plants off indoors until the time came at which there would be no chance of frost and it would be safe to plant them outdoors. Its here where I think I started to go wrong.

First, the plants have been growing for about 3 weeks now, and they bare no resemblance to anything. They're however very tall (approx 6 inches). I would leave the plants outside in the direct sunlight for about 4 hours a day, and then move them indoors but in a naturally lit area for the rest of the day.

Second, One of the plants began to develop brown leave tips. The soil I was using to start them is rich soil (nice and black) so I believe this was the cause of the browning, and unfortunately the plant died within 2 days. Would naturally rich soil be the cause?

Third, after a quick google search I found this grow log (My Crop King Revolver Grow Log) and after 2 weeks his plant is short and wide with good leaf growth. Mine on the other hand are all very tall and only 2-4 leaves. This lead to the believe that they weren't getting enough direct sunlight. At this point they were too tall to stand by themselves and the main stem was too weak to support through ties so in order to fix the height issue, I moved them into deeper cups and buried the main stem until only an inch was above ground. Did I mess up by doing this? And was the cause of such tall plants the lack of direct light?

Fourth, during the transfer process one of the plants severed about half way up the stem, so I planted the top half. Will it survive?

Fifth, the plant that is showing the most progress now has areas of the leaves that are looking quite pale. What is this and what is the best way to correct it?

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the dead plant or them before I moved them into deeper containers but here they are currently.

Thanks in advance for any help and for taking the time to read this!

 

[Scientific]

Hi Chimps -- I'll take a shot at this. First, yes, it looks like you're plants both are not getting enough light intensity or enough duration. The happy, healthy plants that you see in pictures online are usually getting something like the equivalent of 18 hours a day of bright summer sun. If they get less, the plants won't die but neither will they grow--and any growth they do have will likely be to stretch out to try to reach the light. That's the elephant in the room. You have to solve that immediately. Even some cheap lights CFL, LED, or tube fluorescents from the home center would be a big step forward. Fix that and you'll be well on your way. Don't fix it and there's not much point in discussing anything else.

My second comment is that it looks like your soil is too wet, probably the most common rookie mistake. Let it dry out between waterings. "Cannabis doesn't like wet feet."

Your severed and replanted plant won't survive. Sorry.

I have no idea why you are getting that funny chlorosis (lack of chlorophyll) in some of the leaves. If I had to guess, I'd say it might be related somehow to the insufficient light problem. )Interesting though...)

It's good that you are looking at grow journals! They will teach you a lot!

GET MORE LIGHT and dry out your soil and you should be able to recover.

Good luck!

 

[Young Yoda]

Hello, I'll add my 2c, even though Scientific is right on target.

Rich soil will kill a seedling. If it died in two days and all you gave it was water, it could likely have been nute burn.

The biggest problem here was clearly lack of light. The specific solution for you starting plants inside will definitely be the CFLs.. 18 or 23W or something like that. Cheap, work well. Keep them inches from the leaves. I have a feeling this right here would have gotten you through this stage no problem.

As for these plants, I'd like to be optimistic. Keep growing em. With that said, plants do get stunted from this kind of treatment. There's a chance more hard work might not pay off as well as it should. Starting fresh might be a good idea.

 

[2Chimps]

Thanks a lot for your input Scientific and Yoda, very helpful information! Unfortunately, even with putting them under some CFLs it looks like too little too late for these guys. I'm doubtful that the soil was the death of the first plant but assuming it was, is there a way to test if the soil is too rich for a plant? And at what point in time during the growth cycle could a plant be put into rich soil?

 

[Scientific]

Hello again Chimps. Sorry to hear that the kids are struggling. As for the soil, if it's just naturally rich soil from nature--river bottom or whatever--I would very much doubt that it would be rich enough to be toxic. Usually when plants have trouble it's when soil has been heavily amended with either chemical fertilizer or hot "natural" sources like chicken manure.

You can buy soil test kits at the garden center or on Amazon. I have never used one. It would be kind of interesting. I would guess they would give you levels of macronutrients (N, P, and K) but not the micros.

If you can afford it and are not planning a giant grow, the easiest thing might be to just buy a known-good cannabis soil like Fox Farms. That said, I have to say again I really doubt that unless a lot of fertilizer got added to your soil that that was the problem. (You could just plant some mint seeds or such like in it to see how they do as a quick, simple, effective test.)

My best guess is that as I said before you need a lot more light, and be sure that your soil drains well. Adding a lot of perlite will help with that. Plain old sand can help too.

Good luck and have fun!

 

[420Musician]

Could be simply (as mentioned above) not enough sunlight. They do seem to be stretching towards what light is available.
They should getting at least 18 hours of direct light a day. Having them indoors under full spectrum until they get established is a good idea before putting them outside.

Theres also the possibility of too much water and not enough aeration in the soil. It looks real wet and heavy.
lots of growers add vermiculite to their soil to lighten it up a bit.

Just a couple extra thoughts to what already been said.

 

[Young Yoda]

Thanks a lot for your input Scientific and Yoda, very helpful information! Unfortunately, even with putting them under some CFLs it looks like too little too late for these guys. I'm doubtful that the soil was the death of the first plant but assuming it was, is there a way to test if the soil is too rich for a plant? And at what point in time during the growth cycle could a plant be put into rich soil?

Considering that all your other plants are not suffering nute burn, I think it's safe to say that's not actually a problem. The other ones look to me like they could have done better with just more light.
Now, wet soil could be a problem as people have mentioned. However, if you water more carefully and adjust your soil consistency I think it would safe to try again in the same dirt.

One of the ways you can judge a plant's strength and ability to cope with stresses is healthy green true leaves. When just the cotyledons are out the plant is tender. When the first single-bladed true leaves start to be sizeable the plant is rapidly growing and developing strength, still vulnerable though. Once you start to see healthy fan leaves show (like 2-3 nodes up) you can usually tell that the plant is growing vigorously, and at that point you can start training, or a transplant if appropriate, etc.

 

[2Chimps]

Thanks again for all your helps guys! Ill be starting a to germinate a few more seeds in the coming days, going to spend this time doing more research. Things should go much better this time round

 

[Scientific]

Ill be starting a to germinate a few more seeds in the coming days, going to spend this time doing more research. Things should go much better this time round

Cool. I'm already looking forward to my next grow (out on my deck in June) and putting all my lessons learned to work. There's nothing like actually diving in and trying something to really learn it...

 

[2Chimps]

Cool. I'm already looking forward to my next grow (out on my deck in June) and putting all my lessons learned to work. There's nothing like actually diving in and trying something to really learn it...

Hope it goes well for you! Even though it hasn't worked out quite as planned so far its been a great learning experience, not to mention a lot of fun!