Stressed Seedlings

[TheFertilizer]

I've been having this problem over multiple grows, still not really sure what is going on. I suspect I'm just over-watering still.

This one seems to be doing the worst. The purple on the stems is a genetic thing, but I'm not sure what's up with the yellow cotyledons and the brown marks on the first leaves, but mainly they just have this over-watered look. There's also these strange white bumps on the stem, but it might also be genetic as well because one of the last plants from previous cycle I had of this strain was a similar phenotype ( purple stems ) and it also had those bumps. I'm worried however that this might be some kind of disease. I doubt it could be attempting to root since the humidity stays so low.

https://www.420magazine.com/gallery/data/500/IMG_20170102_111212.jpg[/img
] [img]https://www.420magazine.com/gallery/data/500/IMG_20170102_111046.jpg

I think it's over-watering because I have been pretty bad at that in grows past, but I went ahead and got a scale and a empty solo cup with bone dry soil to test against this time around. So I zero the scale to the weight of the dry-cup, so that gives me the weight difference between the dry cup and the watered ones in grams. They're all about 175 grams when watered, but first I only let them get down to 50-60 grams and then the latest watering they were only at 30-40. I'm thinking that's still too much because 30/175 = 17% of the water left.

Apart from over-watering I suspect either low humidity or lack of nutrients. So far I have only fed them once with 120 PPM solution. I know generally you only want to give them tap water for a little bit, but this soil has been reused twice so far, and so I didn't know how much the nutrients have been depleted. I figure 120 PPM would be a low enough dosage to just give it barely enough if it didn't have enough in the soil.

The humidity has just been impossible to get control of. I bought a humidifier, but it runs out so quickly that the humidity still varies quite a bit between day/night. You can see the hygrometer in the background in the first two shots.

My journal has all the details about what I'm using, what's been done so far, etc. This would be the 4th week since I planted them and they're pretty much starting vegetative. More pics there too
Platinum Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HPS - 4x4 Tent Grow

 

[DeanB]

What i understand from your grow journal is you are watering by weight. So Monday you water until the cup weighs 180g. Tuesday you check and it says 160g, then you water it back up to 180g. That would be over watering, the cups should weigh next to nothing. The mix should be sucked in from the sides of the cups before watering again. To help now, cut some slits up the sides of the solo cups to get airflow into the root zones. No need to double cup them either, holds moisture too. I have the same 3-1 meter, it should read 3 before watering again, stick the probe down to the bottom of the cup to get a reading.

 

[TheFertilizer]

What i understand from your grow journal is you are watering by weight. So Monday you water until the cup weighs 180g. Tuesday you check and it says 160g, then you water it back up to 180g. That would be over watering, the cups should weigh next to nothing. The mix should be sucked in from the sides of the cups before watering again. To help now, cut some slits up the sides of the solo cups to get airflow into the root zones. No need to double cup them either, holds moisture too. I have the same 3-1 meter, it should read 3 before watering again, stick the probe down to the bottom of the cup to get a reading.

No no I waited until they weighed 50-60 grams to water the first time. Then I waited until they were 30-40 grams to water the second time. So they got pretty dry, but not dry enough? That's my theory anyway

Actually I do have slots cut into the sides of the cups. I just tired that for the first time and wasn't sure if maybe I cut them too big and maybe they were drying out pockets of the soil, I noticed I wasn't seeing any kind of roots coming out of them and they were pretty big. Like half an inch wide by the length of the cup... So yeah I wasn't sure if they were doing more harm than good and put them into the cups to be more "normal". for now.

I had good luck using the moisture meter last time around but sometimes I feel like I'm not doing the roots any favor in a solo cup sized container by putting the probes in. I didn't think to see what it said when they were at 30-40 grams, but I'll do that. I agree that 3 was usually the mark to start watering for me last time.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Took some more pictures


Okay I zero the scale to the dry pot weight...

Here is the helathiest looking one...

Sickest looking

The probes look pretty dry but there's still a tad bit of moisture on them, if the clumped dirt is any real indicator

Can kind of tell the size of holes I made in those pics too

 

[DeanB]

Good time pull out of the cup and check the roots.

 

[DeanB]

When do you plan on up potting them? They look ready.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Ah crud I always forget to pull them out while dry. I was checking out the holes in the bottom and I can see some roots starting to become visible. I had planned to up-pot next week, I'm not really that familiar with how fast they outgrow their containers. I do remember that whenever I get this chronically over-watered look, an up-pot usually fixes it up so maybe you're right on there...

I tried Major PITA's pot-drenching technique just to be sure I was saturating all of the soil and not leaving dry pockets. Looks like I was because while the cups would normally weigh about 180 grams after a top-water, they were all more along the lines of 220 grams after drenching like this. Though incidentally, the sickly looking plant I'm most concerned about is actually only showing 200 grams, so it appears to weigh a little less than all the others. The 3-in-1 meter reads under 3 when the cups weigh 50 grams or less and I think that makes sense, because 30 grams of water is only 30 mL but some suggested that's still plenty for it to go off especially this small.

My other concern is the low humidity. I have been studying up on VPD lately and mine is basically constantly at a too-dry range except for what I assume is the 6 hours of dark when humidity ever gets to >50% and the temp drops to about 68. During the lighting period, temperatures are usually high 70s to low 80s and humidity fluctuates between about 25-50% RH because the humidifier runs out of water so quickly. I wonder if this fluctuation itself isn't doing any favors for them and if just letting it stay low would be better off.

 

[Blondhottie]

Over watering wait until it's dry and water. Also on bottom of cup have some openings for them to breath hun

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[Blondhottie]

Another thing is to transplant them I see the roots on your solo cup. I would do this when transplanting them I had success is using these pots they are 1 Gallon plastic cheapie they are amazing !! They work fantastic. Have the same soil you used before put half soil and secret to prevent any sort of more stress is... put a tiny bit of water so the soil is moist but not sopping wet. Then carefully can cut the cups or put upside down and tap lightly should come out. Gently that is and quickly into the pot and fill gap with soil and little bit of water not over water and under light quick.

Do that with the other girls

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[dubnation]

My two cents here if you don't mind lol. I had a cloning problem using reused soil. I thought it could have been some form of rot or infection so I did a hydrogen peroxide flush and that seemed to help. My clones are taking off well.

From the Jedi masters here they tell me you don't need high humidity for seedlings. They can and do grow well from any level of humidity though too high causes mold etc... so I don't think it has anything to do with humidity. However if it drops too low to your liking I would try foliar spray to help the leaves absorb some more. I used SuperThrive during early seedling stages as my foliar.

You're watering method is dialed in. I also do the lift test and my seedling in solo cups with about 30% perlite gets about 8oz of water every 3-4 days and there is still runoff. I water very slowly and takes me well over 5 minutes bc I water a little and then go away and come back for the second half.

The H2O2 will help deliver more oxygen to the root zone too. Dilute it 10:1 or something of that sort with PH'd water.

Also I think potting up could help as well and dusting again with beneficials.

Lastly since it's reused soil try boosting the Microbe life with some molasses and also try coconut water diluted. Coconut contains great growth hormones for the little ones.

Still though cannot figure out if it's nutrients, mold, rot or overwater. Keep things simple and try one thing after another. Best of luck!


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[dubnation]

Btw my slits in the solo cups are tiny compared to yours so I think drainage is fine imo.


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[TheFertilizer]

Okay well, I transplanted them into 1 gallon pots, put some additional Mykos in there to boost beneficial soil life, and I fed them. Now I can't tell if I haven't fed enough or too much though. They look both burned and deficient. I also FIM'd them, which doesn't really have anything to do with anything here, but just in case anyone was wondering why the tops looked so weird. So they could also just be stunted right now.

I'm not sure why the feed would have burned them though because I used only 150 PPM. So I'm leaning towards deficient... But the tips of the leaves did look burned so I don't know.

 

[DeanB]

16% humidity is low for veg. They look like they could use a good watering, have you fully watered since transplanting?

 

[TheFertilizer]

16% humidity is low for veg. They look like they could use a good watering, have you fully watered since transplanting?

Yeah I gave them a full water the same time I transplanted, but they've been pretty wet still since then. The top looks pretty dry but my moisture probe is >5 on all of them once it gets about half way down.

 

[fanleaf]

They need more food and less water. They are hungrier than 150ppm

 

[TheFertilizer]

Well they're looking a bit perkier now at least. I gave them all half a solo cup of 350 PPM of nutes. I think I need to feed more often than I think since the soil is reused so much already.

 

[PagodaVapors]

I've been having this problem over multiple grows, still not really sure what is going on. I suspect I'm just over-watering still.

This one seems to be doing the worst. The purple on the stems is a genetic thing, but I'm not sure what's up with the yellow cotyledons and the brown marks on the first leaves, but mainly they just have this over-watered look. There's also these strange white bumps on the stem, but it might also be genetic as well because one of the last plants from previous cycle I had of this strain was a similar phenotype ( purple stems ) and it also had those bumps. I'm worried however that this might be some kind of disease. I doubt it could be attempting to root since the humidity stays so low.

https://www.420magazine.com/gallery/data/500/IMG_20170102_111212.jpg[/img
] [img]https://www.420magazine.com/gallery/data/500/IMG_20170102_111046.jpg

I think it's over-watering because I have been pretty bad at that in grows past, but I went ahead and got a scale and a empty solo cup with bone dry soil to test against this time around. So I zero the scale to the weight of the dry-cup, so that gives me the weight difference between the dry cup and the watered ones in grams. They're all about 175 grams when watered, but first I only let them get down to 50-60 grams and then the latest watering they were only at 30-40. I'm thinking that's still too much because 30/175 = 17% of the water left.

Apart from over-watering I suspect either low humidity or lack of nutrients. So far I have only fed them once with 120 PPM solution. I know generally you only want to give them tap water for a little bit, but this soil has been reused twice so far, and so I didn't know how much the nutrients have been depleted. I figure 120 PPM would be a low enough dosage to just give it barely enough if it didn't have enough in the soil.

The humidity has just been impossible to get control of. I bought a humidifier, but it runs out so quickly that the humidity still varies quite a bit between day/night. You can see the hygrometer in the background in the first two shots.

My journal has all the details about what I'm using, what's been done so far, etc. This would be the 4th week since I planted them and they're pretty much starting vegetative. More pics there too
Platinum Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HPS - 4x4 Tent Grow

You need to add some cal/mg to your mix. I see that you haven't added cal mag as you only have been using armor si flora nova grow and grow more all purpose

Other than that, your mixture seems to be fine. Add the same amount of calmg to the mix ( 1/4 tsp / gal ) and you should be fine.

That mixture is giving you a 1-1-1.2 npk ratio which isn't too bad. In veg you wanna shoot for somewhere around 1-.5-1.5

One thing you wanna do though is check the ph of your soil. Since it's been re used and all, you don't know if the ph of the soil is too high or too low. You want about 6.5 ph at the soil.

 

[TheFertilizer]

You need to add some cal/mg to your mix. I see that you haven't added cal mag as you only have been using armor si flora nova grow and grow more all purpose

Other than that, your mixture seems to be fine. Add the same amount of calmg to the mix ( 1/4 tsp / gal ) and you should be fine.

That mixture is giving you a 1-1-1.2 npk ratio which isn't too bad. In veg you wanna shoot for somewhere around 1-.5-1.5

One thing you wanna do though is check the ph of your soil. Since it's been re used and all, you don't know if the ph of the soil is too high or too low. You want about 6.5 ph at the soil.

Yeah for some reason even out of the bag the Fox Farms Happy Frog was right about at 7. I think they must stabilize it with dolomite lime or something, because it's stayed at 7 through all these uses too. I've been thinking about amending it and then what to do to knock it down to 6.5

Is that accounting for the Cal and Mag in the Flora Nova too? It has 4% Calcium and 2% Magnesium so I didn't wanna over-do it by adding supplementary Calmag. The Grow More stuff doesn't have any though.