[k9oky]

OK this is my first grow. I have two female plants both northern lights (clones) which were given to me. I received them in great condition. They were just under three quarters of a foot high and had been used to being grown indoors and in containers. They were given to me in two small plasic milk containers. I aquired two plant pots (look like 3 litre pots) and made a mix for my soil. I used B'cuzz Bio-aarde Substraat Bio Soil and mixed in some little spongy cubes (absorbing water) and some little red ceramic spheres for better drainage. I put an inch layer of the red ceramic spheres at the bottom of the plant pots covering the holes (still drainage though) and added the soil mix to about 1.5 inches from the top of the pots. I then carefully extracted the two plants from their milk containers which slid out easily (holding upside down) and I could see a few roots which looked healthy. I then gently bedded the plants into their new gowing mediums and covered the top with soil and put 1.5 inches of the red ceramic spheres on the top.

I made up two buckets of fertiliser. The first bucket was just for washing-through the plant, so it was loads of water and a tiny bit of fertiliser and the second bucket was loads of water with a little more fertiliser. The fertilser I am using is Terra Vega for vegitation it is a single bottle fertilser (as you all know). I made up the second bucket with a concentration of 12.5ml of feriliser to 5 litres of water - the recommended dose on the bottle is 25ml per 5 litres. I then tested the Ph and it was far too acidic so I added a tiny quantity of Ph up which then resolved the solution to a Ph of around 6.5. I put both containers in the rear of my growing room to absorb some of the heat for warmer water and cooler grow room.

I rounded the plants together and firstly washed them both through with the first bucket of really weak feriliser. I washed them through with the pot size (3 litres) of this solution two times and let all the excess fall from the bottom. Then left them to finish draining for 15 minutes. Then I added the fertilser which was from the second bucket I made up. I added about 2 litres of the fertiliser into each 3 litre pot quite a bit drained through then placed them onto run-off trays, then put them in the grow room.

The grow room is not ideal in terms of air circulation but it is about 3.5 foot by 3.5 foot and is self-contained apart from a door directly on the front. I have a 400w sodium bulb with reflector etc and is entirely coated in proper reflective material (cant remember the name). The bulb is exactly 1 foot above the top of the plants. The plants were then subject to a light cycle of 18 hours on and 6 hours off per day. The door opens onto a unused room and that room has two windows at either end so I leave them open to cool down the grow room and provide some kind of circulation (leaving the grow room door open slightly and waft it a few times a day). Im not sure but I think the circulation is not great in my grow room but i'm not quite sure but I cant attatch an extractor fan because there is no place that the extracted air to go. I have a fan in there too which does not blow directly onto the plants. The temperature in the grow room is about 85 degrees at the highest during the day and with a little wafting drops to about 80 degrees. But the majority of the time it is at 85 degrees. At night the temperature is about 70 degrees. I dont think it is very humid in the grow room, but again I'm not too sure.

[This i getting quite long now - sorry but dont want to miss anything]

So the plants went straight into this grow room under their light cycle with their fertaliser etc as mentioned above. I began noticing new shoots developing after the fourth day and I was all happy.

I had no idea how often to water so I read that you should let the medium dry then water again. The medium seemed dry on the third day but im not too sure because I could only feel about 2 inches down (not disturbing the roots) but that felt pretty dry. So on the fifth morning just before their light cycle started I decided to water. I watered exactly the same as 4 paragraphs above apart from I washed the medium through with the weak fertiliser solution (3 litres per 3 litre pot) only once left for 15 minutes then applied the same amount of fertilser as above (2 litres in each 3 litre pot).

The plants have been growing in these conditions for just over a month now and have been washed through then watered/fertilsed every third day. The first 3 weeks I could see a little growth and then the past 2 weeks the growth has been very slow. Each plant is now exactly a foot in height.

The plants are ill visually. After the second week I could see that the leaves were brown at their tips and this developed more and more but now have got less/none. And they seem to droop a little pointing downwards at their tips or curling under at their tips. At the beginning of the third week I prosponed the watering a day longer (4 days). In the morning of the fourth day just before watering I found that overnight the plants leaves had whitened/yellowed. A little more of the bottom leaves, a little of the middle leaves and a couple of the top leaves, a few of the new leaves and a couple of the old leaves had all shown the same symptoms. About a quarter of the plant showed these symptoms. I then removed some of the majorly white/yellow leaves but kept some of them on the plant and then continued to water with my original 3 day watering cycle up until now (about 3 weeks). I find that quite often I get a sudden attack overnight of more yellow leaves then they dont seem to get any more yellow until suddenly another attack mostly overnight. Growth has not stopped but it might as well have done.

Today, for example, the plants look as follows, 1 foot high fairly bushy with new shoots appearing but very very slow growth in general. They have quite a sturdy stem but at the bottom seems to have a slight tree-like texture, and about a quarter of a foot above where the tree-like texture stops there are couple of deep reddish purple lines which follow the stem up to the top. All of the shoots stems which are off the main stem are reddish purple in colour. There are a about 4 leaves which are yellow in colour and there are slighly more which are green with a little yellow that turns into yellow at the tips. If I look at the underside of a normal green coloured leaf from the plant I find that the three veins are normal greeny colour at the tip but turning reddish purple as working towards the stem. If I look at the underside of a yellow leaf the three veins are white in colour all the way to the end of their little stem. Looking at the top of every leaf on the plant where the little stem joins the leaf there is a little dark red/purple spot.

Sorry for the length of this waffle but please read carefully and hopefully I hould get some expertise from some of you which I will soak up like a sponge. I really want to keep these plants going if I can just for experiments sake.


Thanks for looking