Widowrella

Hey, GC blades! This is my 4th grow, and the plant is Widowrella, a cross between White Widow and Cindarella99, from feminized seed. She's on day 44 from sprout, so about 6 weeks old.

She was doing fine up until last week, when she developed brown spots on some leaves. Kind blade smokemaster helped to diagnose a K deficiency due to a high pH. My pH tester is a milwaukee ph600 and I'm having problems with it, so I'm going to try to get another tester so I can adjust the pH. My plan is to flower her when she's healthy again.

She appears to be N deficient, too. I've just repotted her into a 3 gallon fabric pot. Soil is FFOF + bit of extra perlite + worm castings. She got wilty after the transplant. I've been misting her and she started to perk up yesterday, but she always gets droopy at night, and I took these pictures during lights out. I think she gets droopy because of low humidity. It ranges from 20% to about 35% RH.

The cabinet is a 14" x 14" x 60" tall broom closet with a semi-air-cooled 150W HPS. There is a 80CFM duct fan on the hood, but the hood intake is only a few vents on the hood, plus the space between the glass and the hood (I removed the little bracket that holds the glass in, but the glass is still there.) When I tend the plant my hair always gets sucked into the hood, so I know it doesn't have enough intake!

I have 3 intake ports -- 1 x 4.75" with a fan blowing on the light, and 2 x 4" intakes. One of the 4" intakes is passive, and the other (near the floor) has a 120mm server fan on it (about 136 CFM with about 11 mm H20 static pressure rating.) I'm hoping to rig a wicking wet rag onto this fan, for a "ghetto-style" evaporative cooler.

I also have another fan pulling air across the light (rather inefficiently), and two exhaust fans in the ceiling, with a wire tray under them. Eventually I'll put carbon in this tray. So, all together I have 1 duct fan and 5 x 120mm PC/server fans. I have more PC fans waiting in the wings. My favorite PC fans are Panaflo hydro bearing 120mm fans because they're relatively strong yet quiet. My next favorite are the Delta 120mm. They're very strong, but loud. The strong PC fans are 38 mm thick.

Right now the temps are about 82 with lights on and 77 with lights off. I couldn't get the whole cab in one picture I'm posting 3 pics: bottom, middle and top.

 

Here's what she looks like during the day. Why does she get so droopy at night?

I'm not sure how long this pot will take to dry out, but I guess I'll be watering her in 2 or 3 days. I'm gonna try to figure out what's wrong with my meter. If I can't, and I don't have a new meter by then, any ideas about blindly acidifying my water ? Add a few drops lemon juice or vinegar?

 

Hey Microgrower, the inspiration for this thread! I may have watered too soon a couple of times when she was in the 1 gallon pot, but I usually waited until the pot felt really light. She's been in this 3 gal pot only a couple of days.

When I transplanted her from the 1 gal fabric pot, the root ball was very compact and hard. The soil on the sides was loose and fell away, but the center seemed hard as a brick! Kinda the opposite of what happens in a plastic pot, where the roots grow along the sides, and the center seems almost hollow sometimes. I prolly should have tried to loosen up the root ball -- I hope the roots can escape. Unfortunately some roots had grown into the bottom of the pot and I had to break them to get the plant out. It's definitely easier to repot from a plastic pot!

I'm gonna look for a grill or something to put the plant on so that air can circulate underneath. It will make it harder to water cause she won't be able to wick up the runoff, but it might be good for my evaporative cooler idea. I'll have to water very slowly if I do that. Will my hare-brained swamp cooler work? (Don't mean to insult hares here). Or will I have a tray of slime to clean up all the time?

I usually use lime but this time I forgot. I think it's actually good I forgot, because lime would make the soil more basic. The last readings I got ranged from 7.5 - 8.5, but I trust the 7.5 more because every time I put the meter back into the pH 7 buffer it read 8. something, and I'd have to adjust it back down again. And of course I'm hoping it's not as bad as 8!

FFOF does have lime in it, so now I'm wondering if it was a bad idea to repot into the same batch.

 

Thanks, Micro!

Lights are still on, but she's drooping, as if in anticipation of lights off. I felt the soil and it seems damp. 3 gallons feels like a ton to me, so I can't tell if it's light or not.

I've got another question. The lights were on from 6 AM to 1 AM and I want to move the dark period to the hottest part of the day -- I guess from noon to 6 PM.

I just changed the timer so the lights stay on on until noon tomorrow, with no dark period tonight. I'm concerned that this might be extra stress in her condition, but it's gonna get very hot here in a couple of days. Not sure what to do. I could change my mind and turn the lights off.

 

Could it cause hermaphroditism even during veg? How should I move the light schedule? I didn't want to give her a long dark period because I don't want to start flowering until she's healthy. I'll turn the lights off now instead of waiting 'till noon, and then finish the progression tomorrow?

I had the veg box on a day schedule so that it would be on when the flower closet was off. That was when there was a flowering plant in there. When that plant finished I didn't change the veg box. (I have a mother Diesel in there and I didn't want her to flower, either.) When I moved Widowrella to the flower closet I kept with the same timing as the veg box.

I did try underwatering and she got wilty during the day. Instead of just the leaves drooping, the tops of the stems were drooping too. When I watered her she perked up. I like to really let them dry out.

I've got an AC too, but I want to use it less and save electricity if I can. Not at the expense of hermy-ing the only Widowrella bean I have, though!

Sometimes if you clean the fins on the AC (behind the filter) it helps. And of course change or clean the filter. I've heard that you're supposed to hose down the outside grill every year, too. But if it's old it may be on its way out. There's an AC at my mom's house that's been going since the 70's -- still works well! They don't make 'em like they used to!

 

I decided to change the light schedule by 1 hr per day, so I turned the light off yesterday at about 8 am, and today lights will be off from 9 am to 3 pm. Tomorrow I'll change it 10 am to 4pm, and so on, until I get to 12 noon - 6 pm which would be Saturday. I hope this won't make her hermie. I thought that since plants can veg at 24/0 it wouldn't hurt to just leave the light on for an extra 11 hours, until noon, but I don't want to take any chances.

I'll try to get a new pic when the lights go off (the HPS makes it hard to get a decent picture). She's still hanging in there and I don't see progression of the brown spots, although the affected leaves are dead/dying.

 

Shoot, when I went to take pics I saw pistils. She's not ready, and I'm not done training her! The breeder said she would show pre-flowers at 4 - 6 weeks of veg., but I didn't look for them.

I transplanted into this pot on Saturday, 4 days ago, and haven't watered since then. Still feels heavy but I've never used this pot before, so I'm not sure. Soil on top is very dry. I think I should wait until tomorrow.

I like Smart Pots better than this one. It's square, which is good, but there are "hollow" areas on the sides that are too far down to get soil into them (just tried).

She looks like rabbit ears in the long shot. The middle pic shows the brown leaves. The close-up is supposed to show the pistils, but you can't really see them. It looks like just a lot of sepals, but there are definitely pistils.

 

I'm not liking the "claw" look, but I'm definitely not overwatering. What else would cause this? Low humidity? I gotta mist her more. I'm not liking these fussy strains. What's an easy strain that still has potent bud? Yield is not as important, but I need about 2 oz per plant 'cause I only grow one at a time.

 

Now that she's flowering of her own volition should I switch to 12/12? I wanted to wait until the pH was in check. Over the past week or so I went from from 20/4 to 19/5 and now 18/6. Could that small change have caused her to flower?

 

Do you mean in the middle picture, and the lower leaf on the first picture? I don't think it's nute burn because in 6 weeks I've only given her 3 or 4 doses of Blue Mountain Organics Flower Power (NPK 1-8-7) (Flower Power), which is organic, and 2 doses of MG Orchid food (26-16-12) at about 1/2 strength.

I thought the brown spots were due to a pH lockout of potassium. I think there is also N deficiency on the lower leaves, but not sure since the rest of the leaves are so dark. N is mobile, and the plant can move it up, but can the plant move it down?

Here are links to pics of what the brown spots looked like 6 days ago, and my thread in the sick plant forum. (I'd insert the images, but they're too big and stretch the thread):
http://forum.grasscity.com/attachme...own-spots-my-widowrella-widowrella_day42a.jpg

http://forum.grasscity.com/attachme...own-spots-my-widowrella-widowrella_day43b.jpg

http://forum.grasscity.com/sick-plants-problems/829592-brown-spots-my-widowrella.html

 

Magnesium deficiency is indicated by the tiny brown dots on the tips of the serrations? Or is that the calcium def? I may have to go a hydro store and get a new meter if mine doesn't stablize. I'm soaking it in pH 7 buffer now.

I think I figured out how I ruined my meter:
http://forum.grasscity.com/indoor-m...72-milwaukee-ph-pen-ph600-2.html#post10883250

 

Wow, a little vinegar goes a long way! I put about 4 drops in a 1/2 gallon of water and the pH went from about 7.2 to 5.4. So I mixed that with another quart or so and the meter seems to be stable at about 6.1. I'm not sure what my runoff was last time, but a guess would be 7.4. Is 6.1 good to feed her? Should I go lower?

The meter responds quickly to drastic changes in pH -- when I added 2 drops of vinegar to the test sample the pH shot down to 4. But it's very slow to get back to 7. When I put it back in buffer it went to about 6.4 quickly, but it takes almost an hour to reach 7.0.

On a happy note, I discovered that one of my fans was running at only 5V because I messed up the wiring. Once I corrected that the temperature went down a degree to 80/81. The ambient temp is about 74 -- that's the best my a/c can do unless I hang a curtain in the kitchen and block the air to the rest of the apartment. (Which I might have to do at some point.)

And I bought some yo yo light hangers -- so far they're really good. I can push or pull the light and it stays where I want it. So much easier than wires! Here's a pic of the yo yos.

 

Well, I gave her 3 qts of pH 6.0 water yesterday. The runoff was 6.5. I'm surprised at such a big change from 7.5 last time, but maybe the meter isn't reading correctly (then or now). On the other hand I transplanted it a few days after the 7.5 reading so the fresh soil may be doing something to help.

I held the meter in the runoff for about 5 minutes and it seemed to stabilize at 6.5, and then I dropped it in the runoff (less than 1/2 inch). The screen had droplets of water behind it but the meter is still working!

Since she's already flowering I'm wondering when I should switch to 12/12. I'd like to get a couple more good runoff readings from her, but that would take a couple of weeks. I still have to light proof one of the intakes.

I bought two 4" "midget louvers", intended for dark rooms. But one doesn't quite fit and I have to enlarge the hole a bit. I made that hole without a hole saw, so it's not perfect. It will be so nice to have those flat louvers instead of the diy cardboard box vent covers I was using.