Is this a sign of over ferting?

[Tristan]

It's my first time growing, so I'm not sure what to look for, and what some growth signs mean.

All my plants are under a dual 4 ft florecent fixture, with 1 cool white and 1 grow bulb, and theres 2 heat lamps in with the plants, just to raise the temperature of the room, my basement's a little cold.

My plants have been growing for 3 or 4 weeks, and I added fertilizer for the first time a few days ago. The leaves are begining to curl upwards, and the tips are turning yellow/brown. It's nothing to major at the moment, but I dont want it to get worse.

From what I've read, it looks like too much fertilizer... but I want to make sure.

If I'm right, what should I do besides reduce what I feed them? Do I have to flush the soil? or is the problem so small, it'll fix its self in a few days?


Another question: Is the size of my plants normal? After looking at other's pictures, my plants appear to be tall and leafless... Could the light be too far away? Its about 1 ft above.

And I know that the styrophome cups are too small to grow in, they'll be transplanted into 3 gallon pots and moved into another room with in a few days.

Thanks for all your help. =)

[Ganja Guerrilla]

your plants are looking pretty good

the pic # 1 is the only one that may show a little fert burn but pic # 1 is mostly heat stress from the heat lamps I realize you need the heat so just move them farther away from the plants

the plants are streching a we bit so drop the lites within 6 inches fluros wont burn them

otherwise they look good transplant ASAP and your good to go

[Tristan]

All 30 of my plants are in a small 4x5 ft plexy-glass box, that used to be my pet Iguana's spare tank. The florecent fixture is sitting right ontop of the tank, so I cant exactly lower it. I raised the plants up a few more inches, by putting boxes under them. Hopefully this will improve my growth rate, untill I finalize their new room.

I removed one of the two heat-lamps, and pointed the remaining one away from the plants, just to maintain a reasonable temperature in the tank.

I'm not quite sure if it's heat that is causing the curling and browning of the leaves. Most of the plants that have this feature are located near the back of the tank, and the heat lamps were at the front of the tank.

I had the florecent fixture blocking the top back of the tank though, so it wasnt very well ventilated there. It might just be the build up heat, and old air thats causing my problem. I moved the light, to make a gap for air flow, and I set up another fan to circulate the air better. The tank was also extremely humid, but the new fan should fix that.

While I was moving things around though, I encounterd a little centipede, quite disturbing, yet that motovated me to alter my week's schedual, to transplant everything into another room sooner... The plants are safe for now from the insect, mainly because it is quite dead, I made sure of it.


I'm going to reduce the amount of fertilizer I give them, and hopefully everything will return back to normal. I'm just scared that I'm going to ruin my first grow, I probly should have started with fewer plants, but it's too late now. I'll make it work somehow.

[pleiku173]

... I've had 25 years of growing veggies, from seed, in cups, windowsill,
home made green house and out to garden. When I suspected an overuse
of Miracle Grow with my mj (stunted growth, curled brown leaves), I flushed the cups
with about a triple dose of water. You must, of course have holes at cup
bottom. Within about 3-4 days the growth returned and no more curled brown leaf.
Also, I suspect mj is more sensitive to root binding than tomatoes. My plants
stalled in growth in a 1qt yogurt container each after 3 weeks old. I transpanted
them to a gallon size pot each and growth resumed.
My lighting is quite similar to yours. 4X4ft long T5 fluorescent bulbs overhead and a
heat lamp on the side. I don't mix the bulbs though. For the veg growth phase
they're all 6500K. When I decide to convert to budding phase, I switch to 3500K,
all 4. To accomodate the horizontal orientation of the bulbs I train the plants by
bending them sideways and tying them.