Just got down from the loft, done some re-arranging of the grow space, and added another 32 watt 2700. Also used some leftover reflective stuff to reduce light loss in the immediate area around my babies. Ive got some slow growth issues, which i have surmised is either down to PH/lack of nutes/rootlock. PH - Never tested, neither the water i feed them nor the soil itself, sloppy i know. Simply been pretending its not an issue since im growing in organic soil. But i will pick up a kit tommorow, hoping someone can tell me whats a good but cheap brand. Nutes - Been using shitty MG for too long now (bottle says 6-5-5 ratio), again picking some proper stuff up from my local hydro store. Also hoping u guys can recommend a good brand that you've had sucess with. Rootlock - Recently increased pot size to 1 gallon, and they seem to have grown considerably in 10 days. However i refuse to belive im experiencing root lock from 6-10 inch tall plants, ive seen tomato plants 3 times the size of these growing happily in these exact pots. However, if you know something i dont, let me know please. All in all its going pretty well, apart from i keep getting fuckin power cuts which are screwing the lighting schedule up pretty badly, i come home and my timer is 3 hours behind where it should be. Albeit slow but no serious problems as of yet, they all seem happy and healthy (apart from droopy that im gonna show you). The first pic here is droopy, she has continued to grow faster than the others despite this ailment, but i would appreciate any adivce on what could be causing this. Ive ascertained its NOT overwatering, check it out:
Hey man. What is the NPK ratio of the food you are serving? MG generally not good. I could be wrong but one of my plants displayed the exact same thing, I have always put it down to Nitrogen toxicity. Needless to say, she survived and is now producing beautiful buds. The others look good. Also, I can't remember ('cos I'm stoned and incapable of checking) are you monitoring your pH? If so, what with and what is it?
"Was hoping someone in the UK could give me a brand of PH tester thats pretty cheap.." You found me, lol There's a PH Meter Photo on the bottom of my grow, it has the brand on it, it was £25 and its digital, alt just use Fleebay.. if your having PH probs goto a Garden Center and get some PH Down/Up its about 3quid per bottle and you'll need a pipet (? Spelling - a Dropper) as you only need two drops to a bucket and the PH drops lake mad - a 250ml bottle will last for ages. ***NOTE*** If you do get the PH UP/DOWN dont use them together (Only saying as your new to growing) you'll have worse probs if you counteract one with the other. I have ordered stuff off a website called "Ali Bongo" - google it, its safe and comes in unbranded brown box's. Also they do Single Female Seeds if you fancy trying a dif strain GL
Also to add, MG is ok in the right proportions, i changed as soon as i read up, i would recomend buying "BioGrow" and "Bio Bloom" from Alibongo £6 each and you wont regret it... massive difference to using MG. For reference if you continue to grow with MG as a nutrient solution, i would highly recomend flushing the plant at least a week if not 2 prior to cutting it... You would not believe the headache you'll get if it still has Fertilizer in it! GL again
Hey I've been following your grow. Very nice stuff man. Here is an explanation to the slow growth: You are growing from seed right? This means that every seed has different characteristics known as phenotypes, some are dominant while others are recessive. It would appear that either 4/6 or 5/6 plants are growing upwards at a quick rate... leads me to suggest that you have a dominant trait of fast growth, and a recessive trait for shorter growth. When you start flowering you will notice that there will be different bud/leaf ratios etc. Unless you are growing a TrueBreed (a plant that has uniform phenotypes, meaning all seeds will grow pretty much the same plant), you don't know what you're going to get. You can expect some plants to not grow at the same rate as others. Also, as mentioned before growth is proportional. The more leaf area there is, the amount of energy created by photosynthesis is greater.. kind of like a bank gaining interest... its proportional, the more you have the more it will grow, to a point. Once the genetic limitations are reached during the veg period it's time to start flowering, since they can only get as big as their genes will let them. A hint: If this is just a test run, here's what you can do. When it comes towards the end of the veg period, select your largest or most potent plant and keep it in the veg state forever! make it your mother plant( a plant that vegges forever, and you take clippings from it, put them in a humidifier so they root, and now you have saplings and skip the lengthy germination process, and traits will match the mother plant. Careful over time the mother plant will become stressed from so many clonings.), so that way you know exactly what you're going to get, and you now have an unlimited supply of seedlings, eliminating the need for germination. You can flower all the rest of your plants, but make sure you keep one mother plant. If you end up with a male plant that has characteristics you like, which you will, isolate them! That way you can collect pollen. When a clone from your mother plant begins to flower, rub the pollen on it and seperate that plant. Durig the seed set you will create seeds that carry traits from the mother and father! Remember, the mother is a clone from your original motherplant (which you selected for qualities like fast growth, potency, leaf/bud ratio, color, etc.) And the male you decided to keep also had some traits you liked (maybe color, even faster growth rate, early flowering period, etc.). So now your seeds will have a controlled set of phenotypes. You then grow out all of your seeds and start isolating genes, its called true breeding... which can take years. Its very advanced, but my point for all this was unless you do that process when you're growing from seeds that are not truebreed, you don't know what you'll get. I did this with some bagseed from the San Antonio area. It took forever! Bagseed has so many cross bred traits that it can take forever to lock in the genes. The plants I have right now are very dankish, but when I started they were disgusting... and the cool thing was I didn't crossbreed with a different type... I kept inbreeding until it became solid... but don't inbreed too much as it will damage genetics.
appreciate all the responses im getting, makes the grow seem thats little bit more special Im in a port terminal atm, waiting to get on a ferry to espanol11!!! but when i get home ill post some more pics, and ill take a proper PH reading, i have a feeling thats my droopy leaf cause. But on the whole at the moment they look good, running out of time so ill wrap it up, thanks for the love fellas and ill get some more details up when i get home! <3
Ok, bad news, got home from sunny spain tonight to find 3/6 of my babies are wilted, and barely look able to support their own weight. I had one with slight curling of leaves and droopy leaves, now i have 3 that look on the verge of death, the only reason i havent up rooted them is because their colour is still a very vibrant, dark green, leading me to belive that the plants will pull through, but something about the conditions is wayyyy off. Was hoping you guys could help me out, ill up some pics, very low quality, but its the best i can do. Seriously not impressed right now. Please help. But if you dont know what the problem is dont give me uneducated guesses please. If you need any more information ill provide it if i can. However on the previous page of this forum theres most of what you will need, only lacking PH info, which i will update very shortly. (by the way, its the three on the right, and the front middle, if you couldnt guess) sigh
Sup. Agreed. Give 'em all a good drink, until the water comes out the holes at the bottom. Also, did you find the NPK ratio of your food? They look a bit Nitrogen loaded. And have you got plenty of fresh air circulating? GL!
I have no fresh air circulating at all, due to the fact im trying to keep the electricity bill down lol. if you genuinely think that could be a factor then i will hook a fan up. The nitrogen level of the food is 6-5-5. Which due to it being a ratio i can only assume that is equivocal to 24-20-20? (looks like more commonly used figures). Is that in an acceptable range? Im going to my local hydro store to pick up the cheapest ph meter i can get my hands on. So ill try and get to the bottom of this, REALLY do not want to start losing plants. Ok so ill set up a fan + ill flush them, but im gonna test it on the worst looking two, as its something i havent done before. I presume i use standard PH neutral mineral water, and i just keep pouring until its drippin from the drain holes? Keep those tips coming guys, i need all the help i can get PS. I watered them last night just before i wrote the last post, two of them have picked up, looking 80% better, however my biggest is still wilted and not looking so good. So how long should i wait till i flush? considering i just watered them? or given the circumstances shall i just do it asap?
no its not. nitrogen bursts are for veg and new growth, once you start to flower, you want the fisrt number N.. to be half of P ie 4-8-6 or something like that as for the flush, it looks like it just needs some water, you cant hurt it by flushing it, i would flush each one, as for the fan, your power bill wouldnt go up more than 3 or 4 dollars if you ran that thing all month. get a fan in there!
Gonna throw a fan in there in the next 5 mins or so, i dont want direct air flow on the plants right? i should just angle it so that they get the backdraft? Im using a higher concentration of nitrogen in my feed because im still in veg, i presume thats correct as ive read in a few places that vegatative growth relies on a higher concentration of nitrogen rather that potassium and phosphourous right? Not considering flower for another few weeks, provided they survive this problem and i get another 2 inches(ish) of growth. So after i watered a little last night one of the three problem children looks better, much better in fact, almost back to her old self, however the other two didnt really respond, so i flushed them with bottled mineral water, will see if i get any improvement in the next couple of days. Also visited my local hydro store, guy wanted £49.99 for the cheapest one, really cannot afford that shit, was hoping to pay 25 max. If anyone knows of any online stores that sell medium quality, medium cost soil + drain off water testing kits, id really appreciate it. Thanks for all your comments so far dudes. Keep an eye on me please, i need all the help i can get lol.
For the fans: Don't put the plants in gale force winds I have my fan setup facing above the light into a corner so the whole area gets a good circulation. The plants should be moving in a soft breeze, that will help remove toxins out of the leaves and exercise them making them stronger for when they have those heavy buds on them. Can't help you with the soil stuff, I've done most of my research for hydro. Good luck!
Yep that was definatly the problem, just over an hour since the flush and my biggest has perked up about 70%....fuckin awesome. Although the other doesnt seem to have responded as much but out of the three that were bolloxed 2 are doing really well again. Will keep you posted. Thanks again for all the help. Also i need more sockets in the loft, putting another 32 watt 2700k in and a fan, has anyone ever plugged a four way extention into another extension? hoping it doesnt trip the power, but its my only real option. Judging by how they look at the moment, and 4/6 of them now have alternating nodes, so ill wait for the others to catch up, probably a week or so, then flip to 12/12. Also, am i ok to leave my veg lights running aswell as adding flowering lights? cant so any harm right? i know its not the right spectrum, but its just more lumens. Lemme know what u think. There height is still a concern however, as the biggest is 10 1/2 inches tall, and the smallest is 8. heard i should wait till they are all around a foot tall? or is that not really an issue? <3
Running your veg spectrum lights with flower spec will be fine for the plant, I'm not sure about how electricity in the UK works as much as here in the US but I know its never a good idea to plug multi extension sockets into more multi extension sockets. If you do do this make sure you aren't exceeding the printed limits of the first extension.
will do thanks man, if you ask someone in a store, they tell you not to do it. But i know like 3 people that are doin it and they said they never had any problems with it. However i dont really wanna run the risk of tripping the RCD fuses in the house, not sure if i wanna take the risk.
my fault bush for some reason i thought you were flowering, i keep so many tabs open and i follow all the good grows so my replies reflect that, i must have thought it was someone else anyway yeah your npk is fine, its not until flower that you change the ratio. also as for the fans, depends on how hard it blows, i put mine right twards it, but it blows on low, and the plants arent in danger. it strengthens the stalk to have some air flow. just not enough to blow it over or hurt it
Well guys, for all your dudes that check in on me from time to time, i have cried a lot about 3/6 of my plants experiencing some severe wilting and leaf curling. Well all that is fixed now. Turns out i was underwatering them, flushed out the H2O starved ones and we are back in business. Heres some pics, the ones on the left have experienced regular growth, however my big girls on the right and in the middle are still recovering, giving the others chance to catch up, perhaps a blessing in disguise. Truly impressed by how resilient these plants are. Anyways, these pics were from a few hours ago, the wilted ones look much healthier now, only i cant be arsed to take any pics as there hasnt been a substantial amount of growth. However my biggest dwarfs the others again now she has picked up!!!!
sorted mate, I can highly recommend this ph pen - £13 delivered http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ph-meter-pen-...39:1|66:2|65:12|240:1318&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14 I have one and they work perfectly
Glad you solved your problem, MadforBush. Always good to hear. Your plants definitely look healthier than the previous pictures.