Hey guys, I am semi-struggling with some 2 week old plants (2 weeks from first sign of sprout). My pH meter just came in yesterday so I was able to test my runoff. The water I am watering with has a pH of about 6.8. My runoff reading was about 7.5. That is too high correct? How am I to get my soil down into the 6.5 range. This is what my plants look like because of this!
7.2 isnt too bad really, it looks more like over watering or not enough drainage.. how often are you watering them? let the soil completely dry out and they should perk back up.
I went 5 days in between my past waterings. If im watering with 6.8 and my runoff is 7.5 then wouldnt my soil be 8+?? Should I try flushing with some really low pH water?
what soil are you using? my run off is usually around 7.0 with no problems at all but my water is also 6.8-7.0... depending on how large the pot is, the temps, and how much air you have moving around 5 days isnt too much. my seedlings in dixie cups i water about every 3 days with 75F-80F temps. when i put them in 1 gallon pots, if i fully saturate the soil it takes more than 7 days to be completely dry.
You could transplant, will do it some good. Check the roots when you do, they should be very white. I have bad luck with root and stem rot, it's wasted a lot of my time so when I see something out of the ordinary in a plant that young I just scrap it. It helps to start more plants than you intend on finishing.
So its taking 5 days for your soil to dry out enough between waterings? Are you sticking your finger in the soil about an inch or two down to feel if its a little dry? Also what kind of soil are you using?
Miracle Grow potting soil, a bit of worm castings, tiny bit of compost and about 1/3 perlite. I stuck my finer about 3-4 inches down and it was dry today so I watered. I need to find a way to fix this pH.
Miracle Grow soils arent reccomended to often. Most MG soils have time release nutes in them and seedlings really dont need any nutes untill they start getting thier first sets of 3 bladed leaves. I use Fox Farms Light Warrior soil its more geared towards seedlings. For seedlings I hardly ever Ph the water with it and our tap water is around 7.0 to 7.2 and the PH run off is almost always in the 6.3-6.8 range. Once my seedlings start getitng their first to second set of 3 bladed leaves I tranplant them into Fox Farms Ocean Forest soil and thats when I PH the water going in and the run off comming out. I can put it in at 6.5 and get a run off reading around the same. The nutes in Ocean Forest soil are good for about 2 weeks or so then after that is when I start feeding them. I would get some better soil that is more PH balanced then what your using. Just dont get Black Gold potting soil, I tried that on the reccomendation of the hippie kid working at a hydro store for some seedlings and it sucked. The only reason I tried it was that I thought I was out of Light Wariror soil for seedlings and they were out of it and my seeds needed to be planted. Turns out I wasnt out, found my bag of Light Warior about a week or so after planting them.
Before you posted this I was already on my way to the hydro store. Picked up a bag of each Light Warrior and Ocean Forest. I am gonna start from scratch. Just put 3 seeds into germination. Think I should try to transplant these guys of chuck em? They look hurt and they are only bag seed.
Honestly the seedling doesnt look real bad. I would transplant. The first set of round leaves and single bladed leaves will eventualy die of naturaly. The good thing is that you caught the problem early on.
Think I should remove the who root system out of the soil. I don't want to mix this crap soil with the good FF stuff right?
Took your advice and just finished transplanting into a mix of FFOF and FF Light Warrior. I removed the plants from the old pots, washed all the dirt off of the roots, rinsed the pots out, put the new soil in and gently placed the roots in there. I gave them a slight watering (about 1/2 cup each) so the roots could settle. I will let you know how they look. Any word on how long until they start to look normal?
How long it takes is a guessing game. As for watering after transplanting I use a little bit of Superthrive, it helps reduce stress from transplanting. I also always water till I have about 20% of the water as run off out of the bottom, it helps reduce salts that build up in the soil over time it also helps give you a more accurate PH run off reading of the soil.