A little backstory on this girl: The seed had produced a white root, and was planted on December 13th. The sprout came up two days later. The soil is Pine something, no fertilizers... It does have bark in it, however...which I now know isn't good. Just regular potting soil. The plant has been growing incredibly slowly. I started out with about 50 watts of 6500k CFLs on it, because I had a separate plant going as well (which died). Now it has over 100 watts of 6500k CFLs on it. Two days ago, after noticing a little bit of the browning you see on the pictures, I gave it a very small amount of Miracle Gro "Organic", which I mixed into a 2 liter of water and applied when the soil was dry (probably a mistake!). The plant seems to still be browning at the tips, but now its curling! What is the deficiency??? OR is it the bad soil? Please help me get this girl healthy! The Miracle Gro Organic has 8-0-0 so its only Nitrogen Help me out guys... PS sorry the pictures are sideways
I would say its a combo of both. For a plant that was planted on Dec 13th something is wrong. Heres a pic of one of my plants that I planted on Dec 6. MJ grows vigorously even the slower strains tend to. That picture was taken on Dec 29th. Its even bigger now. Order you some good soil from htgsupply.com or go to your local hydro store. If your in a big city you have them even if you do not know they are there. On watering MJ doesn't like to be soaked. Easy way to kill it stunt growth etc. Pick up method is easiest way..pick it up its heavy doesn't need watering, if its light then water. I let mine dry out some between waterings to. Uploaded with ImageShack.us
The soil really plays that big a role? I thought it was a weed, and wanted to grow no matter what. I wish I knew what was wrong!
Yes the soil plays HUGE role. Its the growing medium. Read all the stickies bro at the top of the forums and google some grow guides. By anyhow soil is very critical. PH Balance is critical, right types of nutes is critical. Cannabis is a plant that has requirements when you don't meet them then you fail. Meet them and you win. A bad analogy but all I can think of at the moment is Northern Mexico. Its highly salty soil....they got a lot of land but not much grows so theres a active program to genetically modify corn to accept the soil. Right now they can't grow squat there but by splicing in genes of plants that tolerate a highly salty soil they believe they could turn northern mexico into a vast corn region over night. Saw a show on PBS about it. Just a small example of how soil impacts plants.
Yeah i read every single one - but I didn't know that anything could make a plant grow at an incredibly slow rate. The guides all say, "Do this, and do that" but they never say it will grow slow if you don't. I don't monitor the PH at all, because the meters are 100$ for the ones that work well.
I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but get that thing out of Miracle Gro as soon as possible. Look for a grow store near you that carries Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil. My plant was exactly like this before I transplanted it to Fox Farms. The difference the soil made was almost immediately observable (it took mine like 6 hours for the leaves to go from yellow to green). I assume your plant is roughly the size of a quarter, which was what mine looked like too. Additionally, I assume you're seeing your leaves turning a bit more yellow every day and some of them will dry out and die completely. Put it in some Fox Farms soil and you'll see that thing turn green overnight. Trust me, you're probably doing almost everything else right, but it's definitely that soil that is killing your plant. Here's a before and after picture of my plant. The bottom pic is from 12/20/11 and the top pic is from 1/6/12 so that you can see how long it has been in Fox Farms. I planted the germinated seed on November 20th and saw almost no growth for nearly a whole month. The thermometer probe should give some indication for how much bigger the plant is now.
This works well, simple cheap. [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Hydrofarm-GH1514-General-Hydroponics-Control/dp/B000BNKWZY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1326055220&sr=8-1]Amazon.com: Hydrofarm GH1514 General Hydroponics Ph Control Kit: Patio, Lawn & Garden[/ame] or buy this has the balancing stuff you need and includes the kit. [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Flora-Hydroponics-pH-Control-Kit/dp/B004RIQR0I/ref=sr_1_3?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1326055254&sr=1-3]Amazon.com: Flora Hydroponics pH Control Kit: Home & Garden[/ame] Slow growth is a sign of a lot of things and I would bet its your soil. When you don't PH balance things you get something called nute lock and basically the plant won't accept food etc. That can be caused by not ph balancing your water and if your soil is highly off. Soil that you buy for growing usually is pretty ph neutral. As for how does this stuff grow outside well nature is a complex system that balances it all out. Certain crops evolved in certain areas because that area is conductive to that plant.