This is my first plant that i had in my window and moved to my closet. My plants about a foot tall and seems to be growing fine but the lower set of leaves have turned yellow and died, now the next set of leaves are starting to turn yellow and i,m wonder what i'm doing wrong? am i over fertilizing it or under fertilizing it? i have it on about a 16/8 light cycle with 2 florescent cool white bulbs on it I Just wanna know if this is normal or am i messing up? And between the stems and little stems with leafs it looks like flowers are forming? is that the sex trying to show or just more leafs? Heres a picture below hope everything looks good and i can smoke it
it's perfectly fine, should be a few more weeks before determination of gender. what kind of soil? fertilizer?
i'm using miracle grow moisture control potting soil and i have miracle grow tomato plant food fertilizer its 18-18-21 and i have miracle grow bloom buster for when budding starts
I used to think yellowing plants means 'more nitrogen' but now I view it as a soil health issue. not that that's a bad thing, but it is what it is.
window sills are terrible. they dont recieve enough light and it forces the plants to stretch. your plant looks spindly but its not half bad. get better lighting for the plant immediatly. CFL's are ideal for closet cultivation. you should really look for a fertilizer that is higher in nitrogen. its not completly necessary but it will def. help your plant. nitrogen promotes foliage growth and it could help your plant pump out a few more leaf sets before flowering. at this rate, your looking at a 3 gram harvest... maybe less. check out my thread to get some lighting ideas. my plant is striving and its my first grow experience. good luck and do a lot of research. it is necessary.
It seems like the plant pot is small and your root bound, and unless your taking the ppm of your nutrient water, then taking the ppm from the runoff you won't know where your at on your nutrients. I'm not sure, I'm doing my first grow too and just thought I might try to throw out some things that I have read.
Ppm only stands for parts per million. What I'm talking about is a electronic instrument that measures the amount of dissolved nutrients in your water. You water your plants at let's say 1000ppm and get about 20 to 30% runoff. You test the runoff and see what the ppm is at. Excess nutrients that are not used up can cause a situation where you plants get locked up because you have changed the ph of the soil by too much nutrients, and it has built up and is harming the plant. Something along those lines bro.
So should I flush the soil and give it less nutrients this time around? Or should I just change the soil when I move it into a bigger pot?
be sure to test your raw water. let us know what the PPm of that is. you dont have any control over what your doing if you dont know the quality of your water source. miracle grow products are not a very good choice compared to just about anything from a grow store. lower leaves will yellow if they are too far from the light source. florescent bulbs are notoriously weak when you get much distance from the bulb. i dont really know why people bother with them unless its all they can afford. even then, i wouldnt use them. its a waste of time when you get such a small yield and the risk of growing doesnt justify it. i would just buy a bag and be done with it. but thats me. put your plants as close to the lame floro lights as possible and use side lighting if you have more lights. new growers almost always over feed and often over water. dont give anything your plant doesnt need or youre gonna cause problems. the younger the plant, the less it needs and less it has the ability to take in. let it fill the available space with roots beofre transplanting. for now, just dont over water. get used to the feeling of the pot in your hands... the weight of everything. this is how you tell if it needs water. give it plaiun water for now. if you dont have a way to test your plain water, go buy reverse osmosis water from the grocery store fill machine, and buy a quart of CalMag from the grow store. follow directions on the bottle. you will then have perfect water for your plant when youre not fertilizing. when you do use fert, dont use the CalMag. when you fert, use a low dose on young plants and dont fert more often than maybe every third watering. DONT OVER WATER. i cant stress that enough. its the most common mistake out there. especially dont over water a young plant with small root system. those developing roots need air. they need a nice loose soil mix with plenty of air and drainage when they are young.
I Just wanna know if this is normal or am i messing up? And between the stems and little stems with leafs it looks like flowers are forming? is that the sex trying to show or just more leafs? Heres a picture below hope everything looks good and i can smoke it [/QUOTE] Props to what everyone else said, pot size, nutes, watering, etc., all good info. The bottom leaves yellowing are normal; those are your first set of true leaves and they are always the first to go at about your size. What you're seeing where the leaves meet the main trunk are the new formation of side branches. Sometimes it's hard to tell between that & a pre-flower. My best method is to back-light it with a cool white light & as the female flowers start to show, the little hairs will glisten - really bright white. Ahhhhh, such a pretty site. Reach out again to Hope2Toke. When he's not fussing at me for using chemical nutes, he has some really excellent advice on soil mixtures / how to mix your own, all natural organic and as close to foolproof as you can get. The man knows his organics. Best of luck with the grow, you're on your way.
youre welcome! also you gotta remember this. most soil mixes, ESPECIALLY something like miracle grow (Miracle G wants people to get results from thier soil thats impregnated with their trademark fertilizer) have nutrients already in them. plants can take awhile to use up that food. especially a young plant that has a small root system. you can go a long time without feeding. several weeks in the beginning, depending on plant size and pot size. keep in mind also that you have to consider whats going on below the surface. you cant get alot of good growth up top until you get good root growth below. just like a person cant grow without stomach space to hold food. (thats why obese people have their stomach stapled smaller) some soil, like Fox Farm Ocean Forest, has a ton of nutrients in them. you can liteerally watch a plant green up when transplanted into rich soil such as O F. it can even be abit much for a tender young plant to handle. so you see, fertilizing needs to be delayed after planting or you will harm the plant. in short, dont feed until they need food. pay attention to labels. i cant imagine that Miracle Grow bag ddint mention anything about feeding. im sure it boasted about how long the soil feeds plants. you are typical of a new grower... killing with kindness. stop making this so complicated. in nature, a plant doesnt need 20 different products dumped on it, but new growers sure seem to think so. let the plant dictate what needs to be done, not the media, product salesmen, or uneducated forum users. READ A BOOK BY JORGE CERVANTES. to hell with a dvd. they suck. READ.