Is that a fish in my garden? or How To Kill Plants Step By Step

Guess who's good at killin plants! That's right, me. Good at smokin em too, but that's another topic entirely. In this thread, you will most likely learn step by step how to kill cannabis. Join me!

Here's the deal: I keep killing plants, I think to overfeeding. Not really killing them as much as putting them into permanent stasis after allowing their main leaves to die. Anyway, I think I can get a handle on it this time but if I don't, feel free to point out how I can fix things.

THE GOODS
Soil: Fox Farm Oceans Forest (mixed with nothing for now)
Light: 600w HPS
Space: 3' x 3' x 6' grow tent
Cooling: two 4" duct fans, one for the reflector and another for venting
Breeze: provided by two oscillating variable power table fans
Expected temperature range: 65-85 F
Nutrients: Botanicare PureBlend PRO Grow/Bloom, Botanicare Liquid Karma, Botanicare CalMag Plus, Botanicare Clearex (on standby)

Strains: DNA LA Woman, GHS Bubba Kush, and GHS Super Lemon Haze (all feminized). All freebies, and 2 GHS strains, so I dunno what to expect and may finally get to see for myself why everyone hates GHS. I figured throw em in a cup and see what came out of the ground, and all three did.

SIDEBAR THATS ACTUALLY BETWEEN STUFF NOT ON THE SIDE GET OVER IT
Before we get started critiquing my setup, I have successfully grown two plants in this setup (8 if you count the ones I had to murder). Yes, I kinda killed the plants but it was my fault, and both plants still yielded pretty well (QP between them). That being said, yes the first thing I'll probably do after acquiring an air filter will be upgrading the fans.

I've doubled the fans in the grow space, switching from the previous space-heater-in-fan-mode weakness to two very good fans, and hopefully that will have a small dent on the temperature (we'll see).

THE PLAN
With todays successful groundbreaking of each of the three seeds, I now have a trio of sister seedlings. I will check them each day, snapping a photo if I feel like it for documentary purposes, tending them as they grow. You, the reader, are along for the ride. The idea here is to have the journal as a central place to coordinate my info (like a calendar), hopefully curing or lessening my organization (lack of) weakness.

Starting today:
Lighting schedule (on-off): 4:00pm - 10:00am (18 hours on, 6 hours off)
Feeding: PH-balanced H2O only, as needed, until onset of feeding concerns.

@ About 14 days:
Transplant into one gallon containers should reintroduce fresh nutes to the plant, meaning I can stick to water for a few more weeks (hopefully).

@ 4 weeks:
Begin feeding starting with 1/5-1/4 manufacturer suggested concentration, alternating with water.

@ 5-6 weeks:
Lighting schedule (on-off): 7:00pm - 7:00am (12 hours on, 12 hours off)
Feeding: PH-balanced transition nutrients, alternating with water. Nute mix TBD.

@ flower onset:
Feeding: Approximate the mix of grow nutes, except using bloom nutes instead.

@ bat country:
At some point in here, I'm going to fuck things up. It always seems to happen a little after the onset of flowers. Expect me to be in panic mode begging for assistance.

Wow! What a post!

Here's a shot of the sisters, day 1...

 

There is going to be a change of plan. I managed to kill the seedlings already. It was meant to be a slow death... so I'll plant some new seeds and resume the plan. The difference will be the strains involved, which I'll come back with after I get started.

Back to the drawing board...
Germinating:
GHS The Church
DINAFEM Power Kush
DNA Sour Cream

We'll see what we get.

I also have a new temperature problem, but I suspect it might be related to the big black piece of plastic i have 2 feet directly under a really bright light. I confirmed my fans are functional.

 

Okay. I'm off the ground with the new batch, still all feminized attitude freebies, only now using mostly FF Light Warrior for soil. The Sour Cream didn't sprout, so I germed my last fem seed (GHS King's Kush) to replace it. That's why one of the plants looks stunted next to the other two.

Here are some pics from today. I'm gonna have to get someone to explain to me how to take a decent picture with my camera.





Edit: The two original seedlings are at about day 4 in these photos, with the last about day 1-2.

 

Day 10

The two older plants are beginning to show signs of N deficiency, possibly the third as well but I hesitate against that paranoia for now. As can be noticed in the photos, the lower leaves have begun to yellow slightly (and one feels brittle to the touch).

This is unplanned, but not unexpected due to last minute changes (skipping first transplant, planted directly in 1 gal pots). Not very surprising if the soil is already starting to run low on nutrients. I was planning to start feeding 4 days from now, but instead mixed up a very diluted solution and fed each plant half a liter.

We'll see what happens now...

 

Day 16

The next day after feeding, I noticed some of the more classic deficiency signs, but each day that followed that came free of troubles. I think I will feed it at that dose for another week before stepping up again, although I'd really like input. I simply don't remember what my other plants looked like at this point (and the 14 day old one is worryingly stout).

One thing I am noticing is the upper growth twisting. Some probably because I shuffled them a bit, but most likely because the runoff ranges from in PH from 7.1-7.4, so I'll be taking steps to bring that closer to 6.8 in the immediate future. Heat stress may also be involved.

I managed to get some decent pics this time around...

 

I only update so far when I have photos. Every few times I visit. I don't mind having a discussion, but so far there hasn't been any. If you try and germ that SC let me know how that works out... I've had a very good record germing these freebies (only that one didnt germ) so I have no reason to believe the SC seed wouldnt germ for you, but if it doesn't then maybe that teaches us something about that particular seed.

 

Day 29

I don't have any recent pictures, but I may be able to post some pics from 6/12 if the forum will allow it (my imagehost is frustratingly unreliable lately). Anyway, things were fine for about a week after the last update, when I observed symptoms of deficiency begin to resume. I threw out the weak stuff and mixed up a batch of nearly full-recommended strength and began feeding with that solution. Again, symptoms paused for a few days, before appearing to accelerate.

The Kings Kush displays the least symptoms, barely anymore than the droop that came with the flush I gave them all this weekend. The Power Kush has continued fairly reliably, with slightly more deficiency signs. It appears that The Church is the most demanding of the three, showing the worst deficiency with his lower leaves dramatically yellowing. After watching the obvious N deficiency develop soon after I upped the dosage, I concluded I may have a PH problem (a recent recalibration also factored into this, it was off a bit), Soil runoff came in a range from 6.6 through 6.9, which is typically where I like to see it, so against my expectations it appears that they actually want more food than I was expecting them to.

The plants are still below one foot in height, but they're coming up on it soon. At that point I plan to move into 3 gallon bags, and I figure i'll wait through at least one more week before I consider inducing flowering.

I can't seem to get em uploaded, so I'll try again in the next update.