My first grow

could be overwatering. how often you watering and whats your pH? congrads on the girl! tying her down woulda got you more bud sites.

 

yeah ph level should be around 6.8

 

personaly i think 6.8 is a little high, id go closer to 6 or 6.2.

as for the leaf curl it might be that the soil is a little rich for her or mayb its a build up of nutes that you have fed her but she hasnt used yet. it doesnt look to bad, infact its a really nice looking plant, just skip a feed if your worrid but it may just be a side effect of the plant going into flower and not needing asmuch n, thats why your not ment to feed them in the week or to before you change light cycle.

 

i guess i could agree with you with 6.8 being a lil high. but what about for starting out? or going into flowering mode lets say. do you think over time, the plant would use up whatever nutrients were available and what was added , end up with a pH closer to 6 or 6.2? i would think shooting for a pH range of 6.0 or 6.2 would be too low. i started my seedlings at 5.8 quite unintentionaly, and they were not happy. its kinda confusing and i guess it boils down to preference and most importantly strain. i learned i could give my sativas more nutes than my indicas. i dont know why, but the indicas didn not respond well with the same measured amounts. og has some crazy variations on what the plants should be at as far as pH level. should he shoot for a 6 to 6.2 range or go to a safe 6.4-5?

 

its interesting you say the ph will drop as plant uses the nutes. i find the reverse to be true and as the plant takes up the nutes (which are basicly acids) the ph will rise.

i know this is a soil grow were talking about here but if we take hydro as a example of how ph changes then throw in the soil factor i think i'll be able to explain my reasoning a bit better.

ok, so if you have water that has a ph of around 7.5 like my water is then add nutes it drops to around 7ish, then i ph ajust with either nitric or phosphoric acid to around the 5.8 mark (for hydro) then the water/nute mix is given to the plants.

now as the plants use this mix 1 of 3 things can happen,
1, the plant takes up the mix as is, both ph and ec levels stay stable.
2, the plant uses more water than nutes and the ph will fall as the nutes become more consentrated in the water.
3, the plants take up more nutes than water and the mix becomes diluted and will rise to the ph of the base water used.

lets forget about 1 as thats the ideal and its very rare you dont have to fine tune your ph.
2 shud never happen, feed shud allways be on the week side rather than the strong. better to have a slow growing plant than a dead plant. a slighty under fed plant will still grow but a over fed plant will atleast have stunted growth as it struggles to take up water and at worst die.
3 is the normal thing to happen in a healthy hydro system, then its easy enough to top up and ajust ph and ec to the desiered level.

now the same shud be true in soil. the only diffrance is as the added nutes and water are used the ph will move towards the ph of the soil not the ph of the water. if the ph of the soil is around the 7 mark then thats where the ph will end up. if the ph was 4 then thats where the ph will end up as the pot drys out.

now if the ph of both soil and water is around the 6.2 mark (ideal) then the ph over the intire grow will be super stable and never go beyond 6.0 on the lower and 6.3 on the higher side unless the plant is over fed.

the plant can be over fed by either nutes added in the water or being released from things like blood and bone added to the soil. now if your gonna over feed then thats more of a problem than the ph being a coupple of points off. and as mj is such a hungery plant its unlikly to use less nutes from the soil than what the soil can provide. if it does then the soil is to rich, no nutes shud be added in the water and ph shud be on the high side to allow for the drop caused by the acid in the soil. more lime shud of been added before the plant was put in the soil and/or thined out with sand or the like to reduce nute burn.

thats my thinking anyway, i seen a grow diary or yours and i noticed you make up your own soil mix, now i dont do that, i just use john innes + perlite + vermiculite giving me a low nute fast draining soil and i add most of my nutes by hand. by the time a plant gets to flowering most of the nutes in the soil have been depleted, i flush the soil over a week or to and start the flowering fert. i keep the n quite low and try and bulk the plant up on p and k as much as i can.

so what do you think dread?
id be interested to hear how you mix a batch of soil to give the plant the right amount of what it needs over a full grow. i gotta admit i used to try and mix soil to feed the plant over a full grow so i just had to water and add a little now and then but as the plants were only in the soil for a max of 3mths i couldnt get the balance of enough nutes for the flowering plants without burning seedlings. funny enough though i still grow my sativas in rich soil in a 25liter pot and enough ferts (organic and chemical) to drop a elephant but they do live in the same pot for about 9mths and they do get quite large to say the least.

 

oh one more thing i forgot to put in the above post...
inbetween feedings the plant is normaly waterd with straght water with a high ph near to the ph of tap water (im lazy and dont ajust this water, find it unneeded) so that will help to pull up the ph and clean any unused nutes/ph acid from the soil.

just the way i do it cus im a lazy grower, thats why i dont scrog very often i spose.

 

hey theo, im still learning man! everyday i am! and i have confidence after this first grow, things will make much more sense, especially when youre staring at those buds thanks for letting us jack your thread

hey thug okay i see what youre saying about the pH remaining the same throught a soil grow if its stable and moving towards the pH of the soil rather than adjusting with whats given to the plant if its a neutral solution. my water is neutral. dead 7.0 , i figured i got lucky on that one. i think its much easier to work with and a lot of it did lead up to my quest for a semi-organic grow. so i decide to mix my own soil. i decided i didnt want to use any type of chemicals on the grow for nitrogen sources or potasium. so i figured why not use composted materials, the bone, blood, manure and kelp? something simple and pretty basic. i kinda figured as long as it got a chance to break down, then it would be easier for me to measure the pH and have to do nothing but water. if i had to, bringing the pH up a lil closer to neutral it would be easier. i guess jus to be on the safe side. i basically jus used 2 cubic feet of compost, and 2 cups of each listed material. let it sit for a month, pH tested at 5.8. too rich for my seedlings, im sure you saw. but was taken care of when i bought the pH up. ill comment more on what you wrote later, i didnt know you wrote so much and i gotta be up in like 4 hrs

 

Drerad i make super soils too. But i never start my seedling in them. I make a compost/coir/pearlite 50/25/25 mix for my 4" cups then transplant after 1 week veg.