I posted this question in the beginners thread, but haven't gotten a response in over a day after a bump even, so i decided to make a post. As i said this was posted over a day ago so keep that in mind when reading.
Post some pics if you can. As for telling how old a plant is start the day it sprouted. How big is the party cup you have it in? I transplant when the soil is dry then give it a good Ph`d watering afterwards with some water and Superthrive. Flushing is usualy only done when you have a problem or are with in 2 weeks of the plant finishing flowering. The nutes in Ocean Forest are good for about 30 days like it says on the bag, flushing to soon can decrease how long the organic nutes in the soil are good for. After transplanting if the PH of the run off is off then water again with some more PH adjusted water till you get to a good PH range of 6.5, if its off just a little thats not bad.
I'm not sure how big of a cup, i assume 16 oz, maybe one size smaller, not sure what the common sizes are other than 16 and 8 oz. Its definatly bigger than 8 by a bit. The plant is getting tall, maybe almost 6 inches. I was sort of thinking of going ahead and transplanting today at some point. How much water would you say to wet the FFOF with for a 1 gallon grow bag (the cloth kind) before transplanting? I'll try and find the cord real quick that I'm missing to put my shitty low quality pics on the comptuer, then take a pic. My camera is crazy cheap.
Water after transplanting, less mess. 6" tall even in a 16oz party cup its ready to be transplanted. After transplanting give it a good watering.
Ok so yea, I went and checked it out. It is most certainly not 6 inches, guesstimation failed me miserably. Idk its just growing out so big compared to my mental image of the first little sprout right when it poked up that 6" seemed right. Realistically its 3 1/2" - 4", about as long as my pointer finger, maybe a little longer. I guess im more concerned about roots getting tangled through the holes in the bottom of the solo cup and making it stressful when i transplant, so what would you think on that beings a root is already poking through a bit? I took a handful of pictures and found the cord but i have to upload them here in a min. I had company stop by so i couldn't get them on earlier like I intended Also, general question.. So long as i get the medium as dry / light as it was before watering, between each watering. With all that being the case, do i always water enough to get a run off so i can PH / tds test the run off water? And then if ph is way off do i then Keep watering with PH adjusted water until its more 6.3-6.8 than not? Will it hurt to transplant into the FFOF before my ph meter gets here, and then just deal with PH testing after the medium dries out for the first time?
Your way overthinking this ph thing...here's some good info Uncle Ben's Gardening Tweeks and Pointers Good luck man!
[quote name='"PancakesHouse"']My toes are sticking out of my shoes should I get new ones?[/quote] Yes, and a matching helmet as well
Once you start seeing roots near the drain holes in the cup you want to transplant so the plant doesnt get root bound. If you have about $5.00 you can goto Wal mart and buy a cheap aquarium PH test dropper solution. If you dont mix any nute in the water it will give you a general idea of your PH run off but not a very accurate one but enough to get you buy till your digital meter arrives, they are also hard to compare to the little color chart when nutes are added.. Did you get anything for adjusting the PH of your water and or nute mix yet like PH Up & Down? Also new PH meters already come calibrated from the factory but I never trust the factory calibration. Your new meter will need to be calibrated every now and then, how often varys by manufacturer. To calibrate your meter you will need some calibration solution for it. If the Ph of the run off is off just PH adjust some more water and water it again after transplant. Dont worry about over watering that only happens when you have poor drainage and or water to often. You can have a 1 gallon pot and water with 10 gallons of water at one time, your soil will only soak up so much and the rest will be run off. If your going to be using chemical based nutrients then watering and or feeding till you have about 20% of it as run off wil help reduce salts that build up in the soil.
Ok finally, went through the trouble so i figured id post these anyways. grasscity wouldn't let me upload them, i had to take screenshots of my pics and save as new pics, something must have been messed up in them from my camera or something.. So ok.. Pictures one and two are so you can see what the plant looks like. On pictures 3 and 4 below , you can see what seem to be small branches coming out of the intersections. These have 5 leaves. In fact all the leaves are 5 blades now except the first set of 3 bladed leaves and the first leaf pair that was single blades.... Picture 5 is just a picture of what my cup looks like sitting in the grow bag im going to transplant to. Six is a picture of that root coming out of the bottom of the cup. I should also mention it is the very center hole, and its a bit bigger of a hole than the rest that are more like slits And seven is the only thing i can see "wrong" with the plant, its on the leaf set 3rd down from the top, and i broke off the tip of the opposing leaf on the same tier on accident when taking the pictures.. Looks just about like this one if you were to break that little part off. Let me know what you think. I wont be able to transplant until after midnight and its only 2:50pm right now. So I have the day to chat on here about it and prepare. Thanks for the help. Its really nice to have a definitive statement about over watering, you get mixed opinions if you read around. I found places telling me not to even water enough to get run off each time. So thanks for the clarification.
Pull the tape back from around your clear cup or pop it out and see if you have a root ball. Just be careful and be ready to transplant if its ready.
Well I didn't get a chance to go get clear solo cups before planting. I intended to, but my seeds got done germinating like 2 days before i expected them to. So i had to just use white solo cups I had here. Either way, tplat seems to think that if roots are coming out of the bottom i should transplant regardless. So I'll probably transplant later tonight, after midnight. 4:39 now. I'm curious what tplat will have to say after seeing my pics. Actually speaking of tplat i forgot to address his question. No I don't have PH up and down right now, that is coming along with the PH meter. Also i assumed the PH meter would come with calibration solution. Is this an incorrect assumption? I ordered it off of amazon. It costed $75, Its an Extech that i had recommended to me by Rumpleforeskin, a rather reputable blade here on grasscity. Said it was his favorite after trying 4 or 5 kinds.
Some meters come with some sample packs and some dont. Never heard of that brand before but if Rumple reccomended it then thats good. They look like their ready for transplant. By the way you dont want to use clear cups. The only time you need to tape the sides if its a clear cup or you can see light comming through the cup easily. As for uploading pics sometimes it gives me problems as well you can either resize them to a smaller size or try uploading just 1 or 2 at a time, thats what I do.
K cool thanks , I'll transplant today then. Also i know clear cups are bad cus light + roots = root rot. , but I was going to get clear cups and cover in aluminum tape to block the light, just like rumple does in his bubble buckets to keep light out. So that I could have pealed some back to check on root progress. Out of curiosity, and for learning purposes. What factors made you Decide they look ready to transplant? The root coming out? The height? The fact that the leaves out stretch the width of the cup? The fact that more than 2/3rds of the leaves are 5 bladed ? or something I'm not even considering right now? Also I'll post pics after I transplant. In your experience, on average, if the plant is this big in 19 days from sprout under 4 35 watt bulbs, and I plan on adding 2 more bulbs, and putting it into the 1 gallon with Fox farm ocean forest. How long do you think it will be from now till when the plant gets about 12+ inches tall and start showing alternating branches signaling cloning for growing out would be safe? Like 2ish weeks.. or more like a month or more?
Size of the baby plant compared to cup size. 16oz party cups are good for a couple of weeks at most once the plant gets going like yours. Mine are about the same size and age but I have mine in 1 liter Super Roots Air Pots. If your plant grows 12 inches a month that pretty good. As for a mother plant for clones I prefer to veg them between 2 1/2 to 3 feet for cloning. But I also pull upto a dozen clone sites off at a time and keep them around a little longer.
My seedlings usually bottom out in cups before they have enough roots to support the soil. They grow down before they branch out. Stil only takes about a week to 10 days.
Ok, T, back with more questions lol. I ended up falling asleep before transplanting and surely they were in need of watering that day. I was right, or at least it seems like i was. I don't have time to take pictures and get them up today, but the leaves were super droopy, I assume cus it was drying out with no water to be had in the solo cup. They were about 45-60 degrees more towards the soil than in those pictures above, the tips on the biggest leaves were actually touching the soil. I figured the damage is done, I'll go ahead and transplant before watering. Got it in the new 1 gallon now, and gave it a very good watering, that was at like 2pm today, No visible change by 6pm except maybe the tiniest new leaves maybe perked a tad. Tho I didn't expect there to be any. If I was correct , and it was underwatering causing the drooping, about how long should I expect it to take to perk back up before being worried? Overnight? or will it take like 2-3 days? Or more?
I`ve had that happen before but they usualy perk back up in a short time. Should have watered them first then wait like a day to transplant. Transplanting when the soil is dry is easier and less messy but you dont want to do it when the plant is stressed. How much water did you give them? Whenever you transplant a plant you are subjecting it to a small amount of stress and a healthy plant can recover quite quickly I always use a little bit of Superthrive when watering after transplanting.
I go from cups, to two gallon bag. I fill the bags with soil, make a hole and put the plant in. I wont add any water to the soil untill the plant is in and covered. then i water the soil as i normally would to settle everything together. As for the ph and ppm. Ocean forrest has a ph of 6.5 so aslong as you used ph balanced water i wouldnt worry about checking the soil to much. And if you flush the new soil, youre wasting money. you want to keep all the good nutes in that expensive soil. The ppm is important to keep an eye on but you wont have to worry about that untill you start using nutes.
Yeah, I kinda considered that, waiting a day. As for the water, I didn't really measure it. I just watered little by little until i got a little bit of run off. maybe an 1/8th of a cup run off on the gallon worth of soil. The transplant seemed to go very smooth. Came out of the cup easy, soil stayed together, had some roots circling around on the bottom, but not more than like 1/4 of the are was roots on the bottom. Only a few on the sides. I actually just dropped in and checked on it, and the little new leaves defiantly perked back up, and the set one below those has perked back up. Top of the plant and going down it seems. The bigger leaves picked up off the soil. Not to bad for only 8 hours .. i mean i have nothing to compare it to.. so im just guessing.. but it seems not bad. And yea i didn't have any supplementative things like superthrive, just running bare bones really lol, getting it as i need it and can afford it.
