This is my first grow. The seedling is on day six since poking thru. The past couple days growth has slowed and the leaves seem to be curling under. On saturday, I gave her (thats a hopeful 'her') some nutes - Fox Farms Big Bloom using as directed - but on sunday, reading that she might be a bit young for nutes, I flushed with ph 5.8 distilled water. Worried about overwatering, I've given her nothing since then, but she's started to curl down... advice? I've got a pair of 42 watt CFLs each about 2-3 inches from the seedling. first pic is yesterday. second pic is this morning...
thats exactly what mine looked like and i fed it nothing but 5.8 water for 12 days... also i had fans blowing on mine which was drying em out. do you have any fans blowing on it? too young for a fun to be blowing on it, might dry it out, or maybe your light is a little too close? mine look great after a couple doses of nutes and no fan directly pointed at them.
For starters, the cotyledon serves as an initial "food/energy" supply for the first to couple set of leaves. Therefor there really is no need to feed nutrients to the plant for at least a good solid week. Some people choose to start feeding once the cotyledons shed off or shrivel up. I chose to start feeding my plants after they shriveled up, this was after 1.5 weeks after the seedling showed above grow medium. I grow hydroponically, I would assume this method could be applies to soil grown seedlings. Your plant should be fine, just wait to feed and it can be closer to the bulb too! Max one inch away
The dang reflectors on the lights keep them from getting too close. If i switch to just one cfl, i can get it more like one inch. I figured 2 lights at 2-3 inches would be just as good. she ain't stretching at all so i assume she's happy with the light. I have no fan besides a ceiling fan in the room just to keep air moving around. I did water her today as the coco was starting to feel dry. i'm thinking she just didn't like the uber early dose of nutes. thanks for the feedback everyone! will keep you all on the up and up and she gets bigger. also @thatcrash - this is coco coir, not soil - so technically this is hydroponic too as coco is an inert medium, so the same techniques apply.
so just an update in case someone is reading this suffering from the same symptoms i did. four days later, she's bouncing back. she really took a couple days off from growing there and i was really starting to get concerned but i just stayed the course and now she seems to be moving forward again. the second set of leaves is coming in straight, although the very tips of them (the bits that were out when she curled) are still curled and it doesn't seem they're going to uncurl. however, new growth is coming in straight, so i'm gonna go ahead and say this was a case of early nutes as a flush and some love brought her back. Just put a pair of germinated Grapefruit seeds in some coco so she'll have some friends now. wonder if their growth will surpass hers since she had this little setback...
Thanks for the update! Im sure a lot of people will have the same issue and this is a good thread to find that answer!
Here's some pics taken about 20 min ago. edit: don't know why these are rotating on me.... i took them portrait obviously.... just turn your head i guess. edit2: oh also, i've moved this into a grow tent under T5s for anyone who's keeping score at home.
what are you feeding them now??? I have some AliensJackedUp and Mango at about 10 days still waiting on the growth spurt though Mine are in the closet under a Quantum T5 atm
i'm feeding them nothing, because they don't need it yet. i fed them at like day 3 or 4 with FF big bloom, but this was an ill informed mistake on my part. it caused some curling and stunting, but with a good flush and nothing but pH'd water since, she's back. this is my first grow, but it seems to me so far that patience and consistency are the best thing for our babies.
question here: so she's definitely gone back to growing. that second set of leaves is really coming in and i can see the beginnings of a third set starting to poke out the middle. now that said, i'm noticing some discoloration around the curled tips on the second set of leaves. also some of the very tips of the sides of the first leaves are black. like little tiny dark dots on the leaf tips. those have been there a few days, but now that the leaves are a bit bigger, it's more noticeable. so the question is: is this a symptom of it's earlier nute burn that is a) only just visible now because the leaves are bigger and b) not going to go back to normal? OR could this be new trouble?
Feel for you man... I got my ass kicked the first couple of weeks, and I was sure I had researched enough before I planted. I was wrong. First off, make sure you can measure PH, and after that, EC. Don't cheap out on this aspect. It's not worth the heartache down the line. By getting the proper instruments and properly monitoring PH of feed going in, and EC from runoff, my plants are in week 5 from seed, green, transplanted, topped, and growing like.... weeds. If you are going to grow in coco, those instruments are going to make a huge difference in growing and troubleshooting problems. Again, experienced growers in coco recommend this, and noobes like me find out the hard way that those growers are not bullshitting. You especially do not want to be guessing about PH. When in doubt about the nutes, err on the side of less rather than more, just like all the experienced growers advise. Right now my feed is at about .7 EC ( 350ppm TDS) which is lower than many people give them in veg, and I feed every watering. Everything going in is PH'd to 5.8. The plants are thriving on it. At this point your plants are hungry for Nitrogen so be sure your nute solution is balanced an optimized for veg, including micro nutes. Make sure to research and understand potential for calcium deficiency in coco, but do not over react to it. Many of the people who have this issue use RO water. If you overfeed Calcium, you can create other problems. Watch the plant and it will show you what it needs. Increase nutes very gradually, but don't be too scared to ratchet it up after the two week mark. Be patient, and when in doubt, leave the girls alone and read some more. I have found that the advice of experienced growers is very valuable for pointing you in the right direction, but it's up to you to learn the principles that guide their experience and advice. Sorry for your problems, but the upside is you are being forced to dig deeper and learn more without the benefit of beginners luck. I have found tons of threads on this site concerning coco, and sifting through them was huge in helping me work through my issues with my seedlings and keeping my questions to experienced growers concise and on point. The more you know, the more an experienced grower can help you. Read, read, feed, watch, and read some more. Hang in there. It will get better.
It still looks a little over watered to me, I would back off my frequency a little (if your watering every 3 days try to go 4 or 5).
over watered for sure that is a HUGE container for a seedling its best to start seedlings in a small container, like a plastic beer cup if your soaking that entire container when you water, its most likely suffocating the roots of those seedlings to some extent
definitely don't feel like i have 'problems' just opportunities to learn more about how to read the plants communications to me. thanks for all the help folks. from AskEd's coco guide. is he wrong?
haha, see it's hard to know what's the right thing to do when experienced growers give conflicting advice.... what about folks who grow in the ground? isn't earth the biggest pot of them all? 5 gallons of medium with a gallon of water in it (these measures are arbitrary and don't reflect actual mj growing conditions) shouldn't be any different from 1 gallon of medium with 1/5 of a gallon of water in it, right?
yes, there is a ton of conflicting advice about growing all over the internet. same w/ books, each author/grower is going to do things a little different you just have to "take a page out of someone elses book" so to speak and try it out for yourself, what works for one person isnt always gonna work out for the other person..... ya know? about growing outside, i dont have an opinion cuz ive never done it but i would think that if your starting seeds outside, you want want to plant a shit load of them, cuz alot of them probably arent going to make it
Not to hijack the thread but my seedling is having a similar issue in coco. I've since cut back on the watering, also I made the mistake of adding a small amount of nutrients but I've since flushed with ph'd water only. Do you think it has a chance to regain health or is it toast?
I believe the answer is stay the course PH'd water @ 5.8 and let the plant determine its fate, Good luck and let us know how it turns out.