OG Raskal strain, clones purchased from PNG My plants are deep into veg stage. A few mistakes led them to not developing as fast as they should, here is a journal documenting a bit of what happened, and hopefully, what's going to happen in the future. Below is a couple days after I got my clones (i believe i got them december 15th). I didn't realize it at the time, but I should have waited to transplant them a few more days; when I threw them into 100% cana coco, the roots were barely showing from their starter cubes. I immediately started feeding using canna's feeding chart. These plants looked healthier on the day I bought them than they did in this picture... they started drooping a bit + browning on the edges of the leaves. Below is a couple days later... looks like they're doing better after shock wore off and roots got a chance to form. I had no idea about checking runoff PPM, flushing, or letting the coco dry, yet (evidence will start showing after this pic) This is where the guy on the left starts his downward spiral (he's just now recovering, about that same size and color now - i know it's probably not going to turn out great but it's a good learning experience). The guy on the right has started showing signs of something... can't place my finger on it. Basically my three 'healthy' plants have always had one issue or another in the past few weeks. I'll attempt to explain more with some more pics. Here you can see some dieing tips and edges, some angled tips, and overall the plants don't have the healthiest-of-green appearance. New growth noticeably paler than the rest of the plant (this has been plaguing me) 3 grew, 1 continued to die. I started experimenting with topping and pinching and bending and tieing. Eventually I'll build a scrog net for these (and I won't mind tieing off if it won't work in a scrog). dishwasher racks are high class During this time I realized the importance of checking runoff... i realized my ppms were coming out at about 1400, plus I had been saturating them way too much. I also learned that I needed to use CalMag, since I was using RO (and since OG's crave it). I started using the "feed twice flush once" technique (or feed thrice flush once). I started using the 20-30% flush rule as well. Everytime I water I use 5.8PH. I used to airstone and/or vigorously shake air into my water, but after reading a few threads where oxygen may hamper certain enzymes, I've stopped. I also was using H202 for the first couple weeks, which I have stopped (kills life in your soil i read). I got curious and opened up the coco on the sick plant, too roughly. I mangled the entire root structure (which had pretty much rotted away anyway), leaving a solid baseball sized lump of compacted wet coco. Basically I think I drowned this plant + I may have used the very finest coco in the bag (didn't mix it) and it clumped together way too much (or stagnant salts created a bind). I reduced the root ball to the original size of the starter cube, and put it in a small pot of mixed coco + perlite. I transplanted 3 into 3gallon smartpots (not removing the cocohusk-pot that they had rooted through) and this time put about a 25-30% perlite mix in with my coco (still keeping the original 100% coco original planting... yeah i'm a noob). Right around this time I started 24/0 instead of 18/6, to makeup for lost time. 5 days ago: I've moved them from my 4lamp 4' t5 to a 600w MH, still under 24. Thinking about flipping to 12/12 any day here, I just want to get a better feel for my plant's nutrient palate first. I can't tell what deficiency or lockout or burning I'm experiencing, it seems like multiple things at once, so for the past 1 1/2 weeks I've been going very light on the nutrients, 1/2 of what canna recommends, but heavy on cal mag and rhizotonic. When I first started watering my plants in the 3gallon smart pots, they would take 3-4 days to dry out, now my plants get droopy from thirst in <48 hours, and there's roots popping out all over the bottom of the smart pots. I purchased Root Excelurator and Drip Clean two days ago, and fed with them last night. I'm hoping for Drip Clean to remove/prevent whatever sodium buildup I may be experiencing, and I'm hoping for Root Excelurator to grow roots high in the soil level. I'm shooting for a PPM of 800 right now (still testing, I think this may be a tad high), with 200-250 of that being calmag. Oh, I also purchased some blackstrap unsulphured molasses today, I'm planning on adding just a touch of that to encourage microbiological growth. I use calmag when I flush. ^^ it's hard to tell, but the coloring on two of these leaves is funky (bigger, upper left leaf is most obvious), looks like calcium deficiency to my novice eye, but I felt I was giving them more than adequate amounts of calmag. also, note the twistyness to the newer leaf. I tend to remove damaged leaves when I see them... something in my head tells me that the plant's wasting energy on something that's dieing if the leaf is not removed. Two watering ago, I only had access to tap water, and I felt I had been overfeeding them, so I went VERY light on nutes. One watering ago, I just only flushed (+ calmag). So i basically left plants without nutes for a decent amount of time, and I'm starting to get an increase in leaves looking like this: Notice the copper/brass coloring of the leaves. The veins aren't purple as they show in the photo, I'm just using a crappy phonecam. The stems are more purple than green, and they're also very stiff (hard to pinch, easy to snap) Feeding with these nutes, as of last night: PH = 5.8 (as always) PPM = 780 (PPM meter might not be completely accurate, + tempt might be off for correct reading... i need to look into this more) RO water 10ml Canna A 10ml Canna B 10ml Cannazyme 5ml Rhizotonic .3ml Drip Clean (new, this feeding) 1.1 ml Roots Excelurator (new, this feeding) 1 tsp calmag 1/4 tsp b1 3/16th tsp unsulphured blackstrap molasses (new, this feeding) using advanced nutrients PH down. A few hours after feeding them, I noticed that the leaves started tacoing a lot, and new growth was spindly/retarded. I'm wondering if that was from too many nutes in this feeding, or if the Drip Clean was flushing my salts out of the coco, and they were collecting at the bottom of my smart pots, where the majority of the roots were. I only had about 5% runoff on last watering (mixed 2 gallons, didn't want to make another just for runoff's sake, but I think i'm going to next time.) Today the new growth seems healthier, and there is a general healthy, uniform green starting to appear, common to all 3 plants, that I haven't been able to obtain yet. I'm thinking one more solid feed/water with these same nute levels will let me know if I'm overnuting them, or if it was the Drip Clean's first application causing a little havoc. Pics from right now: Let me know if you guys want some photos w/ better light/angles. Roots are poking out all over the bottoms of the smart pots. I'm hoping the Roots Excelurator will increase root growth on the top part of my soil as well. Just realized, after reading the back of Canna A + B instructions, I haven't been letting them set for "some hours" after I mix them w/my water. I wonder if PH changes after a couple hours and that's happenning in my soil, giving dif PH values that I want.... I would LOVE criticism (on my lack of growing knowledge and techniques, not my photography and post length ).
Sorry, wrong forum. I meant to post this in a marijuana forums section where people read stuff and respond with info. Guess that's a different website.