Need some advice. Plants were perfect last time I watered

[MaverickNEA]

Need some advice. Plants were perfect last time I watered.....which was three days prior. What's going on? Info below:

Ph: 6.3
Not feeding yet. Just water as soil has some food in it. I also added worm castings, blood meal and bone meal. Was going to start feeding advanced nutrients when they are a bit bigger.

 

[AKgrow]

How close are your lights?

 

[MaverickNEA]

Light is 28 inches away from the top of the plants. Temp at the top of the plant is 27c. 5 gallon fabric pots.

 

[Chem77]

They need water, like a gallon each. Then again in 5 days or so.

 

[MaverickNEA]

Well....I watered all four plants with 5 gallons of water. Every plant recieved the same amount of water.

I always have a 5 gallon bucket full with water. It also has an air bubbler in the bucket that's runs 24/7. The water always sits out at least three days before I ever use it.

I may go back to RO water. Had less problems with RO.

Kind of looks like the beginning stage of nitrogen deficiency. Should I try a different ph?

 

[TSD]

You get all the soil in all those pots wet with 5 gallons? They do look hungry, if they are underwatered, they haven't been taking up enough nutrients from the soil. How old are they? Could be ready for nutrients.

 

[MaverickNEA]

My thoughts as well now that I think more about it. I did notice some of the water running out the side of the pots. I'm going to run out tonight and fill up my RO 5 gallon water jug and soak them a bit more with 1/4 strength feeding and watch them.

It's tough to know if all the soil is getting wet.

 

[Edinburgh]

Your light is to close, or most likely it's the mix, you may not have fed but there is food in it so everytime you water you feed overwhelming the plant.

 

[TSD]

My thoughts as well now that I think more about it. I did notice some of the water running out the side of the pots. I'm going to run out tonight and fill up my RO 5 gallon water jug and soak them a bit more with 1/4 strength feeding and watch them.

It's tough to know if all the soil is getting wet.

It will run out the sides if the soil is so dry that the water doesn't easily soak in, which is likely the case if you have been consistently underwatering. I would suggest soaking them in a tote with a few inches of water until they are saturated to correct it, it will be less messy than watering several times until it's saturated. Once it's saturated pick it up and get a sense of the weight. If you have an extra pot and soil, fill it up and get a sense of the weight dry. By weight is the way to go if you don't have a moisture meter... which the cheap ones aren't very accurate anyway. I was consistently underwatering in fabric pots the one time I used them, for the same reason, thought the runoff meant they were saturated.... they were not.

 

[Anthem]

They need water, like a gallon each. Then again in 5 days or so.

What ever you do do not do this. Give them about 4 oz of water maybe every 3 or 4 days. Get another pot and fill it with just soil. Pick it up and see if it plants in the pot weight the same as the pot with no plant. When they weight about the same you can water. I usually grow from clones. they go into a 1 quart container. They are watered to run off and put into the veg. It takes a good week for those pots to dry out. When you are in soil you have to dryback the soil so it is allows Oxygen to the root system. Ever hear the term, the girls like their legs dry. Just fill a pot with soil and use that method.
The other problem is the crap you added to the soil. Numerous people come to this site after adding what you added to the soil with similar problems. The added amendments changes the NPK values of the soil and causes the plant to take up nutrients in incorrect amounts and you get the weird veining and such. If you want to fix it go out and buy some soil from the hydro store. Fox Farm Ocean Forest or any of the other rep brands and transplant into the new soil.

 

[MaverickNEA]

Hmmm......I'd probably have better luck with plastic pots and ditch the fabric ones. We don't have a store around here with good soil. Just the garbage from Walmart that says enriched with miracle grow. I had no choice. I may have to make a trip to the city for good soil.

 

[Anthem]

Hmmm......I'd probably have better luck with plastic pots and ditch the fabric ones. We don't have a store around here with good soil. Just the garbage from Walmart that says enriched with miracle grow. I had no choice. I may have to make a trip to the city for good soil.

Get good soil and stick with the smart pots. The reason why the original pot was called a smart pot was because it breathed air better than a plastic pot. Spend the money on Soil and not pots. Once you start feeding the plants still weeks away use at about 1/3 of as advertised and kick it up to maybe 60 percent at like week 4-6 of flower. For the rest just run it at 50 percent.

 

[Dirtbag]

Fabric pots are great. But I think your addition of castings, bone meal and blood meal may have locked things up.
How much did you add, and what brand of soil did you start with before adding stuff to it?

You'll want to wait until they are light and then saturate the pots slowly until you get a tiny bit of runoff. That's your indicator that you have reached field capacity in the soil.

I also wouldn't use pure RO, but RO with some tap water added to it and then ph'd to 6.3-6.5 or so works well.

 

[MaverickNEA]

I can't remember what the soil was called but it was the cheapest crap from Walmart. The bag said enriched with miracle grow. Says good for 6 months or something. The npk were all under 1 percent if I remember correctly. With the bone meal and blood meal.....I added one cup of each per bag I mixed up. So I would say that each plant got one cup of each.

 

[Dirtbag]

Nevermind.. Walmart soil with miracle grow, and then meal additions on top of that?

You've likely got a nutrient imbalance that's overloading the soil and locking up nutrients.
Kinda hard to reverse that one. Especially if the miracle grow is slow release like it sounds it is, and the plants are rooted in. That's also way too much blood and bone meal.

I know what I would probably do.. but ill be damned if I'd advise you to do it.
I'd get good quality soil, not add anything to it, then cut away the fabric pots and rinse as much the old soil away from the roots as possible, as gently as I could, then re-plant it in good soil ultra carefully. It would piss them right off for sure, but they'd be happier in the long run.
Alternately...I'd maybe just try and reset the CEC by flushing very slowly with something like florkleen or clearex, or a homemade version. But those organics you added will be impossible to remove with a rinse, so I don't really know. Enzymes possibly.. but yeah. Not great options.

That said, I'm curious to hear if anyone else that grows in soil has other ideas for treatment.

 

[MaverickNEA]

Hmmm.....well I'll try a few things. Within the next two weeks.....if there's no turn around. I'll scrap and start over.

 

[Neuro]

You maybe could transplant them and rescue them. That slow release soil is going to give you problems in the long run. It's for plants that require a lot higher nitrogen levels throughout their lifecycles.

 

[Anthem]

Nevermind.. Walmart soil with miracle grow, and then meal additions in top of that?

You've likely got a nutrient imbalance that's overloading the soil and locking up nutrients.
Kinda hard to reverse that one. Especially if the miracle grow is slow release like it sounds it is, and the plants are rooted in. That's also way too much blood and bone meal.

I know what I would probably do.. but ill be damned if I'd advise you to do it.
I'd get good quality soil, not add anything to it, then cut away the fabric pots and rinse as much the old soil away from the roots as possible, as gently as I could, then re-plant it in good soil ultra carefully. It would piss them right off for sure, but they'd be happier in the long run.
Alternately...I'd maybe just try and reset the CEC by flushing very slowly with something like florkleen or clearex, or a homemade version. But those organics you added will be impossible to remove with a rinse, so I don't really know. Enzymes possibly.. but yeah. Not great options.

That said, I'm curious to hear if anyone else that grows in soil has other ideas for treatment.

This is where I was going to say to go. Just replant them like DB is saying.

 

[MaverickNEA]

There is a store in town that sells coco hair or what ever it's called. Is it possible to just use that to transplant into and then start feeding with my organic advanced nutrients?

 

[Anthem]

There is a store in town that sells coco hair or what ever it's called. Is it possible to just use that to transplant into and then start feeding with my organic advanced nutrients?

Coco is not as easy to grow in. What is your growing experience? I always try to get people to get good at soil before taking on a more challenging media. Soil things happen over a week or so. Coco a 2 or 3 days. Hydro can be in 12 hours. So your understanding of the health of the plant needs to develop as you move to quicker growing media's. But that is just my opinion so you get some smoke each time