Pippins
- 74
- 33
Hello guys,
I've lurked here for a while, soaking up as much info as possible before starting these seeds. I initially started 4 seeds in solo cups, lots of drainage holes...it was straight botanicare coco with no perlite, but only because of the usps logjam, I had initially planned on perlite. To start, I've read everything there is on this site and others about Coco, and cec, and I think I have a good grip on the reason why we need to keep coco moist at all times, but it has been a challenge for me as a former soil grower. Germination went well, but after a few days things went downhill. I initially saturated the media with 6.0 ph 300 ppm nutrient solution, some of which was calmag. Then I decided to wait for the cups to get at least a little lighter. I fed them again a few days later to runoff. By then I had noticed some slight burning at the tips, and drooping despite the moist media-they looked overwatered. This went on a couple of days, I reduced the amount fed because the cups were heavy, but kept them around 300 ppm-but here is where I think I messed up and I hope you can help me figure this out-My tap is about 150 ppm to start, and looking back, the rest of that PPM up to 300 was mostly calmag-so I think I stopped giving them grow formula the second I saw the burned tips. Meanwhile, the burning did get worse.
So a few days into this I transplanted them into 1 gal smart pots (because my perlite had arrived, I made sure to flush these well with 300 ppm solution.) I figured if I was overwatering, maybe being in a bigger, fabric pot would leach some of moisture out of the overwatered solo cup pure coco. I transplanted them 8 days after they emerged from the solo cups-during this time they never dried out, but I was inconsistent with watering-I thought I was overwatering the underdeveloped roots, so I was giving them like 20 ml every other day and the cups always felt heavy. During the 8 days in the solo cups they grew, but slowly, and they looked worse and worse-crispy edges, some brown spots on the 1st set of true leaves, etc. Once they were in the 1 gal smart pots I thought...I need to do something different, even if it kills them. So I mixed up a full dose of calmag and 5 ml pure blend pro grow (per gal), which was around 420 ppm, ph'd to 6 and watered the pot to runoff. Since then I've watered them twice per day at around 100 ml each time, and to runoff every 3rd feeding-they are constantly moist still, but they are actually growing again. I'm including a pic of them, they are about 2 weeks old-it's not a great pic but you can see the lower leaves look terrible and lime green, but the upper leaves look healthier-growth is also picking up. I have one test plant in a solo cup still which I'm watering twice per day and it actually looks much better than the others did at this stage-it's only a few days old. So what do you guys think happened? Right now, my thoughts are, in trying to let it dry out a bit in the beginning, I burned my plants-I don't think I flushed out my botanicare media enough because I had been using 300 ppm solution and the runoff tested at almost 600 early on-and they say they buffer it to 500 ppm. Should I just continue to feed twice per day now? I feel like I'm grossly overwatering these small seedlings, but this is the first time in their 2 week old lives that they are lifting their leaves up. There is so much differing option about how to water seedlings in Coco...some say to treat it almost like soil and to let it dry out a little to encourage the roots to grow, but I did this and I think it almost killed my plants. Anyway, thanks for the help...I think I might have a handle on it-I'll probably know in a week or so, if they continue to improve.
Sorry about the photo quality. The plant in the front left looks the worst, and the back left looks the best-the top growth looks almost normal now. Thanks again fellas! Big fan of this site and I hope to contribute one day!
I've lurked here for a while, soaking up as much info as possible before starting these seeds. I initially started 4 seeds in solo cups, lots of drainage holes...it was straight botanicare coco with no perlite, but only because of the usps logjam, I had initially planned on perlite. To start, I've read everything there is on this site and others about Coco, and cec, and I think I have a good grip on the reason why we need to keep coco moist at all times, but it has been a challenge for me as a former soil grower. Germination went well, but after a few days things went downhill. I initially saturated the media with 6.0 ph 300 ppm nutrient solution, some of which was calmag. Then I decided to wait for the cups to get at least a little lighter. I fed them again a few days later to runoff. By then I had noticed some slight burning at the tips, and drooping despite the moist media-they looked overwatered. This went on a couple of days, I reduced the amount fed because the cups were heavy, but kept them around 300 ppm-but here is where I think I messed up and I hope you can help me figure this out-My tap is about 150 ppm to start, and looking back, the rest of that PPM up to 300 was mostly calmag-so I think I stopped giving them grow formula the second I saw the burned tips. Meanwhile, the burning did get worse.
So a few days into this I transplanted them into 1 gal smart pots (because my perlite had arrived, I made sure to flush these well with 300 ppm solution.) I figured if I was overwatering, maybe being in a bigger, fabric pot would leach some of moisture out of the overwatered solo cup pure coco. I transplanted them 8 days after they emerged from the solo cups-during this time they never dried out, but I was inconsistent with watering-I thought I was overwatering the underdeveloped roots, so I was giving them like 20 ml every other day and the cups always felt heavy. During the 8 days in the solo cups they grew, but slowly, and they looked worse and worse-crispy edges, some brown spots on the 1st set of true leaves, etc. Once they were in the 1 gal smart pots I thought...I need to do something different, even if it kills them. So I mixed up a full dose of calmag and 5 ml pure blend pro grow (per gal), which was around 420 ppm, ph'd to 6 and watered the pot to runoff. Since then I've watered them twice per day at around 100 ml each time, and to runoff every 3rd feeding-they are constantly moist still, but they are actually growing again. I'm including a pic of them, they are about 2 weeks old-it's not a great pic but you can see the lower leaves look terrible and lime green, but the upper leaves look healthier-growth is also picking up. I have one test plant in a solo cup still which I'm watering twice per day and it actually looks much better than the others did at this stage-it's only a few days old. So what do you guys think happened? Right now, my thoughts are, in trying to let it dry out a bit in the beginning, I burned my plants-I don't think I flushed out my botanicare media enough because I had been using 300 ppm solution and the runoff tested at almost 600 early on-and they say they buffer it to 500 ppm. Should I just continue to feed twice per day now? I feel like I'm grossly overwatering these small seedlings, but this is the first time in their 2 week old lives that they are lifting their leaves up. There is so much differing option about how to water seedlings in Coco...some say to treat it almost like soil and to let it dry out a little to encourage the roots to grow, but I did this and I think it almost killed my plants. Anyway, thanks for the help...I think I might have a handle on it-I'll probably know in a week or so, if they continue to improve.
Sorry about the photo quality. The plant in the front left looks the worst, and the back left looks the best-the top growth looks almost normal now. Thanks again fellas! Big fan of this site and I hope to contribute one day!