Garden...not happy anymore. What's happening?

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BowHunterSimon

BowHunterSimon

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Howdy folks,

Merry belated X-Mas everyone, but I ran into some trouble lately with my grow.
I have been fighting to keep these plants going, many showing deficiencies since winter arrived something happened.
I'm growing in my basement in 4x4 tents, 19 degrees celcius low temps at dark, 22.5-23 degree celcius lights on, good air flow, stable environment, great grows in spring-fall(autumn) seasons, every winter not so much.

Growing in Promix hp and also tried sunshine #4 pro with added perlite and a hit of lime. Good drainage, roots don't look so happy despite me giving it enzymes. I transplanted one and it's almost dead.
Pots seem to hold water in bottom for quite some time tho, overwatering? Roots aren't really thriving to search for it.

I went from growing these kinda plants in september
Gardennot happy anymore whats happening


To this now
Gardennot happy anymore whats happening 2


The grow medium is the same for the most part, - the organic matter i had in there before, but it contained fungas gnats. So no more organic stuff for now.

My ph meter was out of calibration about a month ago by 1.2ph so i recalibrated it, but when I did a ph test on runoff about 3 weeks ago it was at 5.8 after giving it 6.5 water, which means ph must've been at 5.1?! So I didn't add ph down to my well water which is around 7.2 ph and watered it like that for 2 weeks, a week ago i did a soil test in distilled water and it came out as 6.5, so I'm sitting around 6 now maybe a bit higher as its been a week and I've been adjusting watering ph to 6.5 again. But plants seem more unhappy as ever.

I tried transplanting some, without any luck, any ideas to revive my garden or what is happening please?
 
BowHunterSimon

BowHunterSimon

58
18
Here a few more sad pictures.
Plants havent really grown much in past month 1/2


20211228 145717
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BowHunterSimon

BowHunterSimon

58
18
20211228 160907


I have both tents setup the same way.
Yes I feed the flora series, only about 2ml to a gal, also tried some cal-mag stuff, superroot enzymes, once every 3 waterings. Basically everything from my feeding schedules to environment has stayed the same between these two grows. Just this grow looks horrible, and plants getting worse as to me it seems they aren't even really absorbing much water. I lightly water them and even then its like 3-5 days depending on the plant, if i soak until run off they are drenched for 6 days atleast
 
visajoe1

visajoe1

807
143
Good news is this is very fixable. Just a few things stand out to me. Things will improve in 24hrs after proper feed.

-needs more food. feed the veg plants full strength 3.5ec. Feed the late flower plants 1.5ec (or just use runoff from veg plants, these are almost done, not much can be done now). All with plenty of runoff. Need to drench the pots.
-proper wet/dry cycle. after you drench with nutrients, dont touch them. Its ok if it takes several days, this cycle will get shorter as the plant gets larger. Feed/water only when dry. If it wilts, thats ok, now you know the limits of the plant. When feeding/watering, drench the pots. Be prepared for the runoff.
-calmag is not needed. we dont need calmag in soil unless running RO. If running RO, also stop, unless tap is unusable.
-humidity. you nailed it, humidity is too low. when you have time, read about VPD, takes about 5 minutes to understand the concept. Will help you a lot.

going forward, the veg plants will need food from here on out. feed them everytime 1-3.5ec
drench the pots, with plenty of runoff.
 
BowHunterSimon

BowHunterSimon

58
18
Thank you kindly. I will give them a full strength nute next time, day or so... I tossed my humidifier in there and it already bounced up to 33% RH. I'm hopeful that the plants will bounce back just from that alone, they were getting pretty dry 🤭
 
T

TryingToGrow

Supporter
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You said pH was the issue and it is. You can do whatever you want with ppm/ec, if your pH isn't good, nothing will grow well. Make pH of medium ~5.8-5.9, if you want healthy plants, runoff should never be more than ~0.5 off that, if it is, make adjustments so that it's not.

I always just used 1.3 ec, 1 bottle of general purpose nutes, start to finish, soil or coco and the plants grew very well. I don't monitor temps or humidity indoors and can't control it outdoors and the plants have never seemed to mind, they are much tougher than people, they are usually growing outdoors, in nature.
 
BowHunterSimon

BowHunterSimon

58
18
My ph meter was out of calibration hence why it brought the ph down to about 5.1-5.2, but since I have been watering without any ph down the slurry test revealed around 6.5ph with distilled 7.0 water, so right now I must be sitting around the 6.0 mark but hasn't helped the plant to grow yet...

It does appear tho that since I put in the humidifier into the tent yesterday, there might be some nicer new growth on the way. Therefore I am almost suspecting that it might be a humidity issue, as In the warmer months I never run into issues, but living in Canada with winter and -35 degree celcius temps outside the air is very dry, so it would make perfect sense why the plants are acting this way.
 
BowHunterSimon

BowHunterSimon

58
18
Are you checking the ph every time you feed them ?

Yes most defiantly, now with a calibrated PH meter.
Since the slurry test told me PH was @ 6.0 a week ago, I have been adjusting each watering down to 6.5 AFTER I added all fertilizers. Still not noticing a big difference, even with humidity in the air. They defiantly appear less dry in the foliage, but no vigorous growth visible yet.
 
BowHunterSimon

BowHunterSimon

58
18
This is how they are looking today. I removed all dead foliage and watered them yesterday with a full strength solution of FloraGro Series, with a touch of Pi Nutrients Super Root.
I lightly foliar fed them this morning with a mist, in the hopes they absorb some nutes this way before the watering nutes get carried up into the plant.
Still not very happy looking plants.


268512917 972932176655596 4430828432849217943 n
 
jguit

jguit

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For you next grow, if you decide to use ProMix, try not using any organic amendments and just use your base GH nutrients. Keep things simple. Perhaps even consider smaller pots. Unless you're growing trees, 3 gallon pots of ProMix works great and you can still grow decently sized plants with no isses. ProMix really isn't picky with pH and anything reasonable in the range of 5.5 to 6.5 works fine. Dont worry about runoff until your roots are well established. Once your roots are established, you can water until runoff. In 3 gallon pots, I was watering once every 2 - 3 days. I didn't add any additional perlite to the ProMix. If you let ProMix dry out too much, you can start getting salt buildup that usually presents itself early in flower, at least that what i've experienced. I would get on a schedule of Feed - Feed - very Light feed to keep the medium in check. I had NO issues running high ECs of around 2.0 during veg and then running a bit lower EC during flower. I havent used GH nutrients so you might have to experiment a bit.

If using tap water, I recommend getting a water analysis done or get a analysis from your municipalty to see what's in it. My water sucks and is almost 1 EC on it's own with a bunch of bullshit that plants don't like (i wont drink it either). I settled on a mix of RO and tap water.

Good luck. I hope you're able to turn this grow around! They don't look terrible all things considered.
 
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jguit

jguit

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Just an added note regarding pH. I had a lengthy conversation with the folks at PTHorticulture (they make ProMix) and the pH of your feed water doesn't really make any difference. It's really dependent on the alkalinity of your water and the fertilizers used. Understanding 'alkalinity' is probably a more important concept than pH itself.

This is straight from the horses mouth (from the makers of promix):

"The water pH has almost no influence on the pH of the PRO-MIX because PRO-MIX has it’s own buffering capacity (granted not as good as soil). Whether the pH of the water is 4.0 or 8.0, it will not make much difference on the pH of the PRO-MIX. It is the alkalinity or bicarbonate and carbonate content in the water (which will be near zero when processed through R.O), the fertilizer used and the plant itself. Keep in mind that R.O. water has almost no buffering capacity , so the water pH is not stable. So if you adjust it to 6.2 it could drift a whole pH unit simply by exchanging carbon dioxide with the atmosphere." -PTHorticulture
 
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BowHunterSimon

BowHunterSimon

58
18
For you next grow, if you decide to use ProMix, try not using any organic amendments and just use your base GH nutrients. Keep things simple. Perhaps even consider smaller pots. Unless you're growing trees, 3 gallon pots of ProMix works great and you can still grow decently sized plants with no isses. ProMix really isn't picky with pH and anything reasonable in the range of 5.5 to 6.5 works fine. Dont worry about runoff until your roots are well established. Once your roots are established, you can water until runoff. In 3 gallon pots, I was watering once every 2 - 3 days. I didn't add any additional perlite to the ProMix. If you let ProMix dry out too much, you can start getting salt buildup that usually presents itself early in flower, at least that what i've experienced. I would get on a schedule of Feed - Feed - very Light feed to keep the medium in check. I had NO issues running high ECs of around 2.0 during veg and then running a bit lower EC during flower. I havent used GH nutrients so you might have to experiment a bit.

If using tap water, I recommend getting a water analysis done or get a analysis from your municipalty to see what's in it. My water sucks and is almost 1 EC on it's own with a bunch of bullshit that plants don't like (i wont drink it either). I settled on a mix of RO and tap water.

Good luck. I hope you're able to turn this grow around! They don't look terrible all things considered.
Thank you for the informative help.

I have been growing for almost 2 years now, mainly in promix hp (i prefer BX with added perlite) and usually never had issues with my plants until colder temperatures arrived.
I kept the organic matter out this round as I had some fungus knats in the previous grow, suspecting they came from the added organic matter.
Almost seems tho that I don't have a healthy colony of enzymes anymore because of the lack of organic matter, any easy, quick remedies?
I don't have any home-made teas on hand either to give it a boost.

We run on well water from a shallow well that comes from our creek on our property. Coming out at around 8.0ph, did a test in the past by a pro and it's not awfully hard water, sits at around 200ppm coming from the tap and been using it ever since I start growing. (No issues through spring-fall.)
But I defiantly will have to feed alot more than what I have been so far (according to responders suggestions).
 
BowHunterSimon

BowHunterSimon

58
18
Just an added note regarding pH. I had a lengthy conversation with the folks at PTHorticulture (they make ProMix) and the pH of your feed water doesn't really make any difference. It's really dependent on the alkalinity of your water and the fertilizers used. Understanding 'alkalinity' is probably a more important concept than pH itself.

This is straight from the horses mouth (from the makers of promix):

"The water pH has almost no influence on the pH of the PRO-MIX because PRO-MIX has it’s own buffering capacity (granted not as good as soil). Whether the pH of the water is 4.0 or 8.0, it will not make much difference on the pH of the PRO-MIX. It is the alkalinity or bicarbonate and carbonate content in the water (which will be near zero when processed through R.O), the fertilizer used and the plant itself. Keep in mind that R.O. water has almost no buffering capacity , so the water pH is not stable. So if you adjust it to 6.2 it could drift a whole pH unit simply by exchanging carbon dioxide with the atmosphere." -PTHorticulture
They say it doesn't make a difference as it is buffered with lime, tho over time the lime will wear off and pheat is really acidic, therefore the ph can very likely drop later in the grow if not paid attention to.
Which makes me wonder why my runoff was at 5.9 before when I watered with 6.5-6.6 water, tells me they must've been sitting in 5.1-5.2ph and that was fresh promix with added lime (i suppose lime takes time to do its buffering magic). But I thought because of such low PH the plants had nute lock out despite me feeding them (lightly anyways).

Been 3 weeks now and a week ago PH slurrly test was at 6.5 after stirring and letting it sit for 2 hours with distilled water, which tells me they are at 6.0ph roughly now. But still no difference in growth.

Still not sure what's happening. Giving them a couple more days and see how they look. Everything seems to be adjusted to proper levels for now anyways.
 
jguit

jguit

Supporter
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This is where alkalinity and fertilizers used come into play.

Here's a little bit more of the conversation if you're interested, useful stuff if you're growing in ProMix:

"___ think of PRO-MIX as a filter. It can filter out elements from the water, but it cannot filter out pH. As elements, such as bicarbonates, nitrates and other elements accumulate in the growing medium, they start to change the pH of the growing medium. The buffering capacity of PRO-MIX does not change overtime, but the exchange sites can be loaded with new elements that can change the pH of the product. Again the exchange sites (or cation exchange) is much lower by volume compared to soil, so the pH of PRO-MIX can be changed within a few weeks after planting. I would not look at the buffering capacity of the PRO-MIX to be significant.

The fertilizer used has to have a neutral effect on the pH of the growing medium. In commercial horticulture this would mean that the potential acidity or potential basicity of the fertilizer should be near zero. If it is much above this value, then it will cause the pH to change. For example, if the fertilizer has a potential basicity above 50 lbs calcium carbonate equivalent , the pH of the PRO-MIX will go up over time. If the fertilizer has a potential acidity higher than 100 lbs calcium carbonate equivalent, then the pH will decline over time."
 
T

TryingToGrow

Supporter
322
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They say it doesn't make a difference as it is buffered with lime, tho over time the lime will wear off and pheat is really acidic, therefore the ph can very likely drop later in the grow if not paid attention to.
Which makes me wonder why my runoff was at 5.9 before when I watered with 6.5-6.6 water, tells me they must've been sitting in 5.1-5.2ph and that was fresh promix with added lime (i suppose lime takes time to do its buffering magic). But I thought because of such low PH the plants had nute lock out despite me feeding them (lightly anyways).

Been 3 weeks now and a week ago PH slurrly test was at 6.5 after stirring and letting it sit for 2 hours with distilled water, which tells me they are at 6.0ph roughly now. But still no difference in growth.

Still not sure what's happening. Giving them a couple more days and see how they look. Everything seems to be adjusted to proper levels for now anyways.
If you water with 6.5 and it comes out 5.9 your medium is bringing the water towards what it is more than the water is pulling the pH it’s direction. You medium is 5.9 -6.0, would be my guess.
 
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