Sup nMeeks, I really like the thread. Awesome pics of the seeds and the tomatos. Hope you find one hell of a keeper with those WS! Is it just me or do OCD and growing weed go great together? haha.
Hey JKB, thanks for joining in! I appreciate the positive vibes, the girls can really feel it this run for sure!
Meeks , question time my friend , looking for the scientific knowledge on the red stems as i noticed that sometimes they turn red and sometimes they don't , I was thinking that it was a tempature thing as my veg area stays around 55-65 during freezing temp's outside but notice cleaning my (flower ) room yesterday that my second run of my keeper ARC now has red stems and didn't first run , when you get time bro , no rush on answer - all is looking sweet in meeks garden as always ......peace SoSer
Alright Soser, I'll tell you what I know! First of all, I think the two nutrients that might be out of balance are your P and your Mg. But, before you go and add a bunch of P and Mg to your girls, there are a few factors to consider that might be causing these symptoms.
A salt toxicity in general can make it difficult for the plant to uptake water and therefore nutrients. . . which can then mirror a combination of drought and deficiency symtoms (tip burn + deficiencies). It is important to keep an eye on your runoff, and if you notice it getting too high, a media sample of 10g can be taken from one of your pots and mixed with 50ml of RO/DI water then checked with your meter. This is the industry standard for taking EC and pH readings of the media, which is more accurate than just reading input or runoff water.
Once you have ruled out that your problem is not related to a salt toxicity or pH imbalance, the next most likely answer (in most situations) is going to be a nutrient imbalance. Mg tends to fight with things like Ca and K for space in the soil particles (cation exchance sites), so there can be symptoms of a magnesium deficiency when raising the Ca or K levels in your fertilizer. P, on the other hand, has a synergistic relationship with Mg and raising one will increase the plants uptake of the other.
I have definitely seen redish/purple petioles and redish/purple vertical streaking in my stems when my Mg or P was too low or K was too high. And a P deficiency will definitely stimulate anthocyanin (purple/red pigment) production.
After saying all that, I have a feeling your problem is related to temperature. Cold media temperatures can lockout the available P, even if everything is well balanced and in proper amounts. If you think this has been your problem, a foliar application may be the best answer.
Remember that having a cooler night time than day time temp is important. There are a number of problems that can arrise from bringing in colder air during the day than what the plants are experiencing when the exhaust system might be off at night.
I know I didn't really nail down a solution for you, but I hope you can digest all this info and keeping it in mind when you see problems might help you make a better decision as to the cause and possible treatments.
Thanks as usual for asking great questions, the topic of nutrients is one that I wish there was more science relating directly to cannabis available!
I have a question and I hope it hasn't been asked (and answered) somewhere else. I noticed in your Alien thread and in this thread that once they have popped up, they don't grow really tall and spindly. Do you start them under a 400w right off the bat? This is what mine look like and I'm afraid to transplant them because I don't think they have a very strong root system yet. They lived under a fluro for about 8 days and are now in a room under 600w
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Good question GI JO, I don't think I have talked much about that, if at all. The answer to your question is that yes I did start the seedlings under a 400w MH from day 1. . . but that is partially because I am also trying to shorten the time table, and I just don't have the space under my T5 for 8x 1-gal pots right now! Rather than send you on a hunt through my previous grow logs for the photos of my seedlings grown under T5 for the first few weeks, I thought I would upload a picture I particularly like of my White Urkle seedlings from this time last year. They were kept under a T5 for the first 3 weeks and with the proper nutrition, ample light, and appropriate spacing, they turned out just as compact!
There are a few common causes of elongated seedlings and plants in general. First, some people like to sprout their seedlings under a humidity dome. . . . the humidity and specifically the heat is often too high in this environment for compact growth. The seedlings end up elongated and fragile to transplant. The other main causes are nitrogen deficiency and light deficiency (specifically red light). The red light deficiency occurs because of plants that are too tightly spaced, where a canopy layer absords the majority of red light and allows a good deal of far-red light to pass through or reflect around. This ratio of increased far-red light and decreased red light will trigger the plant to grow elongated stems. This is actually the reason you might noticed the internodes on branches lower in the canopy that are receiving less light are much longer and is sensed by a pigment in the plant called phytochrome.
To me, it looks like you are experiencing low light intensity problems, and also may have let those little cups dry out a day or two. Drought stress and low light stress are also causes of stem elongation.
In post #29 above it says he has them under a 400w MH.
Thanks for getting back to him faster than I could HG!
Ya, I saw that. I just didn't see for sure if it was right away. Definitely gonna give that a shot next time, the results say it all.
If you can afford the power, MH is the way to go, especially after the first week or so!
Hey nMEEKS! Totally subbed up for this. I have yet to run any Raskal gear but Im def going to get some soon. I just read through your WhiteFire thread last night. Great read right there! The White x Old school Skunk sounds pretty killer. Good luck with the grow.;)
Glad to see you made it over to this thread BudMuncher, you gotta get yourself some OGR gear ASAP! Thanks for the positive vibes!
Are you referring to the stem itself or the petiole? I've had both happen on multiple strains. I always interpreted that as a K defeciency. If it happens, i get it in veg and at the very end of a hard flush in late late flowering. Meeks, where you at boss, me and the soser got questions.:cool:
That is interesting HBDr., what makes you think it is a K deficiency? The reason I ask is because it seems like if you added more K, that would be antagonistic with the Mg, and would end up creating the deficiency I have noticed with what I thought was a lack of Mg availability. . .
I usually notice the color creep into my petioles first (when I notice the problem) and then if it goes untended, it will start to streak vertically through my stems, but never gets bad enough to turn the whole stem purple (I have seen pictures of plants that got that bad).
Unfortunately my literature on the subject only discusses P deficiencies being responsible for purpling leaf color and that is about the extent of any mention for causes of purple anything. . . . obviously I don't consider that a very good answer, so I will make a point of asking my schools Soil Science Department fertilizer professor when I get to sit down with him next, hopefully soon.
And just because I might as well reward those of you who are still reading (or just scrolling past) at the end of this very long post, here is a couple photos I took earlier today:
-Meeks
