What am i doing to these poor plants?

[Alunaone]

Thanks for answering my next questions. Appreciate your time.

I 100% agree with these points. I have re-vegged then flowered MANY plants in my hybrid outdoor+greenhouse grow over the years :) I would personally defoliate by cutting back 40-60% of the leaves but do not touch any branch tips, maybe top her if she's looks too tall (I would not top her now). This will force a massive growth spurt of all side branches. Then switch to flower when she's big enough. I've not had a problem with hermies when doing this. The plant itself looks healthy and unstressed....just confused;)

I don't like 24x7 light, but she may switch back to flower if you cut back the light now (e.g. I prefer a veg light rotation of 18/6)....other experts can comment on this precaution.

 

[Nectarivorous]

All in all, you need more instrumentation to know what to which conditions you are subjecting your plant. You need some way to measure the pH and ppm/EC of your water, a thermometer and hygrometer to know temp and RH, and some sort of light meter to measure your lighting.

Temp and humidity is no problem. You can get all sort of gauges for less than $10.

After temp and RH meters, the easiest (cheapest) meters to buy are basic moisture and EC meters. Those 2-pronged jobs you stick in soil to measure moisture work and are about $10 usd. An EC meter is about the same price but a tiny bit tricky. You want an EC meter, but you'll get a PPM meter in there too. (Some PPM meters do not include an EC mode - don't get one of those if you can help it.)

There are two PPM scales in use - 500ppm and 700ppm. (A pen on the 500ppm scale will read 500 at the same time a 700ppm scale reads 700. ) You want the 500ppm scale as most charts assume that scale. EC is EC, but it is also 2x the PPM when using the PPM500 scale. So you can get EC easily from the right PPM meter - except they may not tell you which PPM scale they use! I have one that has 700ppm scale and EC mode too, so i just change to EC mode every time I use it. Cost of pen was $12 usd.

After that, things get expensive. There are no accurate pH pens that I know of under about $50. I use a $75 Bluelab pen, and I calibrate it. I used to use a $15 pH pen until I found it was reading about 1 point high in pH. Be very wary of cheap pH pens. And know that the tips must be kept moist (in a special solution) when not in use.

And then we come to measuring the strength of your lighting. With LED's it's impossible to make any standard predictions. You either use charts from the manufacturer that give PAR values at certain distances - but these are given for full power settings. If you have a dimmer in use, you have no idea how much light the plants are seeing without a meter. Unfortunately a good PAR meter is the most expensive of all the meters here. FIgure at least $200 for a decent PAR meter. I paid $400 for my Apogee MQ-200. But I don't have to guesstimate my PAR values, I can simply measure them anywhere in the tent and adjust lighting as needed. All other meters are attempting to estimate PAR values indirectly, with varying degrees of success. I would not trust a phone app in particular, nor the little Lumen meter on one of those cheap 3-way moisture/ph/lighting probes.

As for your nutes, you need to know what you are putting into your plants, and you need to know the characteristics of your source water. For instance, here in Phoenix my tap water EC is over 400 because of the high amount of calcium in the water. It's actually too high for seedlings, particularly if you need to add some nutrients. Not so bad later in the grow for coco, but I use RO all the time because then I control what goes into it. I add 1.9ml/gal of Calimagic since I'm a) growing in coco and b) using RO water with no cal/mag. I end up with EC around 250 at this stage just from the cal/mag. Nutes (currently) take me to around 1400, and I hold pH at 6.0. For me, it's all working beautifully.

Agree with all this except one point. If you're using a recent model iPhone, Photone is tested and established as being more accurate than many off the shelf PAR meters. More than accurate enough for the home grower. Great post though.

 

[phxazcraig]

Agree with all this except one point. If you're using a recent model iPhone, Photone is tested and established as being more accurate than many off the shelf PAR meters. More than accurate enough for the home grower. Great post though.

Good to know. I should probably do some side-by-side testing with my Galaxy S20+ with my Apogee. And I'm trading in for a new Ultra 22 in a few weeks so can check that model too.

 

[kevinfever]

sounds like it started to bud out doors due to light then started to reveg when you put under 24h , then you burnt it by feeding to much . just my thought

 

[kevinfever]

and try to keep your temp under 30

 

[Alunaone]

sounds like it started to bud out doors due to light then started to reveg when you put under 24h , then you burnt it by feeding to much . just my thought

It was probably a solid 4 weeks or more in the tent before any signs of flowering. I'm going to defoliate. Should it be done all over the plants?

 

[kevinfever]

Dont prune to much ,them leaves are like solar panels for the plant . but would get rid of the older weird growth. Just wondering but could you get new clones and start over . i mean if your just experimenting its a good learning curve , seems like a fresh start would give you a more positive experience, plus bringing out door in you could have bugs .

 

[Alunaone]

Looking much better now. The 3rd one I'm suss on re sex. Looks "spindly".

 

[Deaner]

Looks like you have powdery mildew. There's even black on the back of the leaf in the one photo.
Just an observation.

 

[Alunaone]

Looks like you have powdery mildew. There's even black on the back of the leaf in the one photo.
Just an observation.
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