First time grower. 8 weeks Veg

[LoganGP]

You could have either problem, the droopyness of the leaves is a symptom of both over and under watering. You could also have root death from either problem, since if you wait too long to water to the point where the peat becomes rock hard, sometimes it will not absorb water again, and you can end up with dry spots where the roots die from lack of water even though you are watering and it looks like root rot but there is no rotting going on.

Big blotchy dead spots on the leaves means big dead areas in the roots. Plants are just a series of tubes, and they're kind of random where they attach to the upper part of the plant, so the parts that die up top are pretty random once a section of root dies.

Ok thanks for the info. Maybe should I cut the sides open on one and inspect the roots and medium? Then I’ll pot up to a 10g fabric or is this to risky?

 

[LoganGP]

I think you’ve got a bit of a medium problem but I would flush and water even lower, 300 ppm if it’s every 2 days, until they’re back to normal. I’d also try a bit lower pH. Do you have a recent runoff PPM?

the runoff is around 6.4 ph and 1.5ec

 

[LarsVegasNirvana]

Aside from your media problem, you might want to top those or supercrop them or something to work on your canopy management. Right now it's very uneven and you can grow them as christmas trees but spending a little more time in veg to even things out into a nice flat canopy or even a scrog would pay off in your final yield down the road. If you don't put up a trellis net you're going to have to use bamboo stakes to keep them from flopping over. Or you could just start with a higher plant count of smaller plants to even it out that way.

 

[LarsVegasNirvana]

Ok thanks for the info. Maybe should I cut the sides open on one and inspect the roots and medium? Then I’ll pot up to a 10g fabric or is this to risky?

Just focus on watering the right amount and the right frequency and add some beneficial bacteria. There's really not much else you can do about root rot.

 

[LoganGP]

Aside from your media problem, you might want to top those or supercrop them or something to work on your canopy management. Right now it's very uneven and you can grow them as christmas trees but spending a little more time in veg to even things out into a nice flat canopy or even a scrog would pay off in your final yield down the road. If you don't put up a trellis net you're going to have to use bamboo stakes to keep them from flopping over. Or you could just start with a higher plant count of smaller plants to even it out that way.

I’ve been tying the flower sites down with wire low stress and opened them up quite a bit. The tallest one now is 36” from top of soil. How much would be best to take off the top?

 

[nicklivenn]

If you decide to transplant I would highly recommend using Canna Terra as your growing medium, especially if you’re using heavy nutes.

 

[LoganGP]

Just focus on watering the right amount and the right frequency and add some beneficial bacteria. There's really not much else you can do about root rot.

Ok cool. I’ll pick up some today. When I water do you think it’s a good idea in this instance to let the pots sit in the runoff for like an hour to soak up and saturate the medium more to avoid dry spots? Rather than just letting it runoff through the grating

 

[LoganGP]

I should also mention that the top of the medium is so dense that I can’t even really poke my finger in. There’s lots of little roots near surface too. I’m kinda getting worried. This one is in a 10g fabric pot.

 

[LarsVegasNirvana]

Ok cool. I’ll pick up some today. When I water do you think it’s a good idea in this instance to let the pots sit in the runoff for like an hour to soak up and saturate the medium more to avoid dry spots? Rather than just letting it runoff through the grating

Yes that's totally fine. Just put them back on the grating for the next watering. You also might want to try watering slower if you're hand watering, since pouring water too fast can cause it to run down the sides of the pot and completely miss the bottom. A slow drip emitter on a timer is also a good way to get even moisture.

 

[LarsVegasNirvana]

I’ve been tying the flower sites down with wire low stress and opened them up quite a bit. The tallest one now is 36” from top of soil. How much would be best to take off the top?

Supercrop the top branch so it's growing horizontally at the same level as the other tops. Each node in the bent-over portion will grow it's own top, as long as you're not in flower yet. The idea is to make all the lower branches think they're the new top since they're all at about the same level as the bend you made in the top. If it breaks off it's no big deal, but try to save it by taping it back together if you mess up. It'll likely heal.

From the looks of it you have lots of extra space in your room, so spending a couple more weeks vegging and trying to fill an even canopy will have a large impact on your final yield. Especially with this LED style of growing where most of your efficiency comes from having all of your tops within 12-14 inches from the lights. You can't do that with a 24" cola sticking out of the top of the plant.

Here's a youtube grower you should check out if you haven't already. He's growing in a room similar to yours. Here is a video where he talks about building a canopy:

If you watch some of his other videos you'll see the nice even canopy it creates.

 

[LarsVegasNirvana]

I should also mention that the top of the medium is so dense that I can’t even really poke my finger in. There’s lots of little roots near surface too. I’m kinda getting worried. This one is in a 10g fabric pot.

Do you have a veg tent? You should not be overly concerned about plants that you're not even flowering yet. If that happened to me I would throw it away and pull another plant out of my perpetual veg tent to replace it. Or better yet just leave it in the flower room since you have enough room to add more plants already. It's not that unhealthy, and if you stop over-watering it it'll probably do ok.

 

[LarsVegasNirvana]

Also, a 10g pot in veg is probably how you ended up over-watering. The plant's roots aren't big enough to fill that space yet, so the plant has no ability to pull all that water out of all that soil. It just gets wetter and wetter the more you water it. Aim for 1 foot of plant height per gallon of soil.

 

[LoganGP]

Also, a 10g pot in veg is probably how you ended up over-watering. The plant's roots aren't big enough to fill that space yet, so the plant has no ability to pull all that water out of all that soil. It just gets wetter and wetter the more you water it. Aim for 1 foot of plant height per gallon of soil.

Ok sounds great. Thanks for all the information. I’ll read it all over a few times here and process it. Haha. All what your saying is making sense. Yes I have a Veg tent that I have clones in right now. Again thanks for the info this is all new to me and a big learning experience.

 

[LarsVegasNirvana]

Ok sounds great. Thanks for all the information. I’ll read it all over a few times here and process it. Haha. All what your saying is making sense. Yes I have a Veg tent that I have clones in right now. Again thanks for the info this is all new to me and a big learning experience.

You're doing great. I had the exact same problem on my first grow, only worse. I ended up actually washing all the soil off the roots and replacing it. I didn't have a veg room so I literally had nothing else to do with my time. Every grow since then I've had a veg first motto. I grow lots of extra veg plants just to have as backups that I throw away or give to friends. I veg in little 4" rockwool cubes so it doesn't take up much space at all.

 

[LarsVegasNirvana]

This stuff is more geared towards soil than hydrogaurd, and it's cheaper: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00VXQG23O/

 

[LoganGP]

So I used a large screw driver yesterday to break up the medium. I inserted the screw driver from top and pushed down into the medium 15x to allow the water to absorb and possibly break up the salt build up. The plants did take and hold 30% more. There was definitely and issue with the medium. I started thinking if this dense medium is a result of the negative air pressure on the grow house. I know my foam insulation on interior does get sucked in when the exhaust fans turn on as they are a bit more powerful than my intake. I may reduce the negative pressure with more intake fan pressure to reduce this effect. Hopefully I didn’t do to much damage to the roots when aerating the soil.

 

[LarsVegasNirvana]

So I used a large screw driver yesterday to break up the medium. I inserted the screw driver from top and pushed down into the medium 15x to allow the water to absorb and possibly break up the salt build up. The plants did take and hold 30% more. There was definitely and issue with the medium. I started thinking if this dense medium is a result of the negative air pressure on the grow house. I know my foam insulation on interior does get sucked in when the exhaust fans turn on as they are a bit more powerful than my intake. I may reduce the negative pressure with more intake fan pressure to reduce this effect. Hopefully I didn’t do to much damage to the roots when aerating the soil.

Compaction happens to all soil, and it's just a byproduct of watering. The more you water, the more it happens. The best solution is to put stuff in there that can't compress, like a shitload of perlite. I put 50% perlite in my mothers, since they have to live in the same tiny pot for months on end.

Since it looks like you're prone to overwater, you might want to consider coco coir. It's basically impossible to overwater without serious automation. The only drawback is it's more dangerous if you underwater.

The screwdriver is a good idea. You can just stick it down into the soil and it will produce an air pocket so the soil at the bottom can get oxygen and dry out. Root rot is from anaerobic microorganisms and too much moisture displacing the air. Just be careful not to go overboard and damage too many roots. It's just like the top of the plant. A little root pruning is fine and produces bushier roots, but too much stresses the plant. You can go ahead and take some leaves off the top of the plant at the same time to help balance the biomass above and below the soil.

 

[LarsVegasNirvana]

You shouldn't aim for runoff every time you water after that first soaking. Just make sure it doesn't dry out completely and then only water as much as is needed so the pot is light by the end of the day. If it's still heavy water less next time. Plants can handle the salt stress of no runoff for quite some time. I've done entire grows with promix without any runoff ever, just sitting in the saucers. Overwatering is a much worse problem than salt stress, at least in soil/promix. Err on the side of underwatering, especially in those massive pots.

 

[LoganGP]

Ok very good information thanks. I’ll shoot to not water as much as you mention. For some reason I had in my head that there needs to be around 20% runoff. I’ll just do little bits a day rather than waiting 2 days till very dry and then drowning it.

 

[LoganGP]

I did some trimming on the bottom 1/3 of plants today. This was the first time I’ve done it to these girls. Accidentally broke two major stems off. Hope these breaks don’t hurt it. Also picked up the growers bible yesterday!