A Wee Problem...

So, my plants are about a month and a week old. I have five females, three white widows, one crystal and one ICE. Roughly about three weeks ago I began to notice some yellowing on the leaves and I thought nothing of it. It's progressively begun to get worse. At this point, the lower leaves on some plants have turned a bright yellow and become very dry and crunchy. Higher up there are what looks to be the beginning of this starting on a few leaves. I'm very worried about my ladies.

I am growing in Fox Farm Ocean Forest potting soil, I am using Fox Farm Grow Big veg nut's and I have them under a 1000 watt HPS. I use distilled water as the medium and flush with just distilled water maybe once or twice every two weeks. I'm also doing LST if that matters.

Any help would be appreciated.

Hey man, I like your choice of strains.

One question: You said you're using fox farm veg nutes, when did you start using them? You said the plants were about 5 weeks old?

I use Fox Farm Ocean Forest as well, love the soil, it seems like it's the key to my amazing female to male ratio (I've had one male out of the 25 plants I've grown from seed so far).

I usually don't even bother feeding my plants in FFOF when they're vegging until about 6 weeks into the cycle, at the bare minimum.

What's the PH of the water you use and how often do you water?
I think your PH is off and your over watering.

Well, I started using nut's about two weeks in and that was only half strength. A week later I bumped it to full strength.

Unfortunately, I'm strapped for cash right now so I thought if I bought distilled water I could get away with not pHing. Guess I was wrong. I'll spring for a tester. I water whenever the soil is dry about three inches down. I use a gallon of water for all five about once every day and a half. The soil by then is bone dry and the plants begin to wilt.

Thanks!

Try not to let them wilt as often. I can't say I've never had my plants wilt, because they have, but just try to catch it before it starts to wilt. There's nothing scarier then coming into your tent and seeing all the leaves on a plant completely sagging and even the top of the plant being bent over (yes I had this happen to me, scary).

To be honest, I have a pH meter but it sucks ass, it always says 7, and I know that's not right all the time. It's like an idiot meter, what a waste of $10 or however much it costs.

I don't check my pH, I never really have, I grow in soil. I should probably check it but I figure if my plants look healthy, they're growing fine, why fix what isn't broken? I'm sure in the next few months I'll invest in a decent pH meter and start monitoring that but for now I have too much other grow related crap to worry about to be buying pH up and down and meters.

Oh and, lay off on the nutes so early in the life cycle, especially since you're already FFOF. Your plants should be the ones telling you when they're hungry, trust me, you'll know. But I figure that as long as they're growing healthy and what not, I don't see a need to feed them. 4-6 weeks is usually when I start looking into feeding, and even then I do like half the strength per gallon, if that.

Thanks! I'll be sure to grab a meter ASAP just to be sure and I'll cut down on the nut's so early. My next grow will be when I begin renting a house and have a basement so I'm going hydro to give it a try. I'll definitely need a meter then.

I've had them wilt once, this was yesterday. I thought I'd water every two days to be sure I wasn't over watering and they dried up for sure.

Thanks again, doesn't seem to be anything too serious I guess. Just a bit of over feeding? I'll flush 'em more often as well.

Yeah, it doesn't look too serious at all. You're doing fine so far.

I had a buddy that refused to invest the time into a plant I had started for him then sold him (for a cheap ass price too). I kept telling him to call me because I'd give him a little bit of my veg nutes so he could feed it. Week 4 came, he complained about yellowing leaves working their way up the plant. I kept saying to call me and stop by so I could give him the plant food. Did he listen? Nope. He went out like an asshole, bought Miracle Gro nutes, and I seriously called this part from a mile away, no, scratch that, let's make it 2 miles away. He figured "oh since I have gotten behind on feeding it, I'll just ignore the instructions and feed it a shit load more to make up for the lost time." This pissed me off so badly because I told him at least 5 times to contact me before he was going to feed it. His plant dried up, yellowed, and died within 5 hours of what his buddy described as "dumping the nutrients right into the soil."

When I went to bitch him out about it, his excuse was "not everybody has your green thumb dude!!" Green thumb my ass, I just read up on shit, and READ THE INSTRUCTIONS. I can't tell you how many people want YOU to help them rather then them doing all of the hard work, reading up on things, and even reading the instructions. How about that? What a novel idea, reading instructions, who would've ever thought. Haha.

Anyway, just thought I'd share that story with you to prove that you're doing fine, just a common newbie mistake. Don't hesitate to post other questions on here, and it doesn't hurt to search on here or even google for questions you may have. That's what I did for the first 6 months of my growing "career". These guys on RIU are awesome, they'll take care of you.

Yeah a guy I work with used to grow, or he says so anyway. I had originally planted eight but had to get rid of two due to space constraints and he said he'd take care of them. I thought I had found them a good home, it was a crystal and white widow. I find out now that they are pretty much wilted up, still only like 5 inches in height and he takes them out of his pitch black garage for a few hours into the sun occasionally.

Needless to say, I want my baby's back.

Ever find yourself feeling very sorry and somewhat irritated for others mistreatment of their plants?

evoman88 said:

Ever find yourself feeling very sorry and somewhat irritated for others mistreatment of their plants?

Click to expand...

Absolutely, but that's their problem. People think you just pull all this shit out of your ass, but you don't. I didn't just wake up one day and know all this stuff about growing. I seriously spent hours, no, days, locked in this bedroom staring at computer screens searching for all kinds of information. The best thing you can possibly do is read through journals and learn new things. I'm always building upon my knowledge in hopes of bettering my operation.

I've even been pissed at myself for doing stupid things with my grows, even when in the back of my head I'm telling myself what to do, I'll still go and muff things up. It's all part of learning and perfecting everything. Don't even think for a minute that guys like Al or FDD started as perfect growers, everybody starts out somehow, and that's how newbies become weed baron's. haha.

Hell if it weren't for those 2 guys, I would probably be lost in some aspects.