Help/Advice Needed Please

Distortionist said:

I've read their literature and called their support. I've never seen someone mention 1/4 strength but I'm glad you mentioned it. I've been nervous and my gut feeling was telling me even 1/2 is too much so I've dropped it to about 1/3. On Monday I will check out my roots. I'm terrified of root rot.

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Autoflowers don't have a schedule, yet I suppose, so most of the stuff start at 1/4 strength. The full dose on the bottles is for full grown larger beast plants kind of thing.

PissingNutes said:

Autoflowers don't have a schedule, yet I suppose, so most of the stuff start at 1/4 strength. The full dose on the bottles is for full grown larger beast plants kind of thing.

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I had very low humidity, that's another thing about nutes with big claims it's hard to compare apples to apples when it comes to growing style/techniques and strains. But it's simple to use and last a while, easy to add on to your recipes.

Distortionist said:

I've read their literature and called their support. I've never seen someone mention 1/4 strength but I'm glad you mentioned it. I've been nervous and my gut feeling was telling me even 1/2 is too much so I've dropped it to about 1/3. On Monday I will check out my roots. I'm terrified of root rot.

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I used 1/10 the strength to start off with. I have increased to 1/4 strength now.
Normally when I run DWC, I am really able to feed the girls what they want by adjusting the ppm of res as they uptake nutrients.
However, this time around is the first time trying 6 plants in one res.

This appears to be a little issue, as not all the plants rooted together, and not all the plants are up taking the same amount of nutrients forsure.

My ladies are about 24” tall. With Scrog, and one of them is still about 8”. I may chop it out here soon if it doesn’t take off.

Point is, I think all strains and even phenos want slightly different things.

After all the plants were rooted and still showing deficiencies, even though the ppm was steady. I decided to raise the ppm to 300. From here the plants still show deficiencies, and the ppm has began to rise up to 340 within 5 days.

I’ve ran around 10 runs of this Sensi grow A&B and never had any issues like above.

i am really beginning to think the clones from the dispensary had some mold inside the Rockwool and that is the Grey matter I was seeing.

I didn’t do a res change. As I’ve learned my lesson in the past, that sometimes you get too anxious. I’ve found that un-needed amounts of res changes just stress the plants. Don’t get me wrong, I still change the res.But it isn’t my go to now. I know my res conditions are good.

I added 3ml per gallon of 35% H202 for 3 days straight, and then added 1ml per gallon which I will continue for a few days.

So far though, all the roots lost their grey sections. They are all looking pretty white again.
But my ladies still do not look too happy. Growing, but not as I would of hoped.

Also, this is my first LED grow, using a Growers Choice ROI720.

I started out at 25% power, and just before all these issues started maybe 1-2 days before the Grey roots appeared. I had increased the light intensity to 50%.
I apologize for leaving this info out originally.

The room is not hot, but maybe the lights are too intense.?

I am not sure about your specific food but with my AN organic line PPM is all over. Its not a reliable way of measuring the food content i don't find, unlike GH trio, where it is very reliable. I am slowly getting a feel for when to feed and how much but i am still experimenting and learning.

Distortionist said:

I am not sure about your specific food but with my AN organic line PPM is all over. Its not a reliable way of measuring the food content i don't find, unlike GH trio, where it is very reliable. I am slowly getting a feel for when to feed and how much but i am still experimenting and learning.

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I’ve honestly never had PPM fluctuations like this currently , But the more I really analyze everything, I’m starting to think maybe it’s the 6 ladies in one res? I’m mean theoretically it should not matter. But I really don’t know.

I’m really thinking it’s between these options here

1) Clones were purchased with existing mold issues in Rockwool. (I should have inspected)

2) 6 clones in one res. All rooting at different times and growing at different paces, some almost 2-3x bigger than others. I’d assume nutrient requirements and conditions would be different between these different sized plants.

3) My BlueLab Guardian meter is not reading correctly. I am going to take it out and calibrate it again. It was brand new for this grow, and I calibrated it at the start. But I will definitely do this again tomorrow.

4)My climate sensor is off and the area is getting too hot. I will cross reference my TrolMaster with another sensor.

5) Light intensity too high at 1000 umol?

6) I started training and stressing the plants too early ? I normally wait until the 4th node, and did so this time as well. As with the grow, I had 2 of the 6 ladies growing much much faster than the others, almost double the size of the rest, so instead of LST at the 4th node, I topped the taller plants so that the smaller plants had some time to catch up. After a few days 4 of the 6 were nearly the same height, so I tied the 4 of 6 Down LsT, so that the 2 smaller ones could catch up.
We are 3 weeks in and the 2 small ones are not much larger than when they started. Maybe have grown an 2-3”. The roots are growing though. But not much growth on the plant.

7) 3” net pots?

Water line too high? Maybe fully saturating the rockwool cube?



What else ? I’m at a loss. Please help me out. I’ve never lost a crop. I guess there’s a good time for everything, better now than 8 weeks into flower. However I would still really like to not kill anything

Another update, the roots are looking much better.
But the plants not so much. A lot of the leaves are drooping, and wrinkled. A lot of rust spots and lime green and yellowing leaves.
This strain is killing me. Should have known anything named WiFi would be unreliable lol.

The PPM is slowly rising about 10 points per day.

PH stable at 5.7

Water temp never above 67f since root Issue.

Room temp never above 80f

Humidity on the low end between30-40%

light intensity at 50% which is about 1000 umol. Approx.

Re-calibrate more often and make sure to rinse it with RO water after every use.

PissingNutes said:

Re-calibrate more often and make sure to rinse it with RO water after every use.

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The probes are in the res 24/7.

According to BlueLab, you do not need to calibrate the Temp and Conductivity probe. Only the PH probe. But there is LED indicators on the monitor indicating when calibration is due. Which is every 30 days.

I can do it every 2 weeks if needed no problem. But my last guardian I only calibrated once before every grow.

stressful

Please see attached photos. I appreciate everyone’s patience with all my photos and long posts.

I’m just trying to provide as much detail and Info as possible so that I can hopefully get this figured out, and help out anyone else who encounters a similar issue in the future.

Trade it in for this

I think I found the issue, the rockwool cubes are soaking wet. I mean soaking wet.
I pulled the smallest plant out the inspect stem and root base.
No sign of rot or mold.
But I could squeeze out tons of water from the cube.

I raised water line at first sign of grey roots.

no growth at all in the last 4 days, almost all the leaves are wrinkling and curling downward.

I removed 5 gallons of watered to lower water level back to about3-4” below net pots.

PPM: 290
PH: 5.7
Temp: 68

if growth does not begin with 3 more days, I will be sadly removing these ladies and starting over.

I also have a ton of floating roots that have stuck on the water level of res line, and floating throughout the res as well.

The roots pull apart extremely easy. I only need half a pinkie.


Classic Signs or root rot.
But does mold cause similar symptoms?

This is basically where I am at, tell me if you think I am wrong please.

Rockwool sucks.

Water line was too high originally when the clones were first placed in the system, overly saturating the rockwool cubes with liquid.

The overly saturated rockwool cubes allowed the plants to divert less energy to root growth, and actually ended up suffocating the plants.

After the initial water level about 1” below net pots,

Once roots had clearly established, I lowered the water level to about 3” below. I then saw Grey root which may be mold from the overly saturated cubes?

Immediately raising the water line back to the 1”, (thinking the grey was caused by too large of an air gap) therefore restarting the problem all over again.

By Maintaining the water level at 1” for about a week.
I Essentially suffocated these plants slowly.

Another observation, it appears that leaves are dying at about the same rate they are growing. New nodes do grow, but the leaves stay pretty small. While the older ones continue to gradually die.

Maybe leaving the rockwool cube saturated in this nature allows the plant to merely survive its current state. Not growing bigger, not getting smaller lol, just growing and dying at the same pace.
It doesn’t need to work for its food, it’s deprived of most oxygen since it’s so saturated. It’s just slowly dying.

What can I do next time to avoid this??

I appreciate all the responses, but I honestly do not think my nutrients are the culprit here. As I’ve used them many times before with excellent results.

If there is anything I can do to help narrow this down, please let me know.

I apologize again for the long posts.

OhmBuddha said:

This is basically where I am at, tell me if you think I am wrong please.

Rockwool sucks.

Water line was too high originally when the clones were first placed in the system, overly saturating the rockwool cubes with liquid.

The overly saturated rockwool cubes allowed the plants to divert less energy to root growth, and actually ended up suffocating the plants.

After the initial water level about 1” below net pots,

Once roots had clearly established, I lowered the water level to about 3” below. I then saw Grey root which may be mold from the overly saturated cubes?

Immediately raising the water line back to the 1”, (thinking the grey was caused by too large of an air gap) therefore restarting the problem all over again.

By Maintaining the water level at 1” for about a week.
I Essentially suffocated these plants slowly.

Another observation, it appears that leaves are dying at about the same rate they are growing. New nodes do grow, but the leaves stay pretty small. While the older ones continue to gradually die.

Maybe leaving the rockwool cube saturated in this nature allows the plant to merely survive its current state. Not growing bigger, not getting smaller lol, just growing and dying at the same pace.
It doesn’t need to work for its food, it’s deprived of most oxygen since it’s so saturated. It’s just slowly dying.

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From what I understand you have all the sensor gear up and running before learning about how to operate a rockwool cube?

Grodan website has good information on how to use those rockwool cubes.
Or Promix learning center to really get growing.

Pictures of the lady I pulled today.

When I ripped the rockwool cube open it also split the base of the stem very easily.
This is what you see here

PissingNutes said:

From what I understand you have all the sensor gear up and running before learning about how to operate a rockwool cube?

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Thanx for taking the time to respond again.

That may be the case, however this wasn’t intentional. I’ve read hours upon hours of literature on cannabis plants.

I’ve harvested multiple beautiful crops using nearly identical methods for each.

If I had known the rockwool cubes were soaked, I would have surely moved the water line.

Current condition. Removed all completely dead leaves.

I think you'll be okay now that you know what went wrong. Its not your nutrients. I use the same thing and have no major issues.

Main focus for me was ensuring to actually rinse the hydroton well until water runs clear, the dust from it could have caused the red ring around the top of your res, maybe not.

Prepare just a small amount of ph'd water with low concentration nutes in the res and soak the rockwool for several hours. Not just 30 minutes. Shake the excess moisture out being careful not to squeeze or compress the rockwool ever. Place rockwool on top of 3-4 layers of hydroton.

Check moisture daily. Wait until almost dry then top feed/water until a root appears making sure to only dampen the rockwool. For cuttings make sure humidity is high 90%. When the root(s) appear, drop humidity to 45-55% and raise the res up to 3 inches from the netpot for seven days just to encourage it to grow. The root does not have to be touching the water. Especially with all the wonderful bubbles I see in your res. After the 7 days is up, I do a res change and only fill the res 3/5 of the way up.

I relied heavily on AN to regulate my PH and ran into some problems with my picky Gelato. PH starts at 5.8, but rests at 6.3 after just a day for me.
It doesn't drift at all for the rest of the week whether I use distilled or tap. So now I drop it down to my desired level in the morning and let it drift up the rest of the day. Although it does keep ph between 5.8 and 6.5 I found:
that my seedlings/cuttings would have faired better at 5.5 to 5.7
Now that they are growing more I ph at 5.8
As I transition into flower 5.9
During early flower 6.0-6.3
and during late flower around 6.4