Day 51...
I'm still worried that the plants are way too yellow. I've been doing some research, a bit of thinking and some experiments. I have ordered a proper soil test kit but for now I have used 2 different pool ph kits.
I tested the tap water with my pool ph drops - 7.6
I bought another kit and tested it with a strip - 6.8
Confusing. Anyway, the water may be okay since I did some more tests.
I added the amgrow seaweed fertilizer I used before to some tap water - the ph is off the scale - way below 6.2, if I had to guess I'd say around 5.0. This is not good.
I was trying to get some distilled water but they only had demineralized water - ph tested at 6.2
I added some cheap miracle grow chemical fertilizer to the tap water - ph 6.0
I also bought another organic Nitrosol fertilizer (fish, blood & bone, seaweed, 24 nutrients) - ph 6.2 with tap water.
I also tried mixing some soil with demineralized water and measuring the ph was less than 6.2.
I tried the soil that the white widows are in (which are growing better) - ph 6.4
Chlorine doesn't register with either pool kit, so that is a good sign. Nothing to worry about.
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Conclusions....
My first lot of soil may not be very good. The new lowryder seeds are in this and are starting to go light green with stunted growth. (Indicating low nitrogen, not magnesium due to the way they are yellowing from the tips first and there are no green veins like magnesium would show).
I did manage to get nitrogen toxicity with the granule fertilizer I used ages ago (2 plants went very green then became all deformed).
My next conclusion is the amgrow seaweed fertilizer is dropping the ph way down so is then locking out the nitrogen. The other common ways for nitrogen to be locked out are water logged soil and low organic matter - neither are a problem.
The problem with the fertilizer idea is that the new lowryder sprouts never had any of this, so it must point to mainly a soil issue.
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What to do....
I flushed the 2 cabbage looking ones with a few litres of tap water - they have had plenty of nitrogen.
I gave the 2 females the new organic nitrosol fertilizer (High N). I gave them a thorough soaking so hopefully they respond to this and the ph comes up a bit compared to the other stuff I was using.
I gave the male a dose of cheap miracle grow all round fertilizer. It doesn't really matter if it gets burned now or is not fit for human consumption.
I did an experiment with the lowryder spouts - top one got demineralized water, middle one got some nitrosol, bottom on just tap water.
Hopefully something will happen with my experiments. I'm certain they are nitrogen deficient - stunted growth, yellow leaves. I suspect it's the ph of the soil causing this. The experiment should show some results.
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Here's the pics:
The male showing off his nuts.
The healthiest one, can't call it healthy, it's quite yellow. But it's female!
The other female.
Cabbage #1 - still growing
Cabbage #2 - growing in seed raising mixture. Hasn't been repotted.
Lowryder sprout - about 2 weeks old and stunted. Leaves are light green now
White widow - the stalk is a bit thin, but the leaves are so much bigger than the lowryder sprouts that were started much earlier than them. Must be the soil, could possibly be the strain but I doubt it.
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Camera tip: Something I learned today - If you have an aperature setting on your camera, set it really low. It will help bring more things into focus. And use the Macro setting (normally a flower mode).