For a couple of weeks now I've been pouring over all of the plant problem troubleshooters to try and figure out why my babies are steadily starting to die. With the exception of certain maladies, the symptoms are undifferentiable. So, please, if anyone knows what's happening, there isn't much time left. Below is what I've got and what I've tried to do to fix it.
Bag seed from mids in 7cm clay pots.
MG Organic Choice Soil (N 0.1, P 0.05, K 0.05)
Blue Mountain Organics Ferts (Mix to spec in 1gal carbon filt./Ozonated water)
-Grow it Green (5,2,5)
-Super Plant Tonic (micro beasties)
Under two, 4' 32W Phillips cool white fluoros; set within an inch of tops. 18on/6off.
Room temps run from low to high 70'sF.
Ceiling fan on low speed, reverse rotation 24hrs.
Using ferts once a week and ultra pure bottled water (Penta) every other day as soil dries out.
Ok, so the Penta may be a little overkill, but I needed to make sure I wasn't adding anything that shouldn't be there; and nothing's too good for my babies. Anyway, they're about a month old and anywhere from 2"-6" tall now and from the bottom up on all of them the lower leaves are turning pale yellow starting from the tips and moving toward the stems. Three of the six have tips steadily turning brown and curling upward before dying. The browning starts as blackish or dark grey spotting. All of the stems are red/purple in the region of the leaf nodes.
The various deficiency guides led me to believe that I wasn't fertilising at all because these signs apparently represent NPK shortages in general. WTF am I supposed to do with that when I know that I'm ferting with 5-2-5? The next possibility seemed to be a Mg deficiency, so I followed the guides, which vary anywhere from .25tsp/gal to 1tblsp/gal Epsom! Erring on the side of too little I went with .25tsp/gal and amended at the next watering. No change, still dying. I kept researching and it seemed like it could be Ph lockout, so I ran out and bought a simple soil Ph meter and I'm at about 6.5 which is splendid by most standards.
The tops are lush and perfect although growing at a much slower rate than what I've experienced in the past. I'll post pics soon as I get my camera back. Thanks and much kudos for any insight you may have to offer.
X
Bag seed from mids in 7cm clay pots.
MG Organic Choice Soil (N 0.1, P 0.05, K 0.05)
Blue Mountain Organics Ferts (Mix to spec in 1gal carbon filt./Ozonated water)
-Grow it Green (5,2,5)
-Super Plant Tonic (micro beasties)
Under two, 4' 32W Phillips cool white fluoros; set within an inch of tops. 18on/6off.
Room temps run from low to high 70'sF.
Ceiling fan on low speed, reverse rotation 24hrs.
Using ferts once a week and ultra pure bottled water (Penta) every other day as soil dries out.
Ok, so the Penta may be a little overkill, but I needed to make sure I wasn't adding anything that shouldn't be there; and nothing's too good for my babies. Anyway, they're about a month old and anywhere from 2"-6" tall now and from the bottom up on all of them the lower leaves are turning pale yellow starting from the tips and moving toward the stems. Three of the six have tips steadily turning brown and curling upward before dying. The browning starts as blackish or dark grey spotting. All of the stems are red/purple in the region of the leaf nodes.
The various deficiency guides led me to believe that I wasn't fertilising at all because these signs apparently represent NPK shortages in general. WTF am I supposed to do with that when I know that I'm ferting with 5-2-5? The next possibility seemed to be a Mg deficiency, so I followed the guides, which vary anywhere from .25tsp/gal to 1tblsp/gal Epsom! Erring on the side of too little I went with .25tsp/gal and amended at the next watering. No change, still dying. I kept researching and it seemed like it could be Ph lockout, so I ran out and bought a simple soil Ph meter and I'm at about 6.5 which is splendid by most standards.
The tops are lush and perfect although growing at a much slower rate than what I've experienced in the past. I'll post pics soon as I get my camera back. Thanks and much kudos for any insight you may have to offer.
X
