Newbie mistake- soil is soilless

I feel pretty humiliated to admit that I thought I was growing in soil, only to find out its soilless. My plant has been changing colors, going to a light green to yellow, and come to find out I was misinformed on nutes, a friend said I didn't need them during veg, and now I'm paying for it. Or rather poor Planty is.

I went to my hydro store to get nutes and he asked of my medium. I told him it was the nutri plus soil he sells and he said "h that's soilless". My plant is 10" tall, third wk of veg, in a big pickle bucket (5gal?). The bigger older leaves have yellow tips and are dying, the young leaves have some light green in the middle. His instructions were to bottom feed it, and water less.

1. Should it be ok after getting some nutes? I feel kind of confused now, I'm not sure about how to move forward.

2. Did I plant this all wrong beings it's a soilless medium?

3. I was watering around every three days, which is apparently too much, how much more time btwn waterings should I give? I usually put my finger all the way in the dirt and it'll be dry, but it's droopy so obviously it's still too much water. And will bottom watering still warrant waiting 4+ days?

I wanted to start flower next week due to its height (don't want a monster) but I want it to survive so I guess I'll end up having to hold off. Will try to post a pic soon.

Soilless mixes are great for cannabis.

Its not uncommon for the very bottom most leaves to turn yellow and die as the plant takes off growing. Add some nutes and you'll be fine.

How often to water depends on how big your plant is, how absorbent your soil, the humidity in the air, and the ambient temperature. In other words, there is no set rule as to how many days. With experience you can tell how much water is left in your pot just by lifting it, and you'll know when its dry enough to need more water.

If you're worried about your plant getting too tall, you can "top" it (pinch off the top), or tie/bend the top down.

Your hydro guy sold you something with soil in the name, and didn't mention it was soil-less when you bought it? Seems shady to me. Also, I haven't ever heard of a soil-less medium that required less watering than soil. The point of soiless is higher drainage and oxygenation of roots. That's why it requires daily watering at the least, from what I've seen. I think your hydro guy is confused, or he's confusing you.

Hey man, I did the same thing once with a bag of Roots Organic... Super Embarrassing and I nearly lost my Platinum OG Kush Momma. Steps:

1. Yes Feed them with nutes. She should come back and darken up a bit. Feed slow and build the strength up. They probably are starving and more than likely have pH lockout from feeding them water with a high alkalinity to it (6.5+pH). Check the pH before you feed, especially in soilless, typically little pH buffering ability.
2. You should be fine with the way you planted it. If you are a novice grower then this will be a great time for you to learn about balancing pH and nutrient strength for plants.
3. Water starting out on the outside of the pot to force the roots to go after the water, decreases rootballing. Pick it up when you water (or weigh it) and then wait until it literally feels near bone dry. That'll ensure you don't over water.

And Top for sure, wait two weeks, throw into flower and you will be happy with the height and bushyness of the plant.

Thanks for the help everyone. I think that I'll def get a scale and weigh when dry to have an obvious number to go off of. I have considered topping, so I think I'll start reading a bit on it. If/when I do top, should I wait until its looking a little better first?

Ran downstairs and got some pics to visualize the issue.

It looks okay to top now lots of foliage don't worry it will pull through

Don't get hung up on the term.

If it comes in a bag and is peat based, it's soiless. All the Fox Farms, Roots, ProMix, Sunshine's, etc,etc,etc are soiless mixes.

Real soil (dirt), doesn't work all that well in containers. Grab a bag of top soil and fill a container with it and find out for yourself.

Just treat the soiless mixes like soil and everything will work just fine. I've been doing it for close to 40 years and there is no big mystery other than adding a liming agent to peat based mixes. After that, chems or organics is your choice.

Wet

or u can treat it like hydro and dump nutes every watering. thats what i do any ways.

Thanks for the reassurance. It's actually looking perkier today, having gave the nutes yesterday. The bottle doesn't say how often to nute, any recommendations are appreciated.

Weekly, weakly ..... works well

Wet

Wetdog said:

Don't get hung up on the term.

If it comes in a bag and is peat based, it's soiless. All the Fox Farms, Roots, ProMix, Sunshine's, etc,etc,etc are soiless mixes.

Real soil (dirt), doesn't work all that well in containers. Grab a bag of top soil and fill a container with it and find out for yourself.

Just treat the soiless mixes like soil and everything will work just fine. I've been doing it for close to 40 years and there is no big mystery other than adding a liming agent to peat based mixes. After that, chems or organics is your choice.

Wet

Click to expand...

how on earth is fox farms soiless wet? i usually agree 100% on your posts, but you kind of lost me on this one m8..

It's soiless in the sense there is no real 'dirt' in there.

You treat it like soil, or I do anyway, but technically it is a soiless mix.

It gets confusing, especially when most figure stuff like straight perlite, or hydrotron, perhaps coco (?), hydroponic mediums as soiless. Which of course they are.

Like I said, it's a technical term more than anything. In the nursery trade, you'll call it a soiless potting mix, treat it like soil, but it will be a peat/perlite/bark mixture of some sort with no dirt involved.

Clear as mud, right?

Wet