Seedling deficiency? And what to do about it.

ZiggetyZagg

ZiggetyZagg

Member
These kids are 3 weeks old, plants in quart containers with roots organic and watered with r/o. They have been exhibiting little dark spots that become little crunchy brown spots. We are thinking calcium deficiency? Our solution would be, we think, to just repot them into their 7 gal pots with 30% month old supersoil and 70 roots organic. Does this sound like a correct diagnosis and solution? In the future, how do we avoid this? TIA!
 

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MustangStudFarm

MustangStudFarm

Well-Known Member
ZiggetyZagg said:
These kids are 3 weeks old, plants in quart containers with roots organic and watered with r/o. They have been exhibiting little dark spots that become little crunchy brown spots. We are thinking calcium deficiency? Our solution would be, we think, to just repot them into their 7 gal pots with 30% month old supersoil and 70 roots organic. Does this sound like a correct diagnosis and solution? In the future, how do we avoid this? TIA!
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The biggest problem that I have with seed germination is high sodium. It's hard to tell w/o a soil test. FWIW, I just mixed some homemade worm castings with 50% ProMix and I'm having great luck. I'll take some pics in a min...
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
Potting up with fresh soil and compost usually fixes a multitude of sins but it is not that easy to provide calcium in soluble form without using nutrients. It could come down to what’s in your water supply. My plants get water from a dehumidifier....30 ppm; basically distilled.
For the first year of two of organic growing I used General Organics Cal/Mag plus which is safe for living soil grows; not all brands are. Once I learned to properly lime the soil and amend with composted eggshells, oyster shell flour, and garden gypsum soluble forms of cal/mag are no longer needed.
 
BluntMoniker

BluntMoniker

Well-Known Member
Doubt you have a calcium deficiency at 3 weeks with a pre-amended mix. The greensand in the roots organic should be a good source of calcium.

Has the plant been in that soil from day 1, or was it recently transplanted?
 
ZiggetyZagg

ZiggetyZagg

Member
I thought it was a little early for deficiencies, but maybe they've burned through whatever was in the quart of roots. Our tap water is excruciatingly hard and chlorinated, so we didn't want to use that. Shouldn't the supersoil deal with calcium too, from the bonemeal?
 
Richard Drysift

Richard Drysift

Well-Known Member
Repotting should fix it; just saying you might need to source some cal/mag plus if you end up having issues down the road. Could just be overwatering too which potting up should also help.
 
FluffySquish

FluffySquish

Well-Known Member
Thanks, all. We repotted them tonight. I've never micromanaged anything this badly in my life! :wall: I'm sure grow #2 will be less stressful.
 
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BluntMoniker

BluntMoniker

Well-Known Member
ZiggetyZagg said:
It was from day 1.
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You guys didnt add any lime or oyster shell flour did you? Anything that would cause pH to fluctuate drastically?

I added lime to my mix when reading a recipe for good organic mix for my SIPs, forgot, and couldnt figure out why my plants were starting to burn up. In my head I kept saying "its organic, cant be pH".... turns out my pH was up past 8.5!

Anyway, its gotta be something more obvious than calcium deficiency. Especially because calcium is an immobile nutrient, so you would see calcium deficiency from the top down. If your plant is deficient in any way, it's likely caused by pH/lockout of some kind... too early for deficiencies in a pre-amended soil
 
FluffySquish

FluffySquish

Well-Known Member
BluntMoniker said:
You guys didnt add any lime or oyster shell flour did you? Anything that would cause pH to fluctuate drastically?

I added lime to my mix when reading a recipe for good organic mix for my SIPs, forgot, and couldnt figure out why my plants were starting to burn up. In my head I kept saying "its organic, cant be pH".... turns out my pH was up past 8.5!

Anyway, its gotta be something more obvious than calcium deficiency. Especially because calcium is an immobile nutrient, so you would see calcium deficiency from the top down. If your plant is deficient in any way, it's likely caused by pH/lockout of some kind... too early for deficiencies in a pre-amended soil
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The one plant was just more vigorous and used up all the available nutrients from the Roots Organic. I should have paid more attention to the extra thirsty plant and started the replanting earlier. Regardless the kids are in their new 7 gallon pots with a 25 - 30 % base of Super Soil and the rest filled with fresh Roots.

Our Grow Journal
 
W

waktoo

Well-Known Member
ZiggetyZagg said:
These kids are 3 weeks old, plants in quart containers with roots organic and watered with r/o. They have been exhibiting little dark spots that become little crunchy brown spots. We are thinking calcium deficiency? Our solution would be, we think, to just repot them into their 7 gal pots with 30% month old supersoil and 70 roots organic. Does this sound like a correct diagnosis and solution? In the future, how do we avoid this? TIA!
Click to expand...
Soil's too rich.

Next time, I would suggest sprouting seeds in used soil. Seedlings don't need a lot of nutrients to get started...
 
MustangStudFarm

MustangStudFarm

Well-Known Member
Seeds and clones here. The clones that have a little damage are from before we cloned them... This seed run, I was 33 for 36 germination rate...
DSC01386.JPG
 
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