Seedlings "frozen in time"
- Thread starter tok3in
- Start date
Good questions
As always, open to feedback.
Not sure I understand what you mean about 10%. I don't have a defined way to gauge how much to water to be honest. I add water until it starts coming out the bottom and then a little more. I get a decent amount of run off. I'm going to check on them in the morning before work to see if they're drooping. Ideally, I would prefer to water every other day.
I am using 3-gallon fabric pots, Fox Farm OF soil, Big Bloom & Grow Big (low dose) for nutes. Currently on a 18/6 schedule and plan to keep it that way until harvest. At least, that's according to my limited understanding of autos. Unfortunately, I cannot tell you TDS, EC, or ppfd. I can only tell you pH and lux (meter is designed for LED lights). I'm not sure how useful lux are, but I can measure it. I just ordered an Apera GS4 meter that should be able to give me the data you're looking for. I haven't looked into a meter to measure ppfd.
Yes, I neglected to mention that in my last reply, but I noticed the clawing as well. According to Pulse, the temps have averaged 75.8 F over the last week, with an average humidity of 56.8. They were dehydrated a couple of days. I'm not sure heat is the only issue though, but rather light stress as well. You asked prior about how intense my lights are going. Well, I had turned them up to 70% (600W LED) a few days ago and I believe that's when the issue started. I have since turned lights back to 50% and raised them from 24" to 28". Not sure if that was too little or too much of an adjustment, but I wanted to try and give them a break from being tortured the last couple of days. Whether the lux meter's actual reading is accurate or not I can't say, but it seemed like the two plants exhibiting the worst clawing were getting more light than the other two. I'm curious how they respond to the changes in lighting.
As always, open to feedback.
So a little bit of run off is okay but a lot technically isn't that great. When you water and you get significant run off you're literally washing the grow medium of any nutes you give plus you also run the risk of dampening off which is also bad. The only time you should be watering to significant run off is when you get nute lockout and need to flush. For 3 gallon grow bags(which I'm assuming the grow bags are pretty full) you should be watering about a little less than half a gallon per plant every other day. Also low dosing nutes..? I would recommend the normal feeding schedule that FF recommends for soil per gallon.
All is going fairly well. I'm still trying to find my rhythm with the watering but they aren't dead yet lol...
Regarding the nutes, I have read that OF soil is rich and to be wary of FF's feeding schedule when it comes to cannabis. I'm afraid I'll burn them, so I'm starting off small but will ramp up with the next feeding on Sunday because they're really starting to take off.
The pH meter arrived and I can now measure EC and ppm, but I've heard ppm can be problematic (500 vs 700?) and to focus on EC instead. From my limited understanding, EC tells you how much dissolved salts are in a solution. I'm assuming the higher the number, the more concentrated it is.
I'd like to see some pictures of your plants. And you are correct Ocean forest is pretty nute heavy however after about 3 weeks your plants have pretty much consumed the bulk of the nutrients and with you heading into flower (since auto's start flowering during week 4) you're going to need it.
Now concerning TDS vs EC. Total Dissolved Solids is the amount of solids in your water. When you're working with RO water (reverse osmosis) TDS doesn't matter as much but I'm assuming you're already using water that has some solids which in a high enough amount you can actually create nutrient lockout if you give water with high TDS content, add a bunch of fert and then add calmag to that mix. Your plants wont be able to uptake nutrients and your plants will suffer greatly. EC is Electrical conductivity and is the amount of dissolved minerals in your water which is pretty similar to TDS but EC is far more accurate in hydroponics than it is in soil grows. In your case I would use both but take a sample with just water (ph, TDS, EC) so you have a baseline and then one with nutes. (try to target 6.5 ph and at MOST 850 TDS).
Now concerning TDS vs EC. Total Dissolved Solids is the amount of solids in your water. When you're working with RO water (reverse osmosis) TDS doesn't matter as much but I'm assuming you're already using water that has some solids which in a high enough amount you can actually create nutrient lockout if you give water with high TDS content, add a bunch of fert and then add calmag to that mix. Your plants wont be able to uptake nutrients and your plants will suffer greatly. EC is Electrical conductivity and is the amount of dissolved minerals in your water which is pretty similar to TDS but EC is far more accurate in hydroponics than it is in soil grows. In your case I would use both but take a sample with just water (ph, TDS, EC) so you have a baseline and then one with nutes. (try to target 6.5 ph and at MOST 850 TDS).
Thank you for the explanation. You are correct in that I am in early flower it would appear. It crept up on me to be honest. I've given them a good feeding yesterday (pH 6.3, EC 2.3) nitrogen and phosphorus. There does not appear to be any signs of nute burn either thankfully, which I was worried about. This is what they look like after a day and half without water, sad no?
They've perked back up since the feeding. The tallest one, however, is kind pale and I'm afraid is nitrogen deprived. Not surprising given the fact I was starving them. She also has one of her leaves that look like this, which I'm sure is a deficiency of some kind:
Over the last 24 hours, temp averaged 72.2 F & 62% humidity.
They still look a little brittle but better than they have been for sure. And yeah that does look like deficiency. Which is pretty bad this early but let's hope they work out of it. So far so good.