3rd grow going poorly please help

step fathers younger ones on the left my sad looking ones on the right. Same seeds same water and nutes different soil

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I don’t see a very drastic difference between the two (could be phenotypes), could be the angle and lighting though. I will say that they do look small for their ages. Nutrients shouldn’t have had that big of an effect.. Here’s my most recent grow with the plants at 9-12 days from sprout. They’ve been given no nutrients and are in a seedling mix soil (cut with 30% perlite, should’ve done 25) with very low nutrient value to trigger myco symbiosis



I think you’re having a compaction issue, oxygen issue, as well as watering issues. You can see my plants at 9 days are much larger, and healthier with zero nutrients given. Your mediums look dryish, too low on aeration, and a bit cakey. All of this adds up to having struggling plants like you’re seeing. I think your soil may benefit from some extra perlite and a more disciplined water in approach. Currently if I were you I’d watch them for another week or so, if nothing changes then I would transplant, not necessarily a much larger pot but a transplant still. I would also stop placing the plastic bin over the plants. It messes with transpiration and also increases the temperature within drastically.

Is it possible you shocked them? Dropping the cups or letting them set down on the ground too hard? How hot is the ground getting where you’re placing your cups? Do your cups have holes in them? How hot is it getting under the plastic bin?

You’ve been given a lot of information and examples, try to line up what you’ve read with what you’ve seen. You’ll often find little bits from everyone’s comments you can apply.
 
Sorry for the sidebar OP,

I think that people tend to uppot way too early. That solo cup is going to be your last best chance to develop a tight solid rootball

Is this something I can play around with? For example, instead of sprouting in a solo cup, could I sprout in a 4 inch pot and have the plant form a solid rootball quicker than it would in a solo? I’ve been thinking about moving out of solos already and this may be the push I need
 
I don’t see a very drastic difference between the two (could be phenotypes), could be the angle and lighting though. I will say that they do look small for their ages. Nutrients shouldn’t have had that big of an effect.. Here’s my most recent grow with the plants at 9-12 days from sprout. They’ve been given no nutrients and are in a seedling mix soil (cut with 30% perlite, should’ve done 25) with very low nutrient value to trigger myco symbiosis



I think you’re having a compaction issue, oxygen issue, as well as watering issues. You can see my plants at 9 days are much larger, and healthier with zero nutrients given. Your mediums look dryish, too low on aeration, and a bit cakey. All of this adds up to having struggling plants like you’re seeing. I think your soil may benefit from some extra perlite and a more disciplined water in approach. Currently if I were you I’d watch them for another week or so, if nothing changes then I would transplant, not necessarily a much larger pot but a transplant still. I would also stop placing the plastic bin over the plants. It messes with transpiration and also increases the temperature within drastically.

Is it possible you shocked them? Dropping the cups or letting them set down on the ground too hard? How hot is the ground getting where you’re placing your cups? Do your cups have holes in them? How hot is it getting under the plastic bin?

You’ve been given a lot of information and examples, try to line up what you’ve read with what you’ve seen. You’ll often find little bits from everyone’s comments you can apply.
Never dropped them or anything but like I said it’s in the higher 80s out here between the plastic container and the heat I could see them being shocked from the heat thank you for the advice
 
Never dropped them or anything but like I said it’s in the higher 80s out here between the plastic container and the heat I could see them being shocked from the heat thank you for the advice

No problem, that’s what we’re here for. One day, you’ll think back on this time and chuckle at yourself. It gets a lot easier the more experience you have doing it.

Are you watering your stepdads plants as well or are you two each taking care of your own separately? At the current sizes, they likely aren’t needing to be watered every 2-3 days. The whole stick your finger into the soil thing doesn’t really help you in a solo cup with tiny plants and root systems so I wouldn’t recommend using that as your gauge if you are. If you think they’re dying of thirst give a little spritz on top but don’t water fully. If you feel any weight then they’re still too wet to be watered.

Overwatering doesn’t happen at once. It happens over time. You’re not gonna give the plant more water than it can take with one session of watering. You will however give it more than it can take if you’re always making sure it’s damp and never letting it dry out completely. Even if the top feels dry the middle and bottom hold for a long time.

Keep us updated with whatever you decide to do though, it’s always helpful to see the results.
 
if you are watering every 3 or 4 days, that is the problem. You are thinking for the plants and telling them when they need water. You are not yet able to discern the slight water weight difference between a truly dry all the way to the bottom container, and one that still has 1/3 of a cup of water mixed in with the soil.
Have you ever wondered how much water is in your soil when you water to runoff? I can show you... and I have weighed it. How much water does soil hold?

Some people find a postal scale to be a big help at this solo cup stage... compare your weight to a dry cup of soil at 80 grams or so, and then to a cup of fully saturated soil at around 440 grams. Do some test measurements and learn to "see" how much water is in your cup.

A true wet/dry cycle will vary in length, from 5-7 days at first and then steadily down to 1 day as the roots fill out the cup. If your wet/dry cycle is 5 days and you are watering every 3, then at all times there is water that remains sitting in the bottom of the container and your soil never dries out all the way to the bottom of the cup. If you come along and water anyway, you are repeating the problem every time you water. The lower roots need to see oxygen between each watering. If they are underwater all the time this cant happen and eventually this will stunt the plants and eventually drown the lower roots.

You are overwatering, by watering too often, and never letting the plant dry out all the way to the bottom. The other grower doing better than you is probably just a more patient waterer. A plant that has to grow new roots and has to struggle a bit to find all the water in that cup, will grow twice as fast as a plant that has been coddled to the point that it always has wet feet. This is a weed, not a tomato... this plant strives in adversity, not plenty. To grow this plant, you have to be a little cruel, to be kind.

Over a half million people have read my watering guide and learned to use my very strict wet/dry method. Those who do are amazed that they can get hydro growth rates in soil. Look around the forum at signature lines, and you will find a very large number of people sharing the link to my watering guide. There is a reason for this. It works.

@Keffka, Your solo cup stage is the perfect size to create your first rootball. I generally keep my plants in the cup until they can drain it in 36 hours or less the first time, and this doesn't usually happen until the 4th or 5th node has popped up and I have already topped the plant. It is not a race to get out of the cup, and going to a 1" starter pod to develop your first rootball is just going to be too difficult. The time it takes a small plant with a tight rootball to drain the water in one of those tiny containers could take a matter of hours, and it would be very difficult to keep up with a proper wet/dry cycle that might cycle several times a day toward the end. No thank you... a solo cup can get fast enough, especially with a fast growing Auto that can form that rootball in 2 weeks.
 
everything looks not so bad to me. maybe some boo hoo about nothing, but it's all good from here.

to @Jongavin1, your step-pops media looks just a touch looser, which could explain a bit. his roots would have better access to oxygen and build the plant accordingly.

if the media is denser things take a little longer, but they generally catch up, unless you over water or the media is simply too heavy. re-used media can be more compact if not worked over.

btw your step-pops shouldn't be starting in clear cups. plant roots hate light and will develop better in coloured cups. even though he's beating you lol.

as usual @Emilya Green is pretty much dead on about things. even though it took a bit to get there.

i wish folk would stop referencing bugbee as well. it's similar to guys who reference donut media in car forums. it's entertainment, not information. he's ok, i don't mind him, but he does seem to shovel a pile of horseshit into the middle of his boring youtube lectures.

he's got a brand and i don't have time to sift through it.
 
everything looks not so bad to me. maybe some boo hoo about nothing, but it's all good from here.

to @Jongavin1, your step-pops media looks just a touch looser, which could explain a bit. his roots would have better access to oxygen and build the plant accordingly.

if the media is denser things take a little longer, but they generally catch up, unless you over water or the media is simply too heavy. re-used media can be more compact if not worked over.

btw your step-pops shouldn't be starting in clear cups. plant roots hate light and will develop better in coloured cups. even though he's beating you lol.

as usual @Emilya Green is pretty much dead on about things. even though it took a bit to get there.

i wish folk would stop referencing bugbee as well. it's similar to guys who reference donut media in car forums. it's entertainment, not information. he's ok, i don't mind him, but he does seem to shovel a pile of horseshit into the middle of his boring youtube lectures.

he's got a brand and i don't have time to sift through it.

What the unscientific fail to realize is that the overwhelming majority of new findings aren’t made in million dollar labs. They’re made by backyard and basement scientists around the world. Scientific minded people at home without the constraints and pressures of million dollar contracts, egomaniacs, financially desirable outcomes, and weirdly oppressive organizational beliefs. People who do what they do for the love and progress, not the profits.

Bugbee grew non psychoactive hemp in a million dollar lab with synthetic nutrients specifically created for his purposes of pushing his specific plants as far as he could, for government studies. Home growing psychoactive cannabis (especially in containers) is not the same thing and the two shouldn’t be viewed together. There is an art to raising psychoactive cannabis that doesn’t apply to lab grown hemp meant for industrial/governmental use.
 
if you are watering every 3 or 4 days, that is the problem. You are thinking for the plants and telling them when they need water. You are not yet able to discern the slight water weight difference between a truly dry all the way to the bottom container, and one that still has 1/3 of a cup of water mixed in with the soil.
Have you ever wondered how much water is in your soil when you water to runoff? I can show you... and I have weighed it. How much water does soil hold?

Some people find a postal scale to be a big help at this solo cup stage... compare your weight to a dry cup of soil at 80 grams or so, and then to a cup of fully saturated soil at around 440 grams. Do some test measurements and learn to "see" how much water is in your cup.

A true wet/dry cycle will vary in length, from 5-7 days at first and then steadily down to 1 day as the roots fill out the cup. If your wet/dry cycle is 5 days and you are watering every 3, then at all times there is water that remains sitting in the bottom of the container and your soil never dries out all the way to the bottom of the cup. If you come along and water anyway, you are repeating the problem every time you water. The lower roots need to see oxygen between each watering. If they are underwater all the time this cant happen and eventually this will stunt the plants and eventually drown the lower roots.

You are overwatering, by watering too often, and never letting the plant dry out all the way to the bottom. The other grower doing better than you is probably just a more patient waterer. A plant that has to grow new roots and has to struggle a bit to find all the water in that cup, will grow twice as fast as a plant that has been coddled to the point that it always has wet feet. This is a weed, not a tomato... this plant strives in adversity, not plenty. To grow this plant, you have to be a little cruel, to be kind.

Over a half million people have read my watering guide and learned to use my very strict wet/dry method. Those who do are amazed that they can get hydro growth rates in soil. Look around the forum at signature lines, and you will find a very large number of people sharing the link to my watering guide. There is a reason for this. It works.

@Keffka, Your solo cup stage is the perfect size to create your first rootball. I generally keep my plants in the cup until they can drain it in 36 hours or less the first time, and this doesn't usually happen until the 4th or 5th node has popped up and I have already topped the plant. It is not a race to get out of the cup, and going to a 1" starter pod to develop your first rootball is just going to be too difficult. The time it takes a small plant with a tight rootball to drain the water in one of those tiny containers could take a matter of hours, and it would be very difficult to keep up with a proper wet/dry cycle that might cycle several times a day toward the end. No thank you... a solo cup can get fast enough, especially with a fast growing Auto that can form that rootball in 2 weeks.
I can’t find your watering guide anywhere can you send me the link?
 
I can’t find your watering guide anywhere can you send me the link?
from @bluter 's signature lines, above...
 
from @bluter 's signature lines, above...
Thank you I’d be lost without all the help the world needs more people like you guys
 
Hey @Jongavin1 and welcome to the forum!
I’ve got 7 seedling that all popped around the the 12th of may they grew good for about a week but now they’re showing all kinds of problems like yellowing and possibly nutrient lockout? I think I might’ve used too much peat moss in my soil or something I tried flushing yesterday with the correct ph water why won’t these things grow? And what do I have to do to save this! ...

I’m reusing last years soil with a little compost and so they’re could’ve been some left over but neither of them came pre charged
1686026511134.png


So, 3 weeks worth of growth. Isn't this a simple answer? The plant is pale in color and stressed. The soil is lacking in nutrients, and there's no supplemental feeding going on. Also the soil could be acidic due to peat moss. Even if you use a commercial soil like Fox Farm Happy Frog, you need to use a liquid fert fairly soon. Happy Frog is "pre-charged", but only has an NPK of 0.30 - 0.30 - 0.05. (Compare to Roots Organics Lush, NPK 1.00 - 0.50 - 0.50)

Here's a comparison to my over-winter outdoor grow of some seeds I sprouted:

Seedling at 4 days of growth, in a coir-based sprouting mix w/ slight amount of nutes:
1686026873601.png


At 6 days of growth, in 1 gal pots, in home-made organic supersoil:
1686026936914.png


At 2 weeks:
1686026992469.png


3.5 weeks later
1686027265447.png


Here's another example... started in mid Nov. '22, after 2 weeks of growth (coir on surface as mulch):
1686028231446.png


happy growing! :ciao:
 
so, lets get back to something you threw out a page back... you said you water/water/feed and when you feed you do it from the bottom?? First question... is your step father doing such odd things too? Second question... where did you learn to do this? Have you considered that not doing feed/water/feed/water as most soil growers do, and bottom feeding nutes instead of topfeeding them, might have something to do with your problems? And I have to ask... how exactly are you bottom feeding?

My young plants are always much bigger than yours. Something fundamental that you are doing wrong is causing all of this. You might want to try just a straight forward normal grow using the proven wet/dry cycle method, and normal top feeding, just see what happens. I am starting to believe that your main difficulty is that you are overthinking this.
 
First question... is your step father doing such odd things too? Second question... where did you learn to do this? Have you considered that not doing feed/water/feed/water as most soil growers do, and bottom feeding nutes instead of topfeeding them, might have something to do with your problems? And I have to ask... how exactly are you bottom feeding?
And another question that comes into play is "Was the soil continuously moist all the way to the bottom of the container before starting to bottom water, or bottom feed in this case?"

If there is a layer of dry soil above the moist soil at the bottom it can take hours for the water to wick its way into and then up through to the moist soil at the very top. That then makes a complete water column. Once it happens then the plant can take advantage of the nutrients that be being fed by using a bottom watering or bottom feeding method.

Without completing the water column the roots from a small plant will stop growing any further down when they encounter the layer of dry soil. Even if all of the nutrient rich water in the world is at the bottom it will never get used.

A larger plant which has been able to grow a root mass from the top to the bottom can survive even if a dry layer forms in the center. It won't grow as fast nor look as healthy but it will get by.
 
My young plants are always much bigger than yours. Something fundamental that you are doing wrong is causing all of this. You might want to try just a straight forward normal grow using the proven wet/dry cycle method, and normal top feeding, just see what happens. I am starting to believe that your main difficulty is that you are overthinking this.


I agree with this, there is something fundamentally off. At 2 weeks above ground my plants ALWAYS are much larger as well, and it has nothing to do with nutrients. They don’t get anything but myco from me until Day 12.
 
I’ve got 7 seedling that all popped around the the 12th of may they grew good for about a week but now they’re showing all kinds of problems like yellowing and possibly nutrient lockout? I think I might’ve used too much peat moss in my soil or something I tried flushing yesterday with the correct ph water why won’t these things grow? And what do I have to do to save this!

image.jpg


image.jpg
I’ve got 7 seedling that all popped around the the 12th of may they grew good for about a week but now they’re showing all kinds of problems like yellowing and possibly nutrient lockout? I think I might’ve used too much peat moss in my soil or something I tried flushing yesterday with the correct ph water why won’t these things grow? And what do I have to do to save this!

image.jpg


image.jpg
Try something nice and gentle like seasol liquid seaweed 1/4 -1/2 strength to green them up a bit and get the soil micro going . If thay respond well maybe some liquid fish for a bit of nitrogen agane just 1/4 - 1/2 strength.
 
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