Automatics - Not growing at all but developing buds - Whiteflies

[davidson2354]

Hey guys, I had created this thread originally in Problems, Pests & Disease Control, since theres absolutely no replies I thought of posting it here since its kind of an urgent situation. Note: There hasnt been almost no development if anything at all, apart from the buds..

Hello everyone again, hope all grows and time invested this year is coming to pay off for you guys.
I bring a strange situation where I can't really understand whats going on although I do have some clues.

So I have 3 automatics outdoor in balcony, a supposed blueberry, a purple one and a big bud one (that came from telegrow). There is also a bottom of an automatic New York diesel plant near, which I left for the bottom buds to mature more, and a huge photoperied one, an indica hybrid which started to flower some days ago.

These first 3 plants have not been growing/developing much, maybe nothing at all for the last 2 weeks already.

They were all on soil on the 6th of August.

The soil used for the three of them was Kilomix from atami, about 60% of it fresh new, around 25% of the same soil used before with an auto blueberry some months ago and a mix between some compost I was doing for more than an year with some organic material, stems, leaves, roots, from other plants I have around aswell. And then I added just a little bit more of some random soil on top just not to have too much root exposure. So this is my soil specs.
I have been watering the 3 of them with PH'd water that I buy around 6.5. I have only used Delta 9 from cannabiogen twice on them, and some days ago I gave 'em just a little bit on their watering NPK 4-3-6 from Bio Grow, in case they weren't getting all the nutes because of the fact that there is some already used soil. After this I do think I noticed a very slight development on the big bud one, but nothing too noticeable.

There is still alot of sunlight and warm temperatures where Im at, so everything is ok about that.

Another thing is the fact that Ive been having quite a big whitefly invasion on them. Ive seen alot of eggs, below the leaves, and some bugs that have eaten a few leaves here and there. Im taking care of this issue right now, Im using AIN grow, first on the plants pulverized, today im givin it straight to the roots. I took some of them down, alot of them actually. I also have a lemon verbena nearby aswell as a pennyroyal and a raspberry plant which had the presence of the whiteflys aswell but I apllied the product to them too.

So, given all the information I can give, aswell as the images, what could be the cause of this not developing the structure of the plant, cause they seem to be developing a bit the buds in the meantime.

NOTE: The photos start first with the blueberry, which you can notice is growing in a Y shape, and has a tip of a leave going down, which you can see in two of the photos, the next one is big bud and finally Purple.

Any help is much much appreciated, thank already for any read and or help.

 

[AKgramma]

It's inevitable. When autos decide to flower, they stop growing and flower. At any height and any age.

I may have missed it in your post, but I didn't see how big your pots were. When Autos roots hit the bottom of the pot and get rootbound, they think it's time to flower. So they need deep narrow pots. I use 3 gallon trash bins, which take up very little floor space in the tent. These are 14" tall, so give a decent depth for the roots. Next time, you might want to go with a tall kitchen bin, which will be close to 8-10 gallons, assumng you have the headroom for a 24" tall bin plus 24 - 36" left over for the plant.

I have a 19" Auto Diesel Berry that is showing preflowers at 32 days from seed! Sweet Sue has/had an auto that never got over about 7" tall before she flowered. Pretty little thing, she was, too.

If you can keep the creepy crawlers out of your buds, you are going to get a decent harvest, for Autos. See post #755 on my journal. I just posted it.

 

[davidson2354]

It's inevitable. When autos decide to flower, they stop growing and flower. At any height and any age.

I may have missed it in your post, but I didn't see how big your pots were. When Autos roots hit the bottom of the pot and get rootbound, they think it's time to flower. So they need deep narrow pots. I use 3 gallon trash bins, which take up very little floor space in the tent. These are 14" tall, so give a decent depth for the roots. Next time, you might want to go with a tall kitchen bin, which will be close to 8-10 gallons, assumng you have the headroom for a 24" tall bin plus 24 - 36" left over for the plant.

I have a 19" Auto Diesel Berry that is showing preflowers at 32 days from seed! Sweet Sue has/had an auto that never got over about 7" tall before she flowered. Pretty little thing, she was, too.

If you can keep the creepy crawlers out of your buds, you are going to get a decent harvest, for Autos. See post #755 on my journal. I just posted it.

Hey, first of all thank you for your reply and your time to see my post. Regarding what you said about the flowering stage in autos they keep growing in my case. I had planted successfully 2 blueberrys and a nyc diesel recently and in all cases they started to flower and kept growing at the same time, till they reach a height of 50 cm for the blueberrys and nyc diesel got around 75-80cm. Im saying this because ive been buying the same seeds from the same bank and growing them in the same conditions, soil, nutes, etc. Im finding really odd to see that for the last 3 weeks they didnt grow anything.

I have 18 litres pot size for all 3, and usually the roots never go alot more than half of the size of the pot so I know this is not the problem.

In my opinion I can only see the mix of the soil (new with used and compost) being the cause of it not developing, also because I decided to transplant the purple one to a regular soil to see if it would give her some kind of shock and may eventually lead to her develop the roots but I did see how much they grew. Too little for the time being, the roots havent grown or expanded much I would say for their age. And the other possible cause would be the whiteflys and their constant eggs around plus the fact that I had other plants around and one of them with spider mites. I keep having the leafminer bug in all of them, but not my bigger photoperiod one which hasnt been much affected by the whiteflys too.

I know they can slow or stop development but I dont know how much that would be in my case.
Im paying attention to they're development and the one I transplanted which has its leave tips curled down for the 2nd night now.

I did sent an email to the bank seed in the hopes to see if they could give me any important info as to why this is happening. Im just finding really odd these 3 seeds are not developing like they use to with the same conditions that i give them.

Thanks again for your info and Ill be keeping updated the post with any relevant updates here.

 

[davidson2354]

also I tried to check your journal but dont know where to access it, im new around here

 

[AKgramma]

I would say that the whiteflies are your problem. Their larvae are sucking the nutrients out of your roots. I have seen this slowing/stalling of growth whenever I have had to heavily treat for spider mites.

Also, with autos, you want to set their rooting pellets into their big-girl pots just as soon as they sprout, so their roots don't hit bottom. Those roots grow very fast, and will get away from you if you have them in solo cups or smaller pots.

Don't forget that there is genetic variation among seeds in the same strain. A little more on the Ruderalis side, and the plants will be short. A little more on the Sativa side, and they could be lanky and tall. A little more on the Indica side, and you'll have lots of leaves. It all depends on how the genes divide themselves up at pollination.

To get to my journal, just click on the name of my grow. it is hyperlinked to the site.