Does this plant have some kind of nutrient deficiency? Yellowing first true leaves.

[zuraya]

The roots will grow into it so at the end you'll have to rip it free but by then the grow is over so it doesn't much matter.

At this point I don't see what is the point of putting anything at the bottom of the soil. The airpot base is full of holes and is a couple centimeters off the actual dish underneath so there is no risk of water pooling at the bottom of the soil.

I regret putting the clay pebbles and fabric at the bottom. I would like to remove them, but will accomplish this by transplanting in like ten days or two weeks, before the roots reach the pebbles.

I know for a fact that the roots stick to the pebbles and when transplanting, they definitely break off as the pebbles fall away. I definitely want to avoid this.

Plant 3 (supersoil) is in a 5.27 gallon (24L) pot which I think is the final pot so that will just stay as it is.

Plant 1 (supersoil) is in a 1.72 gallon (7.8L) pot which I will transplant in ten days or so to a final 5.27 gallon.

Plant 2 (soilless, coco coir + perlite, Remo nutrients) is in a 3.87 gallon (17L) pot which is the same width as plant 3's pot but not as deep. I will transplant also in 10-14 days to a final 5.27 gallon.

 

[zuraya]

I think I have a good feel at this point for watering plants 1 and 2 in supersoil.

Plant 3 is in coco coir + perlite and I'm actively feeding this one. I started yesterday.

I have no feeling for how to water it.

As I wrote previously, I transplanted two days ago to a 3.87 gallon pot, did an initial light watering + nutrients (800mL) and then the next day (yesterday), I added way more water + nutrients (about 2.7L with 1.2L runoff), especially to the coco + perlite on the sides, to try to get lots of nutrients in it.

Today, I stuck my finger in and it is moist but definitely not too wet. I've read in one article that it should be almost saturated at all times, and that I should water frequently (like small amounts perhaps twice a day to keep it this way).

What do you guys think? Should I water it again right now to keep it feeling pretty wet?

I also don't want to overfeed. However, Remo nutrients recommends adding nutrients to every watering.

Here is what it looks like right now

 

[bluter]

you're a little underfed. nute levels and calmag can both come up a little. coco and led lighting is hard on calmag, not all nute schedules reflect that.
most nute schedules are a strong suggestion, with some room to customize it according to the needs of the grow.

 

[zuraya]

you're a little underfed. nute levels and calmag can both come up a little. coco and led lighting is hard on calmag, not all nute schedules reflect that.
most nute schedules are a strong suggestion, with some room to customize it according to the needs of the grow.

Ok. I've read lots of lots of articles and watched lots of videos but it is still not clear exactly how to proceed in my case.

I started the plant in commercial soil + perlite in a cup. I transplanted to 3.87 gallon coco + perlite two days ago.

Since the transplant I am using nutrients in every watering.

The question is is there some kind of "initial loading of the coco coir" that I have to do?

My case actually seems to be a bit special because the central part is roots + soil and the surrounding cylindrical "shell" is coco + perlite without almost any roots.

I can't overwater the central portion where the roots are already (in soil), so I am watering the outer portion to try to load that up with nutes.

That being said, there is some lag in the response of the plant right? I shouldn't just double the amount of nutes in the water, right because even though things look relatively fine now they could go downhill fast.

My question is: is there an estimate, from experience, of how long it takes (how many days of watering, say, twice a day) to make coco coir + perlite contain too many nutrients?

Right now, I am starting to put just a tad more nutes than in the chart below

That is, instead of putting 2mL per liter of each of the four nutes, I am putting in maybe 2.3mL and today I put in an additional 0.5 mL of calmag (Magnifical) as well.

Note that I am on day 22. Not sure if this is week 1 or week 2 of veg.

 

[zuraya]

Here are some more photos of the setup and the plants, in case anyone spots any improvements to be made.

Not shown here are the intake and exhaust fans, and the two oscillating fans, plus a humidifier if the need arises.

 

[zuraya]

Yes they are ready for food. Yes this is the beginning of veg.

You didn't mention if you are adding cal-mag? Also, are you pH'ing your inputs?

Other than that, I was just wondering if you were aware of the seedling hiding under plant two's wing there?

Hey I read about your experience with kitty cats hanging around in a dark grow room. That was funny but tragic of course. Luckily you had many more plants! Loved the style and colors of the grow room too.

 

[zuraya]

Here are photos of the training of plant number 2.

I wrapped gardening wire around the main stem just above a node and had to be really really careful with the leaves from the new growths so they wouldn't be caught under the wire loop.

One thing that occurred to me was that if I bent the plant to much the large leaves could get very close to the soil.

I actually removed some soil from beneath the region beneath where the plant was pulled towards to try to avoid this.

The last few days have been heavy on work required on these plants: reading articles and books, watching videos, reading grow journals on this website; and then the practical part of mixing up soil, transplanting all three plants, measuring nutes for plant 3, watering all three, weighing them, logging it in a spreadsheet, and finally training the plants by bending them and topping.

I anticipate smooth sailing for a few days at least.

I need to observe plant 3, the soilless one, closely to figure out if the watering and nutrition are alright.

At some point I will train this plant 3.

It is interesting that it has the same number of nodes as the other two, but is smaller (likely due to the quality of the commercial soil used in plant 3 initially versus the supersoil used in plants 1 and 2).

As I've mentioned, I am reading deeply one or two steps at a time.

What should I read about next to be ready for what is coming soon?

Oh, and one more decision is whether to ramp up my lights from 60% on the 250W to 80%, and from 40% on the 65W to perhaps 80% as well. I really don't want to deal with light burn: this happened in my first grow attempt because of way too powerful lights with no dimming functionality. Luckily I have dimming now.

 

[Sueet]

I would increase the light personally. Just watch them closely for a few days to see if they're responding negatively. Or you could just increase the distance, turn it up, and then slowly reduce the distance over some days to let them get used to it more gradually.

Veg is just more of the same, so I guess your next hurdle is flower.

 

[Azimuth]

Here are photos of the training of plant number 2.

I wrapped gardening wire around the main stem just above a node and had to be really really careful with the leaves from the new growths so they wouldn't be caught under the wire loop.

Be sure to anchor the stem to the other side of the pot. Otherwise you're more pulling it over rather than bending.

 

[zuraya]

Be sure to anchor the stem to the other side of the pot. Otherwise you're more pulling it over rather than bending.

Hmmm, indeed I am pulling the plant over to one side and also some branches to expose the small new growths on the nodes.

Why would creating a larger arc in the main stem be beneficial? It seems quite risky in terms of breaking the main stem.

Isn't the goal simply to expose undergrowth to light to make it catch up?

 

[zuraya]

I've just got the first glimpse of a looming problem.

Plant number 3, the main object of my worries, is showing a teeny tiny bit of brown tips on one of the top leaves (and I think even on yet another leaf, though the browning is too small to tell conclusively yet).

I have no idea if it is

1) overwatering

2) underwatering

3) lack of nutrients

4) too much light.

I doubt it is 4.

As I have been mentioning in previous posts during the last two days, I really have no feel for watering with soilless.

Considering my experience with soil, I feel like I am overwatering.

Most sources I have consulted say it is so very difficult to overwater coco coir + perlite.

That being said, my case seems special since I started with soil and transplanted to soilless.

3 seems possible, but I am adding Remo nutrients and have added somewhere between 4.6L-5.1L of water in 48h, but there also been a lot of runoff.

Could I have overwatered the middle portion that has soil?

Ah, I am already dreading what will happen when I open the tent after the coming dark period.

A few data points on the weight of the pot.

The pot weighed 4.2kg when I transplanted without watering.

I added 800mL water that first day and the weight went to 5kg (no runoff).

The next day I added 2.7L with 1L of runoff and the weight was 6.7kg.

There was some runoff over the next hours as well.

The next day (this morning) there was this runoff. I didn't measure it at the time and I didn't weigh the pot unfortunately.

I then added about 1.1L of water and left it for a few hours, but the weight right now (hours later) is down to 6.4kg. (I actually don't remember if I did an extra 500mL at some point to start the day, I need to be better at keeping track, and I will be from now on).

Thus, the total water added was 4.6L-5.1L and the extra water in the pot right now weighs just 2.2kg. Thus the total runoff must be around 2.4L-2.9L.

Intuitively, this sounds like I overwatered. That much runoff seems to indicate to me (based on nothing but baseless intuition about something I know nothing about) that I kept the coco + perlite fully saturated basically since yesterday.

But the truth is I don't know how to interpret, in terms of saturation of the medium, the fact that the pot is lighter right now than it was yesterday despite watering.

Does this indicate that the medium was very saturated yesterday, it lost some water (the runoff I observed this morning) to become just saturated, then it maybe became 90% saturated, and then I brought it back to way more than saturated by watering it today?

Does all extra water after saturation runoff?

Anyone here a water detective?

Hopefully someone can give me a light, because right now I am going to err on the side of less water and maybe try to keep the pot between 6kg and 6.4kg (as an initial guess of what is ideal).

 

[Azimuth]

Why would creating a larger arc in the main stem be beneficial? It seems quite risky in terms of breaking the main stem.

Isn't the goal simply to expose undergrowth to light to make it catch up?

It's more about securing the main stem so you don't rip roots out by pulling it over.

 

[Azimuth]

Considering my experience with soil, I feel like I am overwatering.

Most sources I have consulted say it is so very difficult to overwater coco coir + perlite.

@Bill284 will tell you that coco needs to be watered every day, and that pH is important. You've got a building magnesium deficiency building so my bet is she's hungry.

 

[zuraya]

@Bill284 will tell you that coco needs to be watered every day, and that pH is important. You've got a building magnesium deficiency building so my bet is she's hungry.

I read a bit about magnesium deficiency and seeing pictures and a description of its crucial importance to building chlorophyll it does seem to me to be the primary suspect right now.

I've posted many photos of plant 3 and all show a fading of the green color of the leaves.

The only delivery method I have right now is his liquid calmag from Remo nutrients.

I will try to up the calmag (double).

 

[bluter]

you are still looking thin on that last pic. a few others looked like they were doing better.

never mix soil with coco media. they run on 2 different feeding schedules which conflict each other and require completely different ph rules.
at present you are probably in a majority of coco, and the grow should be run under those rules.

I will try to up the calmag (double).

don't just blindly add it. start with 1/2 of a full dose and increase to 3/4 if it continues to show calmag issues.

calmag should be used at every feeding and is simply another part added to the feed water. it will not affect the other nute levels, you don't have to pull back to add the calmag. a lack of calmag keeps the plant from accessing the other nutes.

 

[zuraya]

Today is Wednesday, and t's been about 48h since I last posted (Monday).

My plant 3, which is the soilless one seems to have stabilized. The brown tips that had appeared stayed just on the two leaves they appeared on.

I did note that the brown tips curled up.

I had increased the light intensity Monday.

However, yesterday I noticed that the other two (supersoil) plants also started to get browning on their tips, and it increased a tad today.

When I noticed this I immediately lowered the light intensity back to what it has been so far in veg: 60% of 250W.

I am really wondering what the heck is going on and I really hope it was just a short bout of light stress.

Since it seems to affect mostly the upper leaves, does this hone in on it all being a result of light stress during that one day in which I turned up my 250W to 80% (at 40cm from the plants)?

Here are some photos of right now

Plant 3 (soilless)

Does the photo below tell us anything new?

Here is plant 1, grown in supersoil, which started to show brown tips on top leaves

Plant 2, same thing. Here are the two top leaves. It also affected two other lower large leaves and also tips of small new node growths.

I hope this was a temporary light stress.

Note that though I increased the light on Monday, I also trained the supersoil plants over the weekend (I topped and bent two of them quite a bit).

I have no feeling for how much stress this causes and if it can generate the brown tips shown in the photos above.

Any help would be appreciated.

 

[bluter]

it's not light stress. you're not feeding them correct. get your nutes and feed schedule under control.

you can run the whole grow at 18 to 24 inches from the tops of the plants if you have any kind of decent light. in veg leave the light 24 inches from the top, as the plants grow up to the 18 inch mark, raise the light back to 24. when you get into flower leave it at the 18 inch mark til they finish. it's not hard to figure out or understand.

 

[zuraya]

it's not light stress. you're not feeding them correct. get your nutes and feed schedule under control.

you can run the whole grow at 18 to 24 inches from the tops of the plants if you have any kind of decent light. in veg leave the light 24 inches from the top, as the plants grow up to the 18 inch mark, raise the light back to 24. when you get into flower leave it at the 18 inch mark til they finish. it's not hard to figure out or understand.

As I've mentioned, two of the three plants are not being actively fed, but are grown in supersoil (homemade compost + coco coir + perlite).

The third plant is soilless.

The fact that they all got brown tips at essentially the same time (and apparently only on one single 48h period) I find interesting.

I agree that plant 3 needs (or needed, hopefully) magnesium.

It is not clear to me why you would think the supersoil plants are under nutrient deficiency.

 

[bluter]

As I've mentioned, two of the three plants are not being actively fed, but are grown in supersoil (homemade compost + coco coir + perlite).

The third plant is soilless.

plants in the super soil shouldn't be showing tipping and the soilless is underfed.

edit : did you purchase or build the soil ?

 

[zuraya]

plants in the super soil shouldn't be showing tipping and the soilless is underfed.

Yes, the first point I agree with. The question is why did it happen?

In addition, we established the second point three days ago, at which point I took actions that seem to be paying off (general application of nutes, with extra calmag way above and beyond the recommendations by Remo Nutrients, and now still above but backing off a bit back to recommended levels).

So, "is underfed" I think time will tell. I agree it "was underfed".

In other words, the plant is not becoming worse, it seems to be showing signs of health in new growth and stabilization of old growth.

This all seems to be like a detective story.

I find light stress plausible because of the coincidence of when the browning happened to all plants at the same time (increase in lighting) and then seemed to stop at the same time (when the lights were dialed back).