MotaFina - 15 Year Old White Widow x Skunk Seeds - Indoor Soil - HID

[BluePhoric]

How Can I Tell If My Cannabis Is Rootbound?

Rootbound Cannabis Symptoms - How to Tell If a Marijuana Plant Is Rootbound | Grow Weed Easy

Plant is getting root or nutrient problems - A cannabis plant can start showing root or nutrient problems when it's kept in a too-small container or if it's become root-bound. These root problems can cause the plant to become droopy, or show unexpected leaf symptoms or deficiencies (such as spots or yellowing leaves).

 

[MotaFina]

Blue, I took your advice to check out the roots on one of the 3-gal pots. I transplanted it into a 7-gal pot. It had a good amount of roots but definitely room for more. So, I think I'll leave the others for now. The pot is a good 4 inches taller, so I gotta pull those branches down now to get them back into the canopy.

So, that eliminates crowding in the pots. I'm going to concentrate on pH as my problem and see where that goes.

 

[BluePhoric]

Blue, I took your advice to check out the roots on one of the 3-gal pots. I transplanted it into a 7-gal pot. It had a good amount of roots but definitely room for more. So, I think I'll leave the others for now. The pot is a good 4 inches taller, so I gotta pull those branches down now to get them back into the canopy.

So, that eliminates crowding in the pots. I'm going to concentrate on pH as my problem and see where that goes.

You will be able to see if the transplant does any good (or not) to that plant, in a week or so I suppose...
It will possibly have a better nute availability and better buffering, I guess.

Were the roots spindling around the pot, or not so much ?

 

[MotaFina]

Were the roots spindling around the pot, or not so much ?

There were roots going around the bottom, but not a lot. There's definitely room for lots more. The top of the soil is fairly full of roots. At this point, I don't think the roots will grow much more.

I did add a little more EWC, some DL and Epsom to the new soil, so hopefully that'll give it more buffering ability.

 

[BluePhoric]

MF, I took the liberty of inviting Pennywise to come take a look to your thread and plant health.

New and experienced eyes may see something we are missing.

 

[Pennywise]

Hey MF, i see Nitrogen deficiency but im thinking its ph related. Check the run off ph and see where thats at.

 

[Pennywise]

It also could be an excess of potassium locking out N if you've started bloom nutes already. But check ph and we'll go from there.

 

[BluePhoric]

My current plan is to start being really careful to get the mix into the 6.0 range before feeding. That'll take a lot of PH UP.

If you can try, in some container, a mix of dolomite lime (1/8 tsp) per 5 gal, over a 12 hours period, it should UP your PH by 1-2 points. Adjust dolomite accordingly on next feedings. But it must stand at least 12 hours. Waste of time testing it 5 minutes after mixing.

Like Pennywise asked, have you switched to bloom nutes yet ? You are 3 weeks into flowering ?

 

[MotaFina]

Hey MF, i see Nitrogen deficiency but im thinking its ph related. Check the run off ph and see where thats at.

It also could be an excess of potassium locking out N if you've started bloom nutes already. But check ph and we'll go from there.

If you can try, in some container, a mix of dolomite lime (1/8 tsp) per 5 gal, over a 12 hours period, it should UP your PH by 1-2 points. Adjust dolomite accordingly on next feedings. But it must stand at least 12 hours. Waste of time testing it 5 minutes after mixing.

Like Pennywise asked, have you switched to bloom nutes yet ? You are 3 weeks into flowering ?

Thanks Blue and PW for checking in on me.

Today is day 18 of flowering...so just shy of three weeks. For being not even three weeks into flower, the buds seem to be pretty far along. Here are some pics of the plants:

OBS 6 (Oregon bagseed):

OBS 5:

OBS 3:

JWWS 2 (Joel's White Widow/Skunk)

Here's a couple pics of the lower branches:

And here's some of the buds:

OBS 6:

OBS 5:

OBS3:

and JWWS2:

Here are some points to consider:

• I'm feeding with Earth Juice nutes, which are known to drop the pH considerably. For the most part I've taken the advice of the Earth Juice folks who say to:
  1. Feed with every watering
  2. Don't use pH UP products to raise pH as the soil should buffer it
• OBS6 was transplanted yesterday from 3-gal to 7-gal plastic pot. The roots were not rootbound.
• I'm using good quality tap water, which is ~7.5. I treat it with Campden to remove chlorine and chloramine.
• I did my first feeding using the EJ Bloom product yesterday. When I did it, the mix was extremely low pH. I got worried after I'd already fed a couple of plants, so I used pH UP to treat the remaining mix. I had to add about 10 ml pH UP to about 2 gallons mix to bring it up to ~6.0
• They seem to be drinking a LOT. The roots looked moist but not overly wet.
• These plants stretched a lot out of the gate. There's six inches or so between the first few nodes. So they're tied down to try to get an even canopy

The pictures don't seem to show the degree of the problem. They look a lot worse in real life. I had a pretty good size pile of yellow leaves that fell off just from moving them out of the tent to take the pictures.

Thanks again for helping out. I really appreciate it.

 

[MotaFina]

Does this look like a valid way of testing soil pH?

First, test the pH of water:

then grab some soil out of pot and add a little water:

Pour the soil/water into a paper towel and squeeze into testing jar:

Test pH:

 

[BluePhoric]

Couldn't just collect 1 solo-cup worth of runoff water and test that ? That would have given you a direct comparison with what I do in my similar soil and my exact same nutes ?

Watering 2.5 liters and then collecting 1 solo-cup of water is not at all the same filtering as collecting a bit of soil with a tsp of water and testing that... I wouldn't trust that methodology. But I may be wrong. Anyway it wont give you a direct comparison with what I experience, witch is PH 6.25 out of the pot, after watering 2.5L of PH4-4.5 stuff.

I do not exceed 1 solo-cup of excess water. I pretty much stop when water starts dripping at the bottom, it then accumulates 0.5 to 1.0 solo-cup.

 

[MotaFina]

Couldn't just collect 1 solo-cup worth of runoff water and test that ? That would have given you a direct comparison with what I do in my similar soil and my exact same nutes ?

Watering 2.5 liters and then collecting 1 solo-cup of water is not at all the same filtering as collecting a bit of soil with a tsp of water and testing that... I wouldn't trust that methodology. But I may be wrong. Anyway it wont give you a direct comparison with what I experience, witch is PH 6.25 out of the pot, after watering 2.5L of PH4-4.5 stuff.

I do not exceed 1 solo-cup of excess water. I pretty much stop when water starts dripping at the bottom, it then accumulates 0.5 to 1.0 solo-cup.

Yeah, I'll get that reading later today when I'm ready to water them.

One thing about the runoff test is that when I start watering, I'll add about two cups (1/2 liter or so) and I'll immediately get runoff...really clear runoff. It's like there are some channels or something where water just goes directly through the pot. So, that initial runoff seems like it would be pretty much the same as what I'm pouring in, which is what the readings indicate. Every day is a little different though, sometimes the pots don't do that and they'll take a bunch of water before I get any runoff. I'll see how it goes today when I water.

 

[MotaFina]

I'm experimenting a little with pH UP. I mixed up my nutrients for today (Grow, Bloom, Catalyst, Meta-K and Microblast) and tested pH. It's RED, like 4.0 or below. So, I added one drop of pH UP to the testing jar and it immediately changed that to light green, somewhere 7 or above. So, to get an idea of how much I need to add to 3 gal of nutrient mix, I took 1/2 cup of the mix and added 1 ML pH UP and tested that. That was too much....turned green. Did it again with another 1/2 cup and this time added 1/4 ML...just right...yellowish orange, probably around 5.5-6. So, 1/4 ML/1/2 cup = .5 ML/cup = 8 ML/gallon. Wow, that's a lot! So that's about 1.5 tsp per gallon...1.5 Tbsp for this feeding. Chuh... really?

 

[BluePhoric]

Yeah, I'll get that reading later today when I'm ready to water them.

One thing about the runoff test is that when I start watering, I'll add about two cups (1/2 liter or so) and I'll immediately get runoff...really clear runoff. It's like there are some channels or something where water just goes directly through the pot. So, that initial runoff seems like it would be pretty much the same as what I'm pouring in, which is what the readings indicate. Every day is a little different though, sometimes the pots don't do that and they'll take a bunch of water before I get any runoff. I'll see how it goes today when I water.

Water very very slowly, trying to get some water everywhere on the surface. If you have a bottle with small nozzle. I made myself a small 7up bottle that I drilled a hole in the cap. Anyway, just slowly re-moisturizing the soil should slow down the initial runoff. Maybe your plants suffer form not enough watering (if runoff is real quick in really dry soil) ? Try to let the plant absorb a maximum of water, then if necessary add water and then collect runoff. But the important thing... go real slow, let it drink on its own rhythm.

I get my first runoff when I get real close to 2.5L. Nothing runs thru even at 2.0L

BTW : How much a plant drinks in her 3L pot, and how often do you need to water ?

Are your RH and temps controlled now in the room ?

 

[BluePhoric]

I'm experimenting a little with pH UP. I mixed up my nutrients for today (Grow, Bloom, Catalyst, Meta-K and Microblast) and tested pH. It's RED, like 4.0 or below. So, I added one drop of pH UP to the testing jar and it immediately changed that to light green, somewhere 7 or above. So, to get an idea of how much I need to add to 3 gal of nutrient mix, I took 1/4 cup of the mix and added 1 ML pH UP and tested that. That was too much....turned green. Did it again with another 1/4 cup and this time added 1/4 ML...just right...yellowish orange, probably around 5.5-6. So, 1/4 ML/1/2 cup = .5 ML/cup = 8 ML/gallon. Wow, that's a lot! So that's about 1.5 tsp per gallon...1.5 Tbsp for this feeding. Chuh... really?

When I was watering with plain water, I had to PH it down (with acid) form 7.x to 6.x, it took 10 drops per liter.

 

[MotaFina]

BTW : How much a plant drinks in her 3L pot, and how often do you need to water ?

Are your RH and temps controlled now in the room ?

I've been giving right around 3 gallons (12L) to the four plants, and feeding every two or three days. I'm pretty surprised how thirsty they are.

I don't have RH or temp control, or even a meter to show it. But other than one week, it's been pretty cool around here, mostly in the 70's. The humidity has been somewhat high (it's been raining almost every day for the past month or so). I've been running the dehumidifier through the night cycle. I can't run it all together...it would be too much load for the circuit. I also run the inline fans for an hour and a half each side of the light cylce, to clear out the humidity that accumlates right after lights out. I work right next to the tent, and it's been comfortable, so probably around 40-50%.

 

[BluePhoric]

I've been giving right around 3 gallons (12L) to the four plants, and feeding every two or three days. I'm pretty surprised how thirsty they are.

12L / 4 = 3L each plant. That's close to my 2.5L, but do you get 0.5L of runout ? Less ? more ?

2-3 days seems reasonable. I'm at 2 days (and they are bone dry) but I'm in fabric pots so they normally dry faster.

While watering, do you keep agitating your EJ nutes, as to get all the sediments ? (I use a solo-cup for watering. I agitate the mix, then dip my solo-cup, as to get a good mix of sediment in each cup I pour)

 

[MotaFina]

12L / 4 = 3L each plant. That's close to my 2.5L, but do you get 0.5L of runout ? Less ? more ?

Sometimes less, sometimes more. It's variable. I'm probably waiting too long if I go 3 days, and that's when the water just goes right through the pots.

While watering, do you keep agitating your EJ nutes, as to get all the sediments ? (I use a solo-cup for watering. I agitate the mix, then dip my solo-cup, as to get a good mix of sediment in each cup I pour)

Yeah, agitate then scoop. I notice there's a little bit of solids from the Grow that congregate in the middle from the whirlpool effect.

 

[BluePhoric]

Yeah, I don't whirl the mix. I just agitate across the center, so the sediments are everywhere.

ROUTBOUND : Just a come back on that matter. I know many tolerate some amount of roots to congregate around the pot. What I experienced with the seedlings (had 6 more of the Freedom Dream variety) in transparent solo-cups, is that as soon as the roots reached the borders and bottom, or soon-after, was the best time to re-pot. When I waited a few days more... it made a big difference. The plants stopped growing somewhat, and then had a boost immediately after I transpotted.

My theory is this :

- Any root that has its face against plastic is only in contact with soil for 50% of its surface or less.
- Liquids go down fast on the edge of the pot.
- The small hairs on the roots are rapidly in contact with air as the pot drys.
- The liquid on the edge does not get buffered as much by the grow medium.
- A gap of air is created at the edge of the pot that is occupied by the roots. Liquid goes down fast at that location = Fast runoff.
- In a plastic pot, there are not as many roots starting from the center of the plant and exploring the soil. They all go straight to the edge of the pot.

This thread here may be a good read.

My opinion is that any root bind, even moderate, is not a very good thing. My sin is that I chose to do the whole grow in 3Gal pots. Fortunately those are fabric pots, witch help a lot, but I may encounter problems later (I hope not); the plants are bigger than I thought.

I am glad that you repotted 1 plant. It will be a good test to see if it does any good to that specific plant.

 

[MotaFina]

I fed the plants just now. Here's what I got:

I ph'd the nutrient mix to 5.5-6.0. I watered slowly and kept watering until I started to get runoff. They took a lot of water.

Runoff from the 5-gal and the two 3-gal pots was right around 6.5-7 - maybe closer to 7 on one of them. I didn't test the 7-gal pot because I just transplanted into it yesterday.

Not what I was expecting. I expected a lower reading from the runoff.