Thick and cupped leaves

[mjallday]

My plants started off looking very traditional and after moving them into large grow bags they initially grew very quickly but over time the vertical growth has stopped and the leaves are getting darker and thick.

They’re both being watered by a wicking system and the soil feels pretty good. I suspect the ph is a little high since I’m using straight tap water and they’re being fed a light diet of some fox farms fertilizer during their weekly top up of water.

They have all day sun and are sitting somewhere quite windy on my roof top in SF.

They have some really dense and frosty growth forming so that part looks good. But they are not growing up at this point and are just getting thick. The larger one is about 40cm high and the smaller one is less than the size of my hand on top of that stalk.

Here’s an earlier photo so you can see the transition into these dark thick leaves.

the smaller one is thick but very stunted

 

[mjallday]

These were planted at the end of march so they are about two months old at this point.

 

[Roy Growin]

What are you growing in/feed?
Looks like a very uncommon P excess, or at least severely unbalanced nutes

 

[mjallday]

Soil was some new potting mix. I can’t recall the brand off the top of my head but nothing cheap or uncommon.

I’ll go see if I can find the name.

Also each plant has a separate bag of soil from a different company so I don’t think it would be the soil. That makes me think it’s either the water or fertilizer regime.

Fertilizer is Grow Big® Liquid Plant Food - FoxFarm Soil & Fertilizer Company

 

[Roy Growin]

Soil was some new potting mix. I can’t recall the brand off the top of my head but nothing cheap or uncommon.

I’ll go see if I can find the name.

Fertilizer is Grow Big® Liquid Plant Food - FoxFarm Soil & Fertilizer Company

Matching NPK/pH of you feed with your soil is important, you can't just chuck stuff together

 

[mjallday]

Makes sense in retrospect! Any recommendations or advice for how to get myself out of this situation?

Do I need to experiment here or is there a way to measure the imbalance and correct for it?

 

[Roy Growin]

Makes sense in retrospect! Any recommendations or advice for how to get myself out of this situation?

Do I need to experiment here or is there a way to measure the imbalance and correct for it?

Not really, you could try plain water
Put it down to experience
This is why coco is such a good medium; excellent for Oxygen in the root zone and since it is inert, you know precisely what is going on so any problems can be fixed overnight
I use coco with Canna A/B start to finish and never had a problem
Couldn't be more simple

 

[SmokingWings]

These were planted at the end of march so they are about two months old at this point.

Planted at the end of March and it is now the end of June comes out to 3 months old.

No mention of whether the plants are photo-period or not but I would hazard a guess about what happened.

Mention made about being in SF so I figure San Fransisco, California where by the end of March the weather is getting nice. Also, end of March and the nights are still long enough that a photo-period plant would have started flowering. It does look like stigma/pistils and the very start of flower buds near the bottom of the plants. From the end of March to the beginning of May the plant had stopped flowering but the nights were still long enough for it to produce a small daily dose of flowering hormones which slows down the change back to a vegetating stage.

By the end of May it is done trying to flower and had started re-vegetting. By the end of June the plant has started to produce more leaf fingers that have the serrated edge. Another couple weeks it should be back to looking like a typical plant.

No mention of the strain but I would not be surprised if it is one of those that starts to develop a deep purple color during the flowering stage.

I suspect the ph is a little high since I’m using straight tap water

Do you know the pH of the water? With natural soils that contain a lot of compost and natural or organic material it is not necessary to know the pH of the water after it has gone into the soil. But it is important to know the pH going in.

and they’re being fed a light diet of some fox farms fertilizer during their weekly top up of water.

Three suggestions which might 'fit the bill' for your experimenting. One is to get more soil mix and gently take the plants out of their pots but leave soil around the root ball. Add soil to the buckets or pots and put the plant back. Do this to bring the level of the soil up to within a 1/2 to 1 inch from the rim. Some will suggest switching out the white plastic buckets and get some of regular black growing pots or cloth pots. Or continue to use the white buckets.

The Grow Big is one bottle of a 3 bottle set of liquid fertilizers and will work best with the other two. If you want to stay with just the Grow Big then the second suggestion is to increase the dose and bring it back up to the amounts listed on the back of the bottle.

The 3rd suggestion is to buy the other two bottles and use the 3 bottle program. Do not follow the dose on each bottle but instead get the fertilizing schedule from the Fox Farm website. It will have different amounts than what is on the bottle since the chart is for those who have the complete set of all three.

Use the week 3 doses from the chart until around the 10 of August when flowering will restart naturally. At that point follow the flowering doses until about mid October or whenever you harvest.

 

[mjallday]

I checked and I’m pretty sure it was Miracle-Gro Potting Mix | Miracle Gro for one and then some local potting mix from the sloat garden center near by my house Soils - Sloat Garden Center

I’ve got the three bottle on order so will take the advice on moving to that. I’ve also sent the guy who sold me the clones a message to see if he expected them to go purple or not.

Good point on the three months

Thanks for the info on the sf day length. I wasn’t paying too much attention there since this was my first time around.

I’ll measure the ph and report back on that.

Will come back with updates so anyone, if anyone, who’s interested can follow along.

 

[SmokingWings]

Thanks for the info on the sf day length.

Something similar happened to another mid California guy several years ago. The weather was nice in early April so he put about 15 plants in the ground. Then they started flowering. He did not want to wait till the nights got shorter naturally so he put up electric lights around his outdoor garden to force the plants to revert back to a vegetating stage.

You are already past that point by the looks of things.

 

[mjallday]

I bet my neighbors would love it if I stuck some lights up there all night

 

[SmokingWings]

I bet my neighbors would love it if I stuck some lights up there all night

Your plants look to be almost back to vegetating growth so no need to frighten the neighbors .

The other guy was outside of the city and in some rural area so he had no problem. Plus he was just leaving the lights on long enough to break the period of dark up enough to stop the flowering. It is not the length of day or how long the light is on that is important but rather the length of uninterrupted dark.

 

[mjallday]

I’ve check the ph and it’s hovering around 6.5 in the bucket under the plants.

I’ve also got the three pack of fox farms. In a wicking bed should I follow the hydro or soil feeding schedule from Feeding Schedules - FoxFarm Soil & Fertilizer Company ?

 

[SmokingWings]

In a wicking bed should I follow the hydro or soil feeding schedule ....

I have no idea on that but if you are talking something like a SIP method maybe one of the SIP growing threads already has one or more messages about that.