Trouble with Auto Crop King Candy Cane in seedling stage

tinygrow

New Member
Hi guys, a big thanks to those who will read and answer me! :thanks:

I just started a micro-grow in a 4x4x7 tent and a LED Mars Hydro 900. I only want 4-5 plant and after some reading, I choose Coco-coir a the medium.

I have experience in growing in late 90', but in that time I only use clones in hydroponic system.
The strange fact is that I never fail in the past, and right now I have better strain/equipment/knowledge and its look like I'm gonna fail for the second time in a row. I do a lot of study/reading before buying my stuff to make sure that I bough only the best quality/price on market, from equipment to seed.

So basically I have a Sun blaster T5H0 and a dome for sprout/seedling, a Hanna PH/temp pen that I check/calibrate every time I use it, and I always use tap water that stand for 24h. I bough all the Canna product line for coco, some PH+, PH-, and a bottle of "Thrive" (b1) to relieve the shock of a transplant. I buy branded Canna coco-coir, that I use pure, without perlite. Inside my tent I have a combo carbon filter/inline 4 inches duct fan 200 cfm. Temp in tent when LED is on is about 23-24 and humidity around 40%.

And there is my story :

At my first try, I use the paper towel to germinate , it's the official germination method of Crop King and my 5 seed easily germinate. As suggested almost everywhere about auto-seed, I plant them directly in their final 3 gallon pot in coco coir under my Mars Hydro LED. After a few days appear the first leaves, and everything looks perfect. But after 2 weeks plants start to yellow more an more and seems to stop growing. Couple days after, it became clear that they will probably not survive, and with the clock always ticking with automatic plant, even survivor will became at best dwarf plant. I know you tough about overwatering, but I only water them once (after initial watering), and they started to became yellow before that. I decided to make my lesson and start back with new seed.

I quickly learned that I made a couple mistakes, that I could do it in a better way..I should start the seed in rockwool for example (never touch it after sprout is better) and put it in a closed dome 18h/day under a T5 fluo with high humidity for a couple days. Open the dome gradually to finish without dome after 7-10 days, and transplant in a small pot when you see roots in the bottom of rockwool. Am I right?

Because that is exactly what I've done on my second try. And you know what? The same thing happens at the same stage. I use rockwoll cube that I soak in a 5.5 PH water for 24h, place seeds in, put it under a dome (no water in the bottom, only rockwool is humid). Seed sprouted after less than 48 hours and everything looks perfect. I transplant them after about 12 days in a pot of the size of a party glass. I add a tiny dose of Thrive B1 1ml/liter (3ml/liter standard dose) and Ph the water to 6.0.

I keep them under the T5 to make sure that they will not get any more stress. The first 3 days they look happy, they grow, they are heavy green color. And slowly, they start to turn yellow, leaf are turned down and seems to stop growing. I put them under the LED in my tent, thinking they need more light, but the problem continue. Right now they are still alive, but I loose precious time and I doubt that I will success.

At the same time I start chive and parsley in coco that I feed with the same water and they are awesome.
I am little depress right now, I lose almost 2 month and 120$ of seeds, never tough it could happen. :trance:

So what do you think about this??

Can it be genetic? Does auto seed are more difficult at seedling stage? :lot-o-toke:

I am almost sure that my problem is not in coco, water, PH, light or overwater.

Did Adding perlite to make roots breath more could solve my problem?

Did 1m/L of thrive could cause that because the plants are too young?


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Thanks


:Namaste::420::thanks:
 
Some look dry, but it's only on the top.

I put my smallest seedling in a smaller pot and the same thing happens, he became yellow. So I dont think it's "overpotting" nether overwatering. If It was not a Canna Coco I would doubt about the PH of my soil.
 
Hi tinygrow.

As your a fairly new member; Welcome to the 420 Magazine community! :welcome:

Really sorry for your difficulties. I'm afraid I've no experience growing in coco coir, so please correct or ignore me if I'm wrong. I was/am under the impression that growing in coco-coir is considered soil less and is thus treated like hydroponics. I ask as I see you mention only watering 1 time. Shouldn't your plants be getting watered several times a day at least?

Be well and happy growing!
 
Your grow mix is to dry... With the perlite mix, if it's dry on top it's too dry.. The coco/perlite mix works best for me.... Adding 25% perlite means when the plants get older, you'll need to water every day to keep enough water in the soil for the plant...... Usually any run off is pulled back up into the bottom of the container by the next day.... The RW cubes absorb and hold too much water to suit me... I find putting sprouted seeds into a coco/perlte mix always works best.... You don't put your parsley or chives in rw cubes and they do just fine...
When i can't do rdwc, coco/perlite is what i go with... I just finished two plants in coco/perlite... Drop by and check'em out...
 
Thanks Dr Fish, TanR and featherdusta!

Dr Fish, did auto-flower seeds are different than normal one? I mean did their root system is more hard to complete and they don't like pure coco blend?

I never read anywhere that coco without perlite is bad for plant, all this story is really weird...I'm about to throw all that shit at the garbage and go back to hydroponic..

I mean why go to coco if you have to add perlite and water every day? If I knew before I would use regular dirt..

A
 
I water my autos, in coco everyday, from seed to harvest.....I havnt been able to overwater yet, but you can underwater, which I think is where your problem lies
 
I've had this problem before. I was treating coco like soil when it is a hydroponic medium. The coco was so wet most of the time that I thought I was over watering. Same as you, I watered once a day or once every two days. The plants looked the EXACT same as yours, yellowing and curling inwards. The strains were blueberry northern lights (photo-sensitive not autoflower) and kalizahr (also photo-sensitive).

The symptom of the plant is OVER WATERING because coco is too wet. HOWEVER The solution is to begin frequent waterings with oxygenated water to clear out the old stale water.

Even though the problem is overwatering, the solution is NOT to water less often and to WATER MORE with fresh water that has oxygen in it from an airstone. And if they are sick like yours you can add a small amount of hydrogen peroxide to the water until they are healthy.

This worked for me until I realized it was hydro. I am now hydro all the way but back then I was stubborn wanting to use soil believing it was easier. What I did was I washed the coco off the roots as best I could with water and I planted in soil. Then I put then under a 400 watt mh and they turned the right color and also doubled in size in a day.

I'm growing candy cane under led. and they are doing fine. Our set up is similar except you are using coco. It has to be the coco.

Of all the auto's from crop king, the two I've had trouble with were candy cane and nyc diesel. They are not as tough as the northern lights auto but all the auto's are very tough plants
 
I've had this problem before. I was treating coco like soil when it is a hydroponic medium. The coco was so wet most of the time that I thought I was over watering. Same as you, I watered once a day or once every two days. The plants looked the EXACT same as yours, yellowing and curling inwards. The strains were blueberry northern lights (photo-sensitive not autoflower) and kalizahr (also photo-sensitive).

The symptom of the plant is OVER WATERING because coco is too wet. HOWEVER The solution is to begin frequent waterings with oxygenated water to clear out the old stale water.

Even though the problem is overwatering, the solution is NOT to water less often and to WATER MORE with fresh water that has oxygen in it from an airstone. And if they are sick like yours you can add a small amount of hydrogen peroxide to the water until they are healthy.

This worked for me until I realized it was hydro. I am now hydro all the way but back then I was stubborn wanting to use soil believing it was easier. What I did was I washed the coco off the roots as best I could with water and I planted in soil. Then I put then under a 400 watt mh and they turned the right color and also doubled in size in a day.

I'm growing candy cane under led. and they are doing fine. Our set up is similar except you are using coco. It has to be the coco.

Of all the auto's from crop king, the two I've had trouble with were candy cane and nyc diesel. They are not as tough as the northern lights auto but all the auto's are very tough plants

Thank you so much for your great answer jargoman!
I was 90% sure it was coco, but now its more like 99%.

I order new feminised seed, but no more auto. I really don't like the fact that when your grow is slow, its game over because you gonna get dwarf plant with a couple G's.

Anyway, I just threw away all my coco, I will start back with regular soil like Pro-mix.

But thanks again my friend, to take your time to answer a pure unknown.
 
Thank you so much for your great answer jargoman!
I was 90% sure it was coco, but now its more like 99%.

I order new feminised seed, but no more auto. I really don't like the fact that when your grow is slow, its game over because you gonna get dwarf plant with a couple G's.

Anyway, I just threw away all my coco, I will start back with regular soil like Pro-mix.

But thanks again my friend, to take your time to answer a pure unknown.

When I first read your post I was horrified that you threw out your crop and medium because of what I said. In hydro you tend not to have to start over because the plants can recover quickly. They are auto's so I suppose you are right you might have only yeilded a few grams.

I personally am interested in the auto's because I tend to have trouble with plants getting too big during flowering. The auto forces me to stick to a realistic time line. With photo's I get eager and veg them too big and run out of room. I'm trying some auto's now and I'm still running out of room lol
 
Of all the auto's from crop king, the two I've had trouble with were candy cane and nyc diesel. They are not as tough as the northern lights auto but all the auto's are very tough plants

Hey Jargoman, how long did your Norther Lights Auto go for? The crop king stuff says 8 weeks but I'm pretty sure that's just flowering time? I've got a pair and they've both been looking a little deficient lately then it occurred to me that I'm on week 9 from planting so now I'm wondering if they're maybe just at the end of their life? I haven't even stopped feeding them yet.
 
Hey Jargoman, how long did your Norther Lights Auto go for? The crop king stuff says 8 weeks but I'm pretty sure that's just flowering time? I've got a pair and they've both been looking a little deficient lately then it occurred to me that I'm on week 9 from planting so now I'm wondering if they're maybe just at the end of their life? I haven't even stopped feeding them yet.

To be honest my crop kings all "mysteriously died" when my ex partner was on watch. He tried giving me a story about them just dying one by one but I know better, he got drunk and left the dripper off. I've started again (without the partner) and you are slightly ahead of me.

The deficiencies you see are a good sign that the plant is maturing. All the fan leaves might be yellowing and falling off. If its only the fan leaves you are fine
 
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