Welcome to the forum, honored you would post here in my thread. I have a lil bit of gardening to do yet today so it will be a couple hours before I am able to truly respond to your post. Just didnt want to leave you hanging forever. Welcome to ILGM, ill get back to you soon.
2 Likes
absolutely! Iâm new to the site too so wasnt sure where or how to begin. no rush and appreciate your time/help!
Want to call some attn to perlite, for all you that are new to indoor gardening. There are several grades of perlite. The scotts stuff you will find most hardware stores and walmarts is regular or small grade perlite. While im sure it does an ok job for most small potted plants, I have found it is not the best for cannabis gardening. It doesnt offer the level of airation and drainage that you really need with cannabis. Medium grade, IMO, is perfect for the job. The only place ive been able to find it is at the hydro store. Walmart sells the small stuff for 22 bucks for 2 cubic feet. I paid 33 dollars for 3.5 cubic feet of the medium stuff. Bellow is a picture of the difference between the two. Its drastic. Anyhow, thanks for listening to my rant and if you havent tried med perlite yet, do it! Youâll see what I mean.
6 Likes
Agreed it is much better to start in the forever pot with autos.
That is a lil low. Can you tell me what was the ph going in also, what kind of water are you using?
When you potted did you cut the soil with addtl perlite? If not this COULD be a part of your leaf issue, FF soil is notoriously poor draining. I always cut mine with 25% perlite (3 scoops soil 1 scoop perlite) poor drainage can result in overwatering which is usually the cause of leaf edges burning. TBH I dont believe that is your issue but wanted to bring attn to it. Above this post is a lil PSA I just did on perlite sizes, if your interested.
Depending on the water you use this could be a culprit in your low ph. R.O. and Distilled especially need calmag to make them ph stable. Water must have at least 300-350ppm of dissolved solids in it to hold its own ph. If it doesnt, the water will take on the ph of the medium you pour it into. Ammended soils often start with a lower ph because of all the nutes, as your plants consume the nutes the ph will rise, if feeding salt (synthetic) nutes the resulting influx of nutes boggs it back down. This is why most people will do a feed then water then feed then water schedule. Feed brings ph down, water resets it higher wash, rinse and repeat. Make sense?
Im with you there, I think after 30 days in a small pot like that they have likely consumed the nutrients that the soil started out with. This brings me to what I think your issue is. With low ph and time in small pot I think you have the begginings of potassium deficiency.
Fox Farm OF doesnt have alot of p or k in it, its mainly a veg soil so high in N low in P and K. With the time in the small pot they have likely used up the available supply and are looking for more using stored supply. Its prolly time to repot.
Normally a flush would help but not knowing the tds of your runoff stops me from suggesting that for your next step because it wont raise ph unless there are nutes to wash away. Make sense?
So before doing anything, need to know:
Type of water
Input water ph and tds as well as runoff tds
Soil makeup (extra perlite or no extra perlite)
Outside that, Im curious what your plans for nutrition after transplant and into flowering?
What does your setup look like, lights, fans, etc.
Happy to answer any other questions you have if I can. Again, welcome to the community.
1 Like
Alrighty, I read your response and knew immediately where we have gone wrong. I believe because we are using distilled water and not adding nutrients to it to hold PH, we are by default not adding anything to the soil and is the cause of the low PH (added a small dose of clmg to the water today and PPM in was only 100, so immediately reading your posts I knew the water balance wasnt impacting the soil. I knew the pot size was an issue but we just werenât able to knab our larger pots in time so we have them coming this weekend to replant.
To answer the questions you had:
Type of water: distilled
Water Ph in 6.5 - Runoff PH 5 - 5.5 (varies in diff plants)
Soil make up - FFOF only, we never heard of cutting soil with other materials before reading around today and 100% is going to be our plan going forward.
After we transplant, we just planned to add more FFOF and allow the ladies to take up nuts again from the new soil and monitor PPM. Once it dropped we would add nuts and base it of the flowering chart on the bottles as the soil should get us to approx. another 30 days or just shy, similar to our current situation. However, after reading these forums Iâm realizing that may have been the worst plan ever⌠any suggestions to help set us back on track would be highly appreciated.
As for our setup we have the following:
mars hydro tsw2000
maxisun 4x4
carbon filter for ventilation
2 generic small fans
small lasko space heater - temp in tent avg. 70f
small humidifier - avg humidity 60-65% currently
1 Like
Excellent, this will help your roots breath better and move through your soil better.
Think we have a winner!
Its an often left out aspect of using R.O. and distilled. I would highly recommend switching from distilled to RO water. Mostly because of price tag. Its like 1.50 for a gallon of distilled and about 0.30 a gallon for RO. I get mine from a primo water filling station at walmart. Though I imagine any grocery store will have a water filling station. You can use single gallon jugs but its alot easier to get 5 gallon jugs. A little over head cost but in the end youll be saving time and money going this route. I even got a 3 gal jug for nute mixing. Once in 5 gallon pots and flowering you will be looking at 1-1.5 gallons per water/feed per plant.
When flushing soil, I recommend using dechlorinated tap waterâŚmuch cheaper considering it takes 15 gallons to flush a 5 gallon pot. Dechlorination is easy, either 24 hours open air in a bucket or pond dechlorinator of some kind.
You can also use epsom salt in conjunction with calmag to up the water tds. I use both often at a rate of about 5ml calmag and 1/4 tsp epsom on water only days. You may have a different experience just know you can use both. Cal and mag are important in that they aid in nutrient absorbtion. Just make sure its pure epsom (mag sulfate) vs something with fragrances or colors added.
Increase water only days to 6.8ph for my experience everything I put in is at 6.8ph. 6.5 is the sweetspot for soil. As per the image bellow you can see all nutes available at or around 6.5ph. FF has buffers in it that help aid in maintaining this. Better at 6.8 then bellow 6.5. Make sense? (I ask cuz I am blazed outta my gord right now)
A couple. 1) Dont use instructions on bottle. Use either FF soil feeding schedule or this altered FF feeding schedule for autos. I use the altered one for smaller plants and the regular one for larger plants.
Regular schedule:
Altered schedule:
- you likely wont get 30 days out of your new soil after transplat. The plant will get bigger rapidly and will consume faster then it has up till now. Begin feeding when the runoff of your watering drops below 1000 ppm. Start at 1/4 or even 1/2 suggested dose and go up from there.
2a) be sure to record what you put in and its makeup and ph/tds figures as well as what the figures of your runoff are. - I use an app called gardening with Jane, its free for up to like 12 plants and it keeps track of everything. I would be lost without it.
- feel free to ask about anything. Im happy to help.
I will also tag you in a couple of my journals feel free to read em over lots of good info and lessons learned in them.
2 Likes
Appreciate all the info and you have filled in so many gaps already. I will look into that app to start keeping track, Iâve been terrible with this. We never thought to look at the RO water from the grocery stores, thatâs a clutch tip and now we are doing that!!
Going forward, we will cut the soil with perlite (medium size from your post previously) when we go to transplant. Since we have to transplant Iâm guessing any kinda flush wouldnât be needed? If not, would use water mixed with Epsom salt and calmag, per your directions, and phâd to 6.8 (ppm 300-350 minimum) water the plants. Get runoff and follow that feeding schedule you provided. Proceed with feed, water, feed, water as noted previously. Am I on the right path? Everything youâre saying make total sense and weâre so dang thankful!
I will be losing myself in those journals and, again, appreciate you!
1 Like
Yes. When using fresh soil wait till tds drops bellow 1000 before feeding.
I wouldnt worry about it.
You are most welcome.
Still having a problem in understanding the removing center finger
@bbdeb1958 Fan leaves consist of 5, 7, or 9 sometimes even 11 fingers. I cut out the middle one leaving the rest of the leaf intact. This allows the branch underneath it to get light.
The outline is of a fan leaf. Red is the part that stays yellow is the single finger removed. See how the branch bellow that leaf pokes out where the finger used to be?
Ok the buds look like little white hairs on them so I donât think I want to do anything right now.
1 Like
This is something i do in the transition stage. And only if it needs done. Sometimes those big fan leaves just get in the way. This action is a way to give the incoming branch light without sacraficing the fan leaf.
2 Likes
Update- here is a pic of my ladies. 6 weeks from sprout I think.
I moved the forbidden runtz into my veg tent cuz she was getting to tall for the others in the flower tent. She wont be there long but I didnt wanna scrafice dli on the others until absolutly necessary
9 Likes
Ive been looking at these myself, let us know how you like them please. Ive wondered myself if there is any concern with hitting roots?
None what so ever, many people use all manor of training device. From tomato cages to bamboo sticks. There is even a process to test spoil ph called a soil slurry that requires dirt from 2 inches below the topsoil. Also soil moisture probes that get stick in over and over and over throughout a grow. Do you want to dig up half your pot? Absolutely not. Can you rip and tear a few roots? Without question.
1 Like
@Urk420 your on good hands with doc. He has been coaching me through my first grow and i couldnât be happier
2 Likes
Good day Happy Football Sunday. Go Bengals. Lol. Hey another question. You give molasses and I would like to know when you start adding it? I also have the boosters coming to. Plant I am so proud of this one.
2 Likes