Hey there everyone! I’m trying to get my first grow off the ground, but seem i may have run into a problem. My plants (white widow auto from ilgm) sprouted 10 days ago, but don’t seem to be growing vertically. they’re about 1-1.5 inches tall, and have started to develop many nodes, but no growth vertically. I’ve been watering with pH balanced water, in a half potting soil, half homemade compost. i have yet fed them, and have been watering every other day. i’m using two 300w vivosun led’s, actual power 135w each. the lights were placed 24in from plants, but i moved them as i thought doing so would make plants stretch towards light
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Following. I have the very same issue with a couple of seedlings I have going right now. Everything seems ideal, but I’m getting little growth this past week.
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How’s your airflow? I usually place a 6” fan clipped to the support of the tent to keep things circulated.
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If they’re not decaying on the leaves at this point (10 days in soil) I’d say they are establishing a root system. Give them a few days and maybe place a height marker in there also. That way you will have definitive proof if there’s any growth or not
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What’s your environment like?
Min temp, max temp?
Min humidity, max humidity?
Make sure your hot over watering, put your finger in the soil up to your 2nd knuckle and if you feel any mosture don’t water.
Lower your lights to 20" as I assume your scedule is 18/6? This should get you the correct DFI (light over time basically)
I don’t see any clip fans, your going to need 2 clip fans inside that tent to provide a bit of a breeze this will force the plants to get stronger and build bigger roots to better feed and supper themselves.
I can’t seem to tell if you have an exhaust duct system with fan/filter setup… Do you?
Do you have an intake vent open?
@PharmerBob good suggestion with the height marker,
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Lights not close enough? $0.02
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i didn’t have any open previously. i opens a few and put a tower fan in the tent in front of one of the filtered intakes. i also opened some duct ports. should i put a clip fan in one of the duct ports blowing air out?
To much water
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Yes you should for now but you need a duct fan and some ducting, your plants for sure have been in stale air and thus they couldn’t breath.
Also what is your environment highs and low’s?
Sounds like you may be over watering, follow the method I posted above. And lower lights. Your DFI at that height is to low.
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Welcome to ILGM, @joshaubert! I agree with the others saying too much water. They look good, just be patient. In a large container like that, a small seedling is easy to overwater. They only need a tiny bit, and you should water in a ring around the plant, away from the stem, not right on it. That way, the roots will be forced to reach out for that water instead of sitting in it. Also, while the plants are developing roots in a pot that size, they may seem to stall, above ground. Once they’ve filled out their roots in the pot some, you should see them really take off. If you want more stem length between nodes, you should either dim the lights, if possible, or raise them. Either way, decreasing the intensity (that’s quite a lot of light for seedlings) should help them stretch out. Some use smaller lights for their seedlings, CFLs or T5s. I like to use a small CFL in a clamp on reflector, maybe 6" or so off of the plants, one light for each plant, when they’re small at least.
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@elheffe702 summed it up nicely and I will also add that a clear dome over the top of the plants will help them when they are little. They are developing a root mass to support a large canopy so the best thing you can do is make the plant ‘hunt’ for water by watering sparsely and outside the drip line of the plant (as already stated).
Over watering is evident. Your water volume right now should be measured in teaspoons right now. Distilled water only would be a good choice.
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i have since added an oscillating tower fan inside the tent, as well as placing a fan in the top vent of my tent, which is pulling air out of the tent. hopefully this is enough to get the air moving. thanks for the tips on the lighting and watering, i’ll give the plants a day or two and will update any changes :))
UPDATE:
since i created this post one week ago, the plants have only grown maybe 2 inches vertically. are they stunted?
Update us with a new picture, from 10 days ago they have grown but at 20 days they should be looking more like this (even though my Temps and my humidity was all wrong, fresh air and a good medium followed by proper watering still grew an acceptable size before flower)
I have ask you a couple times what your Temps, humidity is, what’s the TDS of the water your feeding?
Not sure why you went with compost and coco… But they are definitely stressed and will probably flower in a week…
Shoot us an update picture but at this point I would say dump those plants and those pots, go out buy some fox farms ocean forest and happy frog, a bag of perlite and some mkyos and a duct fan with ducting.
Not sure if your Temps and RH are out of wack but I’m leaning towards the fact that your not venting your stale air so they are struggling to breath while they are in a medium that is not ideal, probably to hot considering you fed them and the compost could be really hot.
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@joshaubert my plant was a slow starter… then would grow a couple of inches… then nothing for a week…then it seemed like over night she was 24 inches tall…just got to be patient…now she is rushing me…hope to harvest her in about 3 weeks…this grow was a learning grow and did everything wrong.but now I have good notes to look back on for next grow
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