Please Diagnose This Young Plant

Hello all! I'm a brand new patient here in Oregon, and this is my first grow. And my first post!

I've had this girl for a couple days. Her name is "Faith", as that's the name of the strain and it's written on her container.

She seemed all right until the morning after I got her, when she started to curl up at the tips of her leaves. now her bottom leaf is curling and wilted. I thought it might be overwater or nute burn, but I'm fairly certain I heard the lady say the Org I go through uses Fox Farm Ocean Forest exclusively, no nutes.

I checked the moisture meter last night at midnight, and it read 2.0 (out of 10), so I flushed it with 3 times the container's capacity, bringing the moisture to 4.5.

She is under fluorescent right now for a week before transplant and metal halide. She is in a plastic pint cup.

Help poor Faith! She's counting on you!

We need to know what your light schedule is and how long has she been in vegetative state. Test your water ph level as well as soil ph level.

I don't trust moisture level meters. I know that the soil should get dry before you water again. I use small pots like you for some plants and I water every day with one ounce from a shot glass. I use full strength Fox Farm Grow Big during Veg from sprout to the start of flowering.
24 hours on 0 off with 1 1000 watt high-Intensity discharge.

Standards said:

We need to know what your light schedule is and how long has she been in vegetative state. Test your water ph level as well as soil ph level.

I don't trust moisture level meters. I know that the soil should get dry before you water again. I use small pots like you for some plants and I water every day with one ounce from a shot glass. I use full strength Fox Farm Grow Big during Veg from sprout to the start of flowering.
24 hours on 0 off with 1 1000 watt high-Intensity discharge.

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She's on 24 hours under a shop light until she's settled in, on the advice of the person who gave me the plant. I have a 1000w metal halide ready to go.

Before I watered yesterday, she was bone dry on the top 1/2 inch or so, and the container was pretty light.

Water ph was 6.5 or so, and soil ph is up around 7.5 to 8. I know that's a bit high, could that be the problem? My other plants have the same ph, but are fine.

How can I lower the soil ph without stressing the plant too much?

Oh, and according to the label she was cloned 10/01, so 8 days.

That is a high ph level for your soil and will definitely be playing a large factor in the poor health. Fill a 1 gallon (4L) ice cream pail with the same water that was reading 6 on the ph scale and add 1 tablespoon of vinegar and the nutrient solution you use. Let it get room temperature and stand for 24 hours if you have alot of bleach in your water. Check the ph and it should have been lowered to around 4.

This will lower your soils ph. Check the soil ph about an hour after your next water. Within a week you should get the soil back to 6.5.

And start to set up your HPS light soon to get the most light you can on it. Keep the grow area at 80 degrees ferinheight.

Also, you may be over watering. The top half inch of soil in your pot will dry quickly but the deeper you go the more moisture there is. It should be dry half way down the pot or at least an inch. For the size of the pot your using I would feed it 1 ounce a day or a little more depending on how fast or slow it is being absorbed or evaporating.

PH should not be that big a deal with a plant that small, it looks to me like nute burn. Don't put that little plant under a big lamp yet, use the flourescent. Get the PH back to about 6.5 and for now just water with water and maybe a little super thrive.

calibob said:

PH should not be that big a deal with a plant that small, it looks to me like nute burn. Don't put that little plant under a big lamp yet, use the flourescent. Get the PH back to about 6.5 and for now just water with water and maybe a little super thrive.

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That's the thing, it does look a lot like nute burn, canoeing leaves, dry ends. But the plant is 8 days old and I'm almost 100% sure that it's never had any nutes at all, just FF soil.

My other 8 day old is a Sour Diesel, same PH, and it's looking great.

I'm going to not water for a day or two and then switch to the shot glass. I wish I knew what was up with this girl! Maybe she's just a runt.

Oh, and after 18 hours, her cup is a lot heavier than her brother's. Is this a drainage issue, maybe the soil is too compact? Root's damaged?

I would transplant it now into the fresh soil and a bigger pot if you plan to grow this one bigger before the roots touch the bottom of your cup. The cup may be starving the roots of O2 and CO2.

It wouldn't hurt to use your other lights either as long as you have a fan to regulate the air temp above and around the plant.

Are there any cold drafts in this shed?

Standards said:

I would transplant it now into the fresh soil and a bigger pot if you plan to grow this one bigger before the roots touch the bottom of your cup. The cup may be starving the roots of O2 and CO2.

It wouldn't hurt to use your other lights either as long as you have a fan to regulate the air temp above and around the plant.

Are there any cold drafts in this shed?

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It's chilly here and she's in the basement. I'm running a space heater on very low, and the small plants are on a heating pad. Air temp is about 66 min, 73 max, and with the ventilation I can't get air temp higher than that with just fluoro, I expect it to go up when I turn on the HID. Soil temp is around 73-76.

I'll transplant today. I guess I might as well practice transplanting on an already compromised plant.

The thing is, her brother was cloned on the same day, in the same medium, same type container, and I've treated exactly the same, but is thriving.

I just transplanted into a 3 gallon with FFOF and some perlite.

The roots were a bit sparse obviously, and sort of light brown, not white. The bottom most leaf is almost completely shriveled now, but the top 2 leaves don't seem to be affected.

Even the best soils aren't always mixed so perfectly that you don't get a big wad of shit (or whatever fert they use) in one handfull and maybe none in another. The people that gave you the clone must not have mixed the soil from your description...

Regardless transplanting is exactly what I would have done at this point anyway. That and throw the moisture meter away if you even suspect it's causing you to misjudge anything. Go by the pot weight like you already mentioned.

You could even wash all the old dirt out of the roots holding the thing under fast tap water at room temperature if you want to be sure what is going on from now on and just stick the dangling roots in all new FFOF that you mixed up and crushed up first too. It may sound extreme but I guarantee you it doesn't matter what is wrong at this point that will fix it.


Btw hi neighbor...

OregonMeds said:

Even the best soils aren't always mixed so perfectly that you don't get a big wad of shit (or whatever fert they use) in one handfull and maybe none in another. The people that gave you the clone must not have mixed the soil from your description...

Regardless transplanting is exactly what I would have done at this point anyway. That and throw the moisture meter away if you even suspect it's causing you to misjudge anything. Go by the pot weight like you already mentioned.

You could even wash all the old dirt out of the roots holding the thing under fast tap water at room temperature if you want to be sure what is going on from now on and just stick the dangling roots in all new FFOF that you mixed up and crushed up first too. It may sound extreme but I guarantee you it doesn't matter what is wrong at this point that will fix it.


Btw hi neighbor...

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Yeah, i mixed the FFOF up real good, got all the lumps out. The dirt in the cup seemed pretty dense, I have a feeling it was overwatering and no aeration in the soil. But then, I'm no expert.

If she gets worse I'll try rinsing the roots like you said, and come Monday morning I'm going to call MAMA and see if there's another clone of this plant lying around, maybe she was just doomed.

Just a quick update:

I transplanted into a 3 gallon pot, and babied our young lady for a week, and she's right back on track. Her lower leaves died, but all the new growth looks great, and as of the last couple days she's really taking off.

Just goes to show you, keep the Faith!

HA!!