New Grower long time lurker does first grow

[jingo]

Everything says repot now, probably solve your issues. If you ease a plant up out of it's cup and the roots are circling the bottom, it's time.

I doubt your t-5 has been to close, I used to veg under t-5s and would be within an inch.

Your plants are old enough for the hps and id fire it up about two days after you repot.

Mites will destroy your plants in short order as can other bugs. Mites prefer the top of plants and will give you webs on top.

 

[lunarman]

@jingo I just finished transplanting to the 5 gallon fabric pots. Also had my soil checked via a slurry and a hanna combo meter at a local shop and it was about 6.8. And that matches my Control Wizards soil probe meter.

There were no root balls in the solo cups. I could see roots on the side and some on the bottom. But not balls like I've seen in online pics.

Don't feel like I'm any closer to really knowing what the heck is or was wrong. But hopefully I'm going to move past this just because of the flushes and transplants and the next run I do will not have this issue again. I have a couple more DP beans germinating now so I'll take another crack at the seedlings soon enough.

 

[jingo]

Well I suppose it's possible you could have over watered a little bit. May also have been a little bit of a hot mixture in the soil? I don't know, that could stunt it.

I think it took me about 4 grows before I could reliably produce more than a couple ounces on a plant. My first grow I think I got an ounce and a half of decent smoke from 15 plants. So yeah you will move Beyond this in time and I suspect a lot quicker than I did.

 

[lunarman]

@jingo

I transplanted out of the cups last night in to pots with more amendments in it that I created and cooked up a while back just for these pots to carry from veg to flower. I checked the pots after the transplant with the control wizard and I am getting in the range of 5.8 to 6.4. So I am really feeling like the PH is good now. I'll take more readings later today.

Since the transplant done like 12 hours ago, the plants are looking much better from a droop perspective. Not sure if its because of a couple of flushes I did over the last couple of days and the upsize of pots or both. I took a couple of pics this morning. The group shot is trying to just show that overall there is less droop on the all plants. The leaves and stems really lifted up now.

The second picture shows the one plant I'm not concerned with. No droop, but pretty yellow lower leaves. This plant for some reason is the worst. The other might show a bit of lighter green but not quite yellow. I wish I knew what this is. My water PH is good. Soil PH is good. So should be no lockout. My soil is a homebrew TLO based on Coco and perlite substrate and then I added organic matter including composted and aged horse manure, EWC and an organic powder that is a blend of meals etc. It's NPK is 4-10-4. And I cooked this for 6 weeks before using it.

If this is a N deficiency, is there a way I can add N organics to my pots? With a liquid mix or maybe a solid top dressing?

 

[Hippy_BiotabsF70]

Hi @lunarman

Love the set up, very cool. I reckon that's one advantage you have over a lot of us on our first grows: I bought the wrong equipment twice and had to upgrade twice to get something half decent. Looks like you've got it sorted first time out

I reckon up-potting will make all the difference to your girls in a few days. I have a fairly uneducated hunch that they were in the solos for too long, and the soil in the solos was a bit too hot maybe. Coulda been some sort of PH issue causing a lock out perhaps.

Don't sorry about the very yellow first leaves. They're just bullshit leaves that always go manky and drop off anyway

Don't panic!! Everyone does on their first grow and we all try to do too much to try and rectify any issues. The problem is, even when you take the proper corrective action, it can take a good few days before you see any signs of improvement. Patience is a virtue (strong weed helps).

Good luck buddy, in no time at all you will have got the awkward first grow out of the way, and you'll be growing monsters from that point onwards. I think these girls will also probably sort themselves out and give you some decent smoke

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

small pots can dry out very fast.dry soil has lil cracks in it,so when you next water it falls straight through the cracks and out the bottom making it look like run off.
small pots can be a real pain to keep on top of.
overwatering and underwatering looks so so similar it can be hard to tell.with a larger pot its easier to keep the plant at a happy medium.
a spare pot same size as using with just dry soil no seed never watered is my best gauge as to when to water a plant.wet/dry/wet/dry.lift pots up and down each time you in the grow room,to get a feel for things.it does take time and many of us still over/underwater from time to time.
growing monsters is as much luck as skill on a first grow,its more a learning curve than any of us imagined when we first started to grow.we still learning.
a smidge on the small side but overall healthy looking,i have seen and grown worse.
good luck n keep er lit.

 

[jingo]

You know I've never really done anything with Organics. It does have the appearance of an N deficiency, but I'd wait a few days to see if the new growth doesn't come in Darker green.

General Hydroponics has an organic line which is really the same mineral nutrients as their non-organic line they just add a little bit of feed for the beneficial microbes. In other words in my opinion you could feed a "chemical" nutrient as long as you kept the feeding of your microbes in mind.

I bought a bag of organic fertilizer for my wife's vegetable plants in pots. It's mainly a little bit of fish meal and alfalfa meal in pellets. Picked it up at Home Depot. I think it would make a nice tea I don't think you would really have to brew it I think you would just dissolve a little bit of that in there and water that in your next time around, or you can probably do a foliar feed with that might be better.

But I'd wait a few days just to make sure that new growth doesn't come in nice and green and healthy looking. When you lose mobile nutrients in your bottom leaves they can occasionally come back but usually they don't.

 

[lunarman]

@hippy71 @archie gemmill

Thanks for the feedback. Very encouraging to get some positive feedback after the repot. Today things are looking much better. I'm hoping I'll see some good veg growth now and these take off more.

I germinated two more beans in solo cups starting last Saturday. Both have popped, but they seem so small compared to what I saw with my first 4 plants. The first one to pop popped and then has done nothing in a couple of days. It's just sitting there not changing or growing. Then the second one popped but not sure how it will do. But it took 4 days to pop and I wasn't sure it was going to germinate. In the pic below the left one popped first and the right one popped last night/today. Don't these look kind of bad? Not sure what the first leaves are called but they are not showing in the left one which is surprising.

I'm not sure buy maybe there is something off with the soil I use the solo cups and seedling. I use the coco/perlite base with some EWC added. That's it. It should be good for seedlings I would think. I will have to do another PH test on the cup soil.

 

[bad dragon bzzz]

looks like the seed shell is stuck on.give it a spray mist wait 5 mins and spray again another 5 mins give the top a wiggle with a pencil and the shell should fall off.
im sure its doing plenty of growing under the soil.

 

[lunarman]

@archie gemmill thanks for the suggestion. Just a good jolt of spray knocked off one shell. And started to get the second one off too. I had no idea that was the issue and glad it does not really affect growth of roots. And glad its not a mystery issue with my solo cup soil. And not a seed genetics quality issue either.