Seedling wackiness

[Nacho_Man_Sandy_Ravage]

Day 10 on a blue cheese germinated straight into a 10 gallon felt grow bag. Medium is 2/3 KIS Organics H2O only soil and 1/3 coco. Has not been fed anything. Light is 2 240 w quantum boards at about 30”. Temp is between 73 and 81 Fahrenheit and RH used to be pretty low, in the 30s, but is now ranging between 45 and 60 (last 3 or 4 days). Have not been pHing my water as I can’t stand to use my darn pH meter. Any thoughts?

 

[Arthur]

1. When you mixed your soil, did you pH it? Should have been 6.3 to 6.7, shooting for an even 6.5... Looks like a pH issue to me.
2.Coco will lock up cal/mg until it is saturated... could be...
3.Was the coco flushed prior to mixing? Many cocos are "rinsed" in saltwater. If not rinsed well, causes many issues.

Know you and your pH meter aren't talking.... better apologize... your gonna need to be good frinds.

 

[Nacho_Man_Sandy_Ravage]

1. When you mixed your soil, did you pH it? Should have been 6.3 to 6.7, shooting for an even 6.5... Looks like a pH issue to me.
2.Coco will lock up cal/mg until it is saturated... could be...
3.Was the coco flushed prior to mixing? Many cocos are "rinsed" in saltwater. If not rinsed well, causes many issues.

Know you and your pH meter aren't talking.... better apologize... your gonna need to be good frinds.

 

[Nacho_Man_Sandy_Ravage]

Thanks for responding

1. I didn’t pH the soil when I mixed it, only moistened it and mixed it in the grow bag. This is only my second grow and the first went ok with 100% KIS Organics soil with the exception of my plant getting nitrogen toxicity. That led me to think that maybe 100% KIS was too hot for autos. Thus the mixture this time around.
3. The coco wasn’t flushed, only reconstituted from a brick. It’s my first time using coco so I just followed the instructions on the bag.

Any thoughts about how I might turn this one around? At this point I’m just proceeding as normal and hoping that it will “outgrow” or come to terms with any problems. I do have another seedling, same strain, going in 100% KIS as a “control” and it looks smaller but healthy.

It kills me to hear that I have to work with that bloody pH meter. I cannot for the life of me get that darn thing dialed in. And it wasn’t cheap either. Oh well, gotta suck it up I guess.

 

[Arthur]

At this point you need to find out where you sit pH wise in the medium. Some will suggest runoff testing, I would suggest a slurry test. Shot glass full of soil from your pot, about an inch down, halfway from plant to edge of pot. 1 shot glass of the water you use for your grow. Let sit about 5 minutes and test it. Looking for mid 6s. If low, start feeding on the high side (6.6-6.8), or amend the medium with something like dolomite lime to raise the in pot pH. Coco usually drags the pH down, so I'm expecting to see a lower # here. A ppm test wouldn't hurt either, to see if shes eating, underfed or overfed.

 

[Capt.Quirk]

Dig the hot little bastard out, tranfer to a 5 gal pot filled with OF/perlite and be done with it.

 

[Nacho_Man_Sandy_Ravage]

At this point you need to find out where you sit pH wise in the medium. Some will suggest runoff testing, I would suggest a slurry test. Shot glass full of soil from your pot, about an inch down, halfway from plant to edge of pot. 1 shot glass of the water you use for your grow. Let sit about 5 minutes and test it. Looking for mid 6s. If low, start feeding on the high side (6.6-6.8), or amend the medium with something like dolomite lime to raise the in pot pH. Coco usually drags the pH down, so I'm expecting to see a lower # here. A ppm test wouldn't hurt either, to see if shes eating, underfed or overfed.

Thanks very much for the thoughtful response. I’ll definitely give that a try.

 

[Nacho_Man_Sandy_Ravage]

Dig the hot little bastard out, tranfer to a 5 gal pot filled with OF/perlite and be done with it.

Thanks so much for the response. If the slurry thing doesn’t pan out then that’ll be my next step. Would I need to feed her nutes with OF? Not needing to feed was one of the biggest selling points of the KIS.

 

[Arthur]

If the slurry thing doesn’t pan out then that’ll be my next step. Thanks for responding.

If your gonna go with OF can be too much for small ones. HF would be a milder choice... mild would probably a good thing coming out of issues.