Dear ALL

First time grow, 2 plants under 125w cfls, one each.

One of the plants seems healthy, not uber-budding, but healthy.

The second just looks.... well, strange..

The buds on the main cola are tiny, no matter how much light they get, and the leaves near the main cola just look like single fingered curly things.

The leaves and buds lower down look a lot more normal, but still tiny...


Please help me understand what is going on here, I would like to save them but I know this might not be possible, just want to know what to do incase this happens on grow number two...

Thanks in advance for any advice or comments. Have already read through the stickies, but nothing was there that i thought was relevant...

Attached Images

	UnhealthyMainCola.JPG (56.2 KB, 133 views)
	UnhealthyMainCola2.JPG (65.8 KB, 133 views)
	UnhealthyCloseUpTop.JPG (58.3 KB, 104 views)
	Healthy2.JPG (60.6 KB, 109 views)
	UnhealthyLowerBud.JPG (50.2 KB, 111 views)
	Healthy1.JPG (60.1 KB, 99 views)
	Healthy3.JPG (61.6 KB, 89 views)

I know its not cool to bump really. But i am a first timer, And i know this forum is busy.

Long time lurker (well a coupla months) lookin for some pearls of wisdom..

According to most instructional grow FAQs, DVDs etc, the components needed in a good grow are genetics, light, air/co2, humidity, water/nutrient and growing medium. They often speak of 3 week vegging periods for clones or 6 week vegging for seedlings. These are but arbitrary numbers and if adhered to can lead to lots of problems once you switch to flowering.

The best thing you can do for your plants to give them all the tools to grow successful buds is to allow that root area to form properly. As is stated in the problems sections of most grow sites, overwatering is the most common factor with new growers. In fact its a common mistake even with experienced growers. There are plenty of instructions on how to get your plants to recover from overwatering/nutrient, the trick to it is that if you do see the affects of over watering or nutrient burn, apart from 'fixing' the problems, that you give the plants time to recover before switching them to bud.

Sick plants need to fully recover before switching them, especially plants that have had pest infestations. These may need another 3 weeks from the time the pests were erradicated in order to fully recover from the attacks.
Without a happy root system, plants will suffer once you put them into flowering. Roots need to fill most of the grow medium before switching. Signs of problems in the root area are slow growth, burnt leaf tips, leaves that are washed out in patches, plants that emit very strong odor during vegging, and pots that remain heavy for a long period of time showing that the plants are not using much from the grow medium.

What you need is for the roots to occupy a large area of the space in the pots, a sign this is happening is that you see the lower branches begin to spread out and the tips extend past the edge of your pots. Eventually this occurs all the way up the plant. Fan leaves tend to extend out as far as the roots are extending out in the pots. This is a good sign that your plants are almost ready to switch.

Next you will see them begin to uptake nutrient faster, your watering routine will increase, and increased watering does not lead to leaves burning. This is also a good sign that your plants are happily preparing to be switched and that the root area is hardened up enough to nutrients to be able to handle the budding period.

For clones this can take between 3 to 6 weeks or longer once they are potted in their adult pots.

For seedlings its a little different. Unlike clones which are cuttings from an original seedling (and can have an adult age of years old from the original seedling), seedlings take a lot longer to get ready to switch to flowwering. Some grow videos give it 6-8 weeks in vegging, in fact it can be up to 12 to 16 weeks for some seedlings to form all of their adult parts ready to handle budding. Some seedlings grown to make mother plants have taken up to 6 months to mature enough to handle heavy cloning.

Although I have mentioned some time periods, your eyes need to eventually be the guide to tell you when they are ready or not.

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Thanks,

one issue is that they are in an autopot system, so its kinda hard to control watering.

I have flushed them through with clean water.

One thing i am noticing though, is that the plant is still growing in height.

There are not any bug problems, at least above the clay pebbles that I am growing them in, and they did have a healthy time vegging before i moved them onto 12/12.

You can see its healthy sister plant on a couple of the pics above, not exactly mega buddy, but healthy..

Im guessing one issue is that the plants are different strains. Bought a multi pack of five different strains for 40 quid or something.

Starting to see that growing 2 strains using one reservoir of nutes/water is not the most sensible move...

Any further tips and hints?

They look pretty good give them time.

Thanks for the reply, and one of them does look ok.. Maybe i shouldn't have put pics of the healthy plant up with the unhealthy.. Ill change that

But the one plant just seems like stunted bud growth, and really curled poor leaves.. The other one looks pretty cool and has my mouth watering a lil..... First Time grower =]

What up WheyToGrow, these are some helpful threads you can check out man:

Roseman's DIY Bubbleponics Tutorial:
Roseman's DIY Bubbleponics Tutorial

Things that I have learned about growing :
The best all around guide i've seen. Covers everything nubes!

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vz

Thanks gonna read through them both now, Though my setup is an autopot system, rather than bubble... anyone had similar experiences?

Thanks again for the suggested threads.

What spectrum are you using?
You should use more red for flowering.

I have seen leave curling happen like this when the plant is losing water more quickly than what it can draw up for use and replenishment. As for the smaller buds, I agree w/ Iceman, we need to make sure the plants are under the correct spectrum and also if you can afford, get a HPS for flowering.