Long Post. Looking for help outdoors.

Beats

Well-Known Member
Need some advice! I'll try and be as detailed as I can and I'll try to keep this as short as possible.

I have 17 plants that were just placed in their outdoor spots 2 days ago (Saturday morn). The plants were grown in beer cups with Pro-mix BX and were very healthy the whole time but experienced stretching early on due to poor lighting. The plants spent the last 2 weeks outside at home and were thriving in the natural sunlight.

The plants are currently in 4 identical beds outdoors comprising of Pro-mix BX, perlite, coir, and the native soil. I also added some Fox Farm Marine Cuisine to each bed a few weeks ago and watered each bed with 5 gallons of creek water at the time just to work it in.

Here's the plants just before taking them to their final destination.



When the transplanting was done on Saturday , I was very happy with it all. Plants made the move great and everything appeared to be ideal.. Mixed 1/3 strength Big Bloom and Grow Big into the creek water and watered the plants.

Went home and bought a PH testing kit (the one with the droplets and little tester vial) and tested some of the creek water that I had taken home as a sample. It was 8+! This kind of spooked me. I went back out yesterday and saw that the leaf blades on the plants, for the most part, were curled upwards and all the new growth on the plants appeared dead or dying. The newest leaves at the tops of the plants have burned-looking tips and the tiny new growths in the lower nodes were either dead and burned or looking doomed. However, all the old leaves look the same. Nice and green. Didn't know if it was my ferts burning the plants or the bad PH.. or both. I mixed up a 5 gallon bucket of creek water and PH'd it to 6.5 with 2 tbs of Big bloom and tried to flush the plants out. The bottle says its fine to use 1/2 Cup/gallon of Big Bloom on initial watering, so I figured 2 tbs in 5g is almost nothing. I flushed each plant and then used the remaining gallons on the rest of the beds to try and flush out as much as I could.

Went out again about an hour ago and the leaves are no longer curled up for the most part but all the new growth is still burned looking. I know that I just put them out there and I'm hoping it's just some sort of transplant shock or something that will fix itself.. THe soil should be loaded with everything the plants need and the water is PH 6.5. I figure I'll go back out on Friday or Saturday and take a look at them and hopefully give them some 1/4 strength ferts. A few weeks back I was given some clones, which I immediately just set outside with my seedlings and all their new growth died off and appeared just like the new growth on my plants is now. I just figured the clones weren't hardened off so the intense sunlight cooked them, but I can't say that for my plants outdoors because they have been doing great in the sunlight.. perhaps they get more intense sunlight at my outdoor spot and the sun is cooking them? I dunno. I know, really long post but anyone have any thoughts?

Anything I can do? Is this normal to see plants do this immediately after transplanting? Will they bounce back? I'm watering with PH'd water and they have plenty of nutrients available.. Sry, haven't taken pics of the plants out there yet. Really wasn't expecting to run into problems so soon. The plants were not root bound and in this short a period of time, I wouldn't think the roots have really done much growing.. Expecting some rain today so hopefully that helps so long as the plants don't droop from over watering.
 

slabhead

Well-Known Member
Beats how are they looking now? So was it just the sun change and a little transplant shock? Full sun is hard on them until they get used to it. Those were some healthy looking plants before you set them out. I hope they made a recovery. I'm kinda curious about the creek water pH you're adjusting. You got a journal? slabhead
 
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