Repeating the same mistakes

scruffy301 said:

I only gave it MG once. That was before I transplanted it, and I tried to remove as much dirt from the roots as I could without damaging them while transplanting. There were maybe 3 cups of soil in the root ball when I transplanted I think. It's still wilting about the same as it was after the transplant, but no more leaves have turned yellow. I thought they looked a little greener today, but hard to tell.

I ordered Fox Farm liquid nutrient trio. It had good reviews and the feeding schedule looked simple enough. It should arrive this week but I won't feed it until I post some more pics and get the go-ahead. Thanks!

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You may be ok to go ahead and give it some organic nutes, but I think the ff trio is salt based to. like someone mentioned earlier get a cheap $10 ph meter, some nutes get locked out of the plant if ph is off. Some fertilizer lines automatically set the ph when u mix it in your wafter. Not sure if ff trio line does or not. Just check on riu for guys who are using the same medium and fertilizeR and mimic there grow. Ask them q's and they can give u more specific advice. This worked for me.I would only use half of what ever it says on the bottle to use when u get it. Maybe less at first. And slowly increase while watching for burning on tips of fan leaves, if u see that right after fertilizing slow down. What kind of medium are u using?

scruffy301 said:

I was hoping that the worm castings mixed in would make it so I wouldn't need to use nutrients but I guess that was naive. I'm thinking I need to do whatever is simplest with nutrients since the most basic things like watering are giving me trouble. I will try and research this. Should have a little time while the plant is recovering.

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don't beat yourself up, adding EWC is far from being naïve.
The easiest course of action to net you some good herb, rather simply, would be to get a good quality bagged soil, I always had excellent luck with vermifire, it's a good soil to use, and you don't have to add much food, provided you give the plant ample soil.
Next time just get a couple bags of that, if you need to feed them the easiest, most effective, and simplest method is making teas from kelp meal, alfalfa meal, and molasses, if you use the vermifire you'd need to give them teas maybe two or three times, again, provided they have room (a minimum of 7 gallons)
Very simple, and hard to overfeed if you research it prior.
Not to mention if you grow with miracle grow, the difference between that and an organic grow are night and day.
no need to ph, no "PPMing" or any of that, those are for chem grows.
And by the way, you can absolutely burn a plant with fish emulsion, absolutely.
For that type of a nitrogen input i'd go with either fish hydrosylate or alfalfa meal tea.

green217 said:

You may be ok to go ahead and give it some organic nutes, but I think the ff trio is salt based to. like someone mentioned earlier get a cheap $10 ph meter, some nutes get locked out of the plant if ph is off. Some fertilizer lines automatically set the ph when u mix it in your wafter. Not sure if ff trio line does or not. Just check on riu for guys who are using the same medium and fertilizeR and mimic there grow. Ask them q's and they can give u more specific advice. This worked for me.I would only use half of what ever it says on the bottle to use when u get it. Maybe less at first. And slowly increase while watching for burning on tips of fan leaves, if u see that right after fertilizing slow down. What kind of medium are u using?

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Damn, the nutrients have already shipped and can't cancel the order. The description said they were organic but it looks like they are salt based. I will see if I can return them or try using them on a different plant.

After repotting, the mix is about 1/3 perlite, 1/3 Black Gold Cocoblend potting soil, and then the rest was mostly worm castings and a little bit of peat moss. I will buy soil next time rather than mixing my own. I don't know what I was thinking doing that, but last time I used some moisture control soil (think it was Miracle Grow brand), and it did not work out well.

I will look at some real organic nutrients.

scruffy301 said:

Damn, the nutrients have already shipped and can't cancel the order. The description said they were organic but it looks like they are salt based. I will see if I can return them or try using them on a different plant.

After repotting, the mix is about 1/3 perlite, 1/3 Black Gold Cocoblend potting soil, and then the rest was mostly worm castings and a little bit of peat moss. I will buy soil next time rather than mixing my own. I don't know what I was thinking doing that, but last time I used some moisture control soil (think it was Miracle Grow brand), and it did not work out well.

I will look at some real organic nutrients.

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I don't grow in Coco myself you should find someone who does and found out what kind of organic fertilizers work best in cocoa. Dyna Gro products may work. look for a fertilizer line that's only two or three bottles and some Cal Mag supplement all the other stuff isnt as important IMO. I've heard real good things about Dyna Gro in cocoa its organic. but like I stated earlier I have no personal experience growing in Coco.sounds like your soil is okay to start organic now if that's the path you choose. a lot of people use the Fox farms trio line with success but organic would be easier for beginner and probably the best overall. Good luck man

The soil is starting to feel pretty dry in the first couple of inches down in the dirt. I'm worried because I think it's wilting more now, or at least not improving. Should it take much long for the leaves to perk up after being over-watered, given Miracle Grow, and then transplanted?

Two different angles:


The bottom leaves are still pretty yellow:

One leaf has spots, that might be from watering though:


I hope it is still making a comeback from all the trauma. Is there anything I should do right away?

Thanks for all your help.

btw: just chose the name "Lucky" for her. Poor girl.

scruffy301 said:

The soil is starting to feel pretty dry in the first couple of inches down in the dirt. I'm worried because I think it's wilting more now, or at least not improving. Should it take much long for the leaves to perk up after being over-watered, given Miracle Grow, and then transplanted?

Two different angles:


The bottom leaves are still pretty yellow:

One leaf has spots, that might be from watering though:


I hope it is still making a comeback from all the trauma. Is there anything I should do right away?

Thanks for all your help.

btw: just chose the name "Lucky" for her. Poor girl.

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like someone stated in an earlier post, it takes a few days for the plant to recover from a transplant. Its hard to say if it's needs water or not with out feeling the weight of the pot myself. If it's dry all the way through the first couple of inches it may be ok to water. did it feel real wet once you got deep enough to feel water? or was it kinda dry too? if it was kind of dry I'd say water it till you get a good amount of runoff, let it all drain out the bottom and sit for a few minutes, then remove all water out of drainage pan under plant. It definitely has way to much life to even think about giving up, it will be able to recover if cared for properly.

Just took a close look at your pics, I'd chalk the yellowing and spots up to the transplanting. But that pot you are using looks like a 5gal bucket or something. if so thats a big container, which means more time between watering. It does have holes in the bottom, right? to allow drainage?
I grow in 5gallon buckets on occasion, they can hold on to water for a while. You should be able to feel it and tell. If it feels real light= time to water. If it still has water weight in it when you lift DO NOT WATER. Make sure that bucket has plenty of holes in the bottom for drainage.
It can take around a week for a plant to get settled in to a new pot and start vigorous growth, be patient. Alot of times people "over care" for their mj. Just provide it with a stable enviroment that promotes healthy growth, water when the pots get dry, fertilize when you start seeing yellowing on the larger/older fan leaves and the rest is patience.

You can run any nutes in coco as long as you have your calcium and magnesium supplemented. It's a great substrate.

green217 said:

like someone stated in an earlier post, it takes a few days for the plant to recover from a transplant. Its hard to say if it's needs water or not with out feeling the weight of the pot myself. If it's dry all the way through the first couple of inches it may be ok to water. did it feel real wet once you got deep enough to feel water? or was it kinda dry too? if it was kind of dry I'd say water it till you get a good amount of runoff, let it all drain out the bottom and sit for a few minutes, then remove all water out of drainage pan under plant. It definitely has way to much life to even think about giving up, it will be able to recover if cared for properly.

Just took a close look at your pics, I'd chalk the yellowing and spots up to the transplanting. But that pot you are using looks like a 5gal bucket or something. if so thats a big container, which means more time between watering. It does have holes in the bottom, right? to allow drainage?
I grow in 5gallon buckets on occasion, they can hold on to water for a while. You should be able to feel it and tell. If it feels real light= time to water. If it still has water weight in it when you lift DO NOT WATER. Make sure that bucket has plenty of holes in the bottom for drainage.

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It actually felt dry as far as my index finger and still dry below, but the bucket still feels pretty heavy to me. I must need to drill some more holes. I had 4 each about the size of a dime. Of course something stupidly basic again!

I ended up buying the GO Box nutrients kit mentioned in an earlier post. It will be here Friday. So I will go drill some more holes and reassure Lucky that she won't suffer the same fate as her twin sister.

scruffy301 said:

It actually felt dry as far as my index finger and still dry below, but the bucket still feels pretty heavy to me. I must need to drill some more holes. I had 4 each about the size of a dime. Of course something stupidly basic again!

I ended up buying the GO Box nutrients kit mentioned in an earlier post. It will be here Friday. So I will go drill some more holes and reassure Lucky that she won't suffer the same fate as her twin sister.

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I ran the GO box on my 1st grow, it is a little pricey but it is HARD to burn your plants, real hard. I run 1000w HPS and it got me through a whole grow easy with a little extra. IMO it's a great choice for a beginner, hell I would have probally stuck with it, but the appeal of getting more yield with less money in fertilizer with salt based nutes drew me in. You will be ok till friday as far as the nutes go, and yeah put more holes in the bottom. I put a lot more in the bottom of my 5 gallon buckets and they still seem to like to hold water more than i would like.
Here is a link to my first grow the last couple of plants at 70days of 12/12 with the go box:
https://www.rollitup.org/p/10690545/

green217 said:

I ran the GO box on my 1st grow, it is a little pricey but it is HARD to burn your plants, real hard. I run 1000w HPS and it got me through a whole grow easy with a little extra. IMO it's a great choice for a beginner, hell I would have probally stuck with it, but the appeal of getting more yield with less money in fertilizer with salt based nutes drew me in. You will be ok till friday as far as the nutes go, and yeah put more holes in the bottom. I put a lot more in the bottom of my 5 gallon buckets and they still seem to like to hold water more than i would like.
Here is a link to my first grow the last couple of plants at 70days of 12/12 with the go box:
https://www.rollitup.org/p/10690545/

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Those are amazing results! I would never guess that was from a first grow. Super impressive!

Really appreciate your help. I'm going to try to stop freaking out so I'll stop doing stupid things that only hurt the plant more.

I'm a little worried about the soil composition after reading some bad reviews of Black Gold Cocoblend, and my own experience with all the moisture it retains. One row up of leaves looked like it was starting to turn yellow today. I wonder if I should go get some premixed soil in case mine doesn't have the right composition since I'm "feeding the medium" with organic nutrients. I don't want to stress the plant out even more, but today while aerating the soil a little more it seemed like the roots hadn't grown out of their rootball much into the extra space in the bigger container. It has been about 5 days since the transplant.

scruffy301 said:

Those are amazing results! I would never guess that was from a first grow. Super impressive!

Really appreciate your help. I'm going to try to stop freaking out so I'll stop doing stupid things that only hurt the plant more.

I'm a little worried about the soil composition after reading some bad reviews of Black Gold Cocoblend, and my own experience with all the moisture it retains. One row up of leaves looked like it was starting to turn yellow today. I wonder if I should go get some premixed soil in case mine doesn't have the right composition since I'm "feeding the medium" with organic nutrients. I don't want to stress the plant out even more, but today while aerating the soil a little more it seemed like the roots hadn't grown out of their rootball much into the extra space in the bigger container. It has been about 5 days since the transplant.

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Transplanting is stressful to the plant. Like I said before 5 gallon buckets tend to hold water longer than I like, make sure u have plenty of holes and let a lot of runoff come out. I say leave it

green217 said:

Transplanting is stressful to the plant. Like I said before 5 gallon buckets tend to hold water longer than I like, make sure u have plenty of holes and let a lot of runoff come out. I say leave it

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they may just be hungry and that's what the yellow is from and the transplant, Imo

greasemonkeymann said:

don't beat yourself up, adding EWC is far from being naïve.
The easiest course of action to net you some good herb, rather simply, would be to get a good quality bagged soil, I always had excellent luck with vermifire, it's a good soil to use, and you don't have to add much food, provided you give the plant ample soil.
Next time just get a couple bags of that, if you need to feed them the easiest, most effective, and simplest method is making teas from kelp meal, alfalfa meal, and molasses, if you use the vermifire you'd need to give them teas maybe two or three times, again, provided they have room (a minimum of 7 gallons)
Very simple, and hard to overfeed if you research it prior.
Not to mention if you grow with miracle grow, the difference between that and an organic grow are night and day.
no need to ph, no "PPMing" or any of that, those are for chem grows.
And by the way, you can absolutely burn a plant with fish emulsion, absolutely.
For that type of a nitrogen input i'd go with either fish hydrosylate or alfalfa meal tea.

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Thanks, I will definitely be doing that with my next seedling.

green217 said:

they may just be hungry and that's what the yellow is from and the transplant, Imo

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Thanks. The leaves are starting to look a little crispy, but just about 19 hours now for those nutes to arrive.

scruffy301 said:

Thanks. The leaves are starting to look a little crispy, but just about 19 hours now for those nutes to arrive.

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IF you feel like its getting to dry water it, but if u can hold off for your mail, do that. I have a feeling lucky will start perking up once she gets those nutes.. Just mix it like it says on the general hydroponics web site. It will be hard to harm her with those organic nutes. I went over the suggested doses and never came close to burning my plants when I ran the go box, but don't do that. Just give her recommended dose or a little under and see how she responds.

The nutrients came and the instructions were easy to follow. That is some funky smelling stuff, especially the squid. I was surprised at the amount of runoff since the soil seemed to hold so much water. I gave it to some hostas, a Persian shield plant and an elephant ear. Probably has miracle grow remnants in it, whoops.

scruffy301 said:

The nutrients came and the instructions were easy to follow. That is some funky smelling stuff, especially the squid. I was surprised at the amount of runoff since the soil seemed to hold so much water. I gave it to some hostas, a Persian shield plant and an elephant ear. Probably has miracle grow remnants in it, whoops.

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Hopefully all goes well now. And yeah that stuff does smell wicked. But it works great.

Today I noticed the plant was starting to develop flowers that looked strange, not like the ones that grew on my previous plant . I must have wrongly identified that one as a female. My current plant is a cutting from the previous plant, taken when the previous plant was in pretty bad shape, but that portion of the plant still looked healthy. The previous plant had what I thought were female pre-flowers, but they must not have been. Here's a close up taken near the top of the current plant:



I think I need to do a lot more research before I attempt to grow again. I really appreciate all the help! I'm glad to have come across this site, and I at least have the right nutrients now for when I start again. I suppose I'll let the plant grow a little longer since it's only been a little over a day since I gave it the nutrients. I'm curious what will happen with it.

That sucks, male for sure. When running regular seeds which seem to be muchb more stable then femenized seeds its best to pop a few at a time if you have space for it. That way your sure to at least get one female. sorry man, keep at it. That go box will work great.

Well the plant looks like it has officially come around today, lol. I noticed a stronger odor when I got close to the tent, and thought the bacteria must be multiplying, so I wasn't surprised to see that the plant was doing better. I will take some 48-hour pics tonight just to show the difference the nutrients made, or might wait just a little longer and show a progression.

I need to research seeds now. I just got a few from some stuff a friend acquired a while back. I don't have any more.

I'm thinking about switching to LED. I measured at the top of the plant:

Temperature: 88 F.
Humidity: 35%

I way underestimated the temperature. The plants also can probably only grow a foot taller before they're touching the light, and the fixture isn't cooled. The tent is 5 feet tall and the fixture is raised as high as possible. Guess I could also look into changing the ventilation and growing shorter plants, since I need new seeds now anyway.