Young seedling/plants falling over

Al B. Fuct said:

GreenGro, what sort of light are you using?

What size rockwool cube are you using for the seedlings?

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Hi Al

I was using the little plugs they must be about an inch square and then moving them into 3 inch cubes. The light is 1 x 125w cfl (blue) in a reflector

Thanks

sk3tch3 said:

the white on the leaves. was that powdery mildew?

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Ah right, I remember that bit now

No there was like a small white spot on one of the leaves that seemed to be gone by the next time I looked, thats why I forgot about it

I wouldn't say it looked like powdery mildew though

then the best option is to skip the hydro thing for now. you will have better results by germinating in the bag and transfer the seed sprouts to a soil container full of some organic goodness. then take your clones and sex after 4-6 weeks

sk3tch3 said:

then the best option is to skip the hydro thing for now. you will have better results by germinating in the bag and transfer the seed sprouts to a soil container full of some organic goodness. then take your clones and sex after 4-6 weeks

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What do you mean by germinating in the bag? paper towel method I assume?

And could you give me some specifics of what medium you think I should use to get the first lot started?

But as I did have them growing in the rockwool cubes to start with have you any suggestions as to why they have all dropped dead?

rockwool holds tons of water and without pics i can only assume that you watered too much. but you say it would dry out, so im not sure. crack open one of them and look at the roots. overwatering= brown, slimey. they should be white and furry. all i can really say is soil is more forgiving and make sence for mothers that dont require alot of clones to be taken often. clones will do much better then seed in this setup.
https://www.rollitup.org/hydroponics-aeroponics/6592-get-harvest-every-2-weeks.html
read the first post

put the paper towel in the bag.

I just pulled one of the cubes apart and the roots just look wispy, thin and dead I wouldn't say brown and slimey at all.

I really can't see I have overwatered them what with them being so dry all the time and the way they have curled up and died makes them look (to my unexperienced eye) as if they have been underwatered, is this a possibility?

I read on another forum I should be feeding them with a weak nutrient mixture of 5ml per cube per day and shouldn't have moved the plugs into the bigger cubes until there was lots of root at the bottom of the plug and not simply 1 root poking through a little bit.

Don't know????

But what I do know is that these seeds are screwed and I'll be buying the cheap nirvana ones next time and the time after until I get it right, then maybe I'll go for the coniseiur strains

yes. underwatering will also do it. the great thing about beans is the ease. you keep it simple and basic and will have great results. also, i have grown many plants from seed but never bought seeds. but then again the pot community is pretty big in my neck of the woods. so if i were to do it, and i am a cheap bastard so it would only be for a special strain like yumbolt, i would do the paper towel/bag method, put them in ocean forest, take clones when big, sex clones, pick females, save males for pollen, finish clones to determine different pheno (if not a stable strain) pick final mother(s), take uniform clones, root, flower, harvest, smoke! it seems like alot of work but you always no what to expect, not like growing from seed. taking clones, rooting and flowering a 8 week strain takes 10 weeks max. starting from seed takes alot longer. having a mother in constant veg will take all the guess work out of it. and if you dont care the pheno or if it is a stable strain, then that makes things even quicker and easier

GreenGro said:

I read on another forum I should be feeding them with a weak nutrient mixture of 5ml per cube per day and shouldn't have moved the plugs into the bigger cubes until there was lots of root at the bottom of the plug and not simply 1 root poking through a little bit.

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You got some pretty good advice, but 5ml sounds a bit low, particularly if you have a heat mat under them.

I use 40mm wrapped cubes, which weigh 5g dry. They're at just about the right dampness when they weigh 25-30g. This is enough for my clones for 24h on a heat mat in a clonebox which is thermostatically controlled to 28C. Knowing 1ml of water = 1 gram, that's 20-25ml of water per cube per day. Your mileage may vary depending upon your clonebox conditions.

I've put clones in to flower which didn't have much more than a single taproot- they don't do as well as others with more developed root systems, but simply transplanting a plant with a single taproot into a bigger cube shouldn't have hurt it. I think you may have underwatered.

Thanks guys

The trouble is all the mixed advice, I have thought from the start that they were a bit underwatered but then I have others telling me to stop watering them as they are over watered, its a bitch not knowing what advice to go with.

It would be useful if I had a couple of mates who were into this who could come and look and help but I am the pioneer in my circles. Wish I had someone to grab some clones from.

Al B. Fuct said:

I use 40mm wrapped cubes, which weigh 5g dry. They're at just about the right dampness when they weigh 25-30g. This is enough for my clones for 24h on a heat mat in a clonebox which is thermostatically controlled to 28C. Knowing 1ml of water = 1 gram, that's 20-25ml of water per cube per day. Your mileage may vary depending upon your clonebox conditions.

.

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Does this apply the same to seeds then Al?

Should be fairly close. If you have conditions like in my clonebox, most of the loss of water from the cube is through evaporation instead of through the plant. For seedlings you might use a few grams less.

The sure-fire way to work out what your clonebox does is to put a known amount of water on some empty cubes and put them in the box for 24 hours. Weigh them going in and out- you'll know for sure how much water will be lost in evaporation alone- in your clonebox- which is sure to be different from mine.

GreenGro said:

Thanks guys

The trouble is all the mixed advice, I have thought from the start that they were a bit underwatered but then I have others telling me to stop watering them as they are over watered, its a bitch not knowing what advice to go with.

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Overwatering is the new grower's curse. 99.999999% of them do it- and new rockwool users ALL overwater, no matter their level of experience in other media.

Whenever a newb has a wilting plant, overwatering is the first suspect. However, you were keeping your watering under control- under too much control, it seems.

Your cubes should be able to go 24 hours on a single watering. They should not be bone dry at the end of 24h. If they are dead dry at the end of 24h and the clonebox is not too hot (should be about ~28C), you need to be giving them a bit more water.

As said, 20-25ml per 40mm cube per day is a good starting point.

yeah i soak my rockwool cubes until water come out then i dont water for a day so i water every 2 days

I wish I had got this advice last week guys

I just had another look at them and the latest one to go down has a purple stem, does this mean anything?

I have given them a good wetting and put them back in the proporgator whats the chance of them coming back up or is it a lost cause?


Cheers

If they've properly wilted and the leaves have collapsed, I don't like your chances.

There exists a temptation to saturate a cube if you have caught a plant gonig dry- but be warned, overwatering is still very possible even though a plant has just nearly cooked. Keep it to about 30ml per cube.

GreenGro said:

I wish I had got this advice last week guys

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sorry about that...

I just had another look at them and the latest one to go down has a purple stem, does this mean anything?

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Every plant I've seen with a purple stem was being stressed by something, often fert burn or overwatering. We're fairly sure you were not overwatering!

Ah well not to worry, just a set back - only thing i'll do now is go buy some nirvana seeds which are only £10 for 10 and even then i'll try 5 at a time until I have it sussed. Looks like I'll have to buy my weed for a bit longer yet

Ah, not sooo bad now

Just contacted my grow shop who said they will replace the seeds with new ones if I send the packet back as only 3 germinated, so thats cheered me up no end

all right there greengro good lookin on your shops part that is always a moral buster. my local shop thinks they need to give me discount and something for free everytime i go in there. oh well (im a GOOD, customer) lol keep us posted on your next attempt. are you going to start a journal for us to follow?

sk3tch3 said:

all right there greengro good lookin on your shops part that is always a moral buster. my local shop thinks they need to give me discount and something for free everytime i go in there. oh well (im a GOOD, customer) lol keep us posted on your next attempt. are you going to start a journal for us to follow?

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Hey sk3tch3 it got even better, the shop were supposed to be sending me out a bottle of rhizotonic and forgot to send it but when I spoke to him yesterday he said he had some new stuff that was just awesome and would piss all over rhizo and cos he forgot to send ti he'll send me a bottle for free - these grow shop guys are pretty cool.

Yeah, I'll keep a grow journal this time if some of you old heads promise to guide me as I go, I have read and read but then when it comes to doing it you suddenly find you didn't quite know enough about this or about that.

THIS TIME MUST BE A SUCCESS!!!!!!

What I think I will do next time is outline exactly what I am going to do for the first few stages before doing it and if you experienced people would be kind enough to look over it and give me the nod that would be great.

They should come tomorrow but I am away for the weekend so I wont be putting the seeds to crack until monday/tuesday.