Miracle Grow WARNING nitrogen toxicity

Hey, just wanted to share my experience with some miracle grow soil products.

I planted some happy C99 babies in 1" rockwool cubes into 2qt containers of Sphagnum peat Moss that came enhanced with miracle grow plant food.

After about 10 days they started to show serious signs of nitrogen toxicity. They were destined for coco/perlite hempy buckets anyway so I just transplanted a little earlier then I would have after rinsing off the peat moss crap.

This pic is a couple days after transplant

The attached pics above are of the product I used.

A week later they still seem a little droopy and sluggish although mostly happy but I think they might not grow to their full potential now. .............................................

Are you sure you know what nitrogen toxicity looks like?

N tox will look dark green, bordering on blue. The tips will claw down in a very distinctive way. Yours look fine. Maybe could stand more N.

Those pre-charged MiracleGro soils aren't recommended. They tend to burn young plants. I'm surprised yours aren't. They make it difficult to know when or how much to supplement.

On a side note I had a root rot problem with a hydroton/recirculating system grow (Wonder Woman from Nirvana Seeds ) so I quickly grabbed some soil from Homie De Pot,
Natures Care organic soil and the peat moss and transplanted one of the dying plants into a 3:1 soil to peat moss ratio.

I can see slight signs of excess nitro (twisted leaves, very dark leaves) but she has made a good comeback in this soil mix.

I amended this mix with a couple of tablespoons of osmocote plus and water is supplemented with cal-mag and hydroguard.

So I guess the lesson I learned that I wanted to pass on was ---- soil enhanced with miracle grow could well be detrimental to your plants in the seedling stage.
It seems OK in the veg?

Either way I'm staying away from the shit altogether and will start my seedlings in happy frog or FF ocean floor next time around.

Below pics are chronological (just after transplant, 1 week and 2 weeks) of the Wonder Woman still in the Natures Care/peat moss.

az2000 said:

N tox will look dark green, bordering on blue. The tips will claw down in a very distinctive way. Yours look fine. Maybe could stand more N.

Those pre-charged MiracleGro soils aren't recommended. They tend to burn young plants. I'm surprised yours aren't. They make it difficult to know when or how much to supplement.

Click to expand...

Yeah the tips did the claw and the middle of the clawed leaves went really glossy and dark. I didn't take pics until they had bounced back a little after transplant but you can still see the mutated lower leaves (I tried to straighten them back out manuallu)

Budder Fingers said:

Either way I'm staying away from the shit altogether and will start my seedlings in happy frog or FF ocean floor next time around.

Click to expand...

You can find ordinary sphag peat moss at Lowes and Home Depot. Add 2-3 Tbsp/gal dolomite, some myco and perlite.

Sorry the pics are confusing I guess... yeah my own stupid fault for not reading the fert charts I just bought them in a panic when I had the root rot issue.

I think I'll just go with a tried and true seedling soil mix next time for sure

I think theres plenty of N in this ................................................

Budder Fingers said:

Yeah the tips did the claw and the middle of the clawed leaves went really glossy and dark. I didn't take pics until they had bounced back a little after transplant but you can still see the mutated lower leaves (I tried to straighten them back out manuallu)

Click to expand...

hip tip - individual leaves that are showing nitrogen toxicity do not fix themselves, you will only see improvement in new growth. You do not have, nor have you had, nitrogen toxicity. Dark green and shiny is a pretty good thing if your leaves have a flat structure. Color varies by strain and many strains go very dark green when healthy.

Well they sure weren't happy before I transplanted them. The ends of the leaves curled down pretty bad and after reading up for a day it seemed that was the closest diagnosis I could find.

My pics are confusing, again I apologize the smaller plant is the one I'm talking about and the pics were after it had bounced back and grown new sets, it was the first 5 leaf set that had the issue. And they still look shit

The bigger plant was an older plant I saved from root rot and it seems fine (the pics doubled up for some reason), just tried to show that I think Miracle Gro is probably not the best for seedlings

Plant's looked hungre, and plants can droop from to wet of soil. It looks like it was lacking N in the pic

Better pics of the clawed leaves, any other theories? This is how they looked when they were the top set and they haven't changed ...........................................

You're just talking about that bottom leaf? The sharp downturn looks like N tox. But, N tox would be very (unnaturally) dark green. And it would affect the whole plant.

Perhaps there was toxicity when that leaf was young (before the newer leaves).

I think they look good.

Right, the bottom leaf was when it was unhappy. As soon as I saw the curl I took them out of the peat moss, washed off the roots and transplanted into the coco/perlite/OC+ hempy buckets.



I didnt take pics at the time only after they had grown two or three more sets, that why the pics were confusing but now they seem happy

That mix hardly has any N in it...my experience with Peat Moss is worse than any miracle grow stories I have...PM can be super hot and not just from N...it can be acidic and I'd guess that's what messed up your plant...because that PM has less than 1% N in it...g/l

Walter9999 said:

That mix hardly has any N in it...my experience with Peat Moss is worse than any miracle grow stories I have...PM can be super hot and not just from N...it can be acidic and I'd guess that's what messed up your plant...because that PM has less than 1% N in it...g/l

Click to expand...

Thanks, I guess it's pretty obvious I jumped to the N tox conclusion hastily.
In hindsight I would have titled the thread' Miracle Gro Peat Moss - not great for seedlings'

I use peat moss for starting my seedlings. I add dolomite lime 2 tbspoons per gallon of soil and perlite. Once they have a decent root structure then I transplant them into an organic soil mix a friend of mine gave me and they thrive. Peat moss is very sterile and has very little if any nutrients but does have a lot of acidity which is bad for cannabis. Lime will balance this out. Goodluck

Walter9999 said:

because that PM has less than 1% N in it...g/l

Click to expand...

The MG soils known to burn plants have < 1% NPK values.

I think yiu just wanna complain about mg for some reason..
I used it for a good decade and still do, makes perfectly healthy plants if you get the right kind and apply properly