Worm Castings soil holding too much water..am I torturing my babies?

MajorCoco · Mar 26, 2012

I'm having problems with my plants. They're almost a month old, and still barely 5" tall. Plenty of nodes, thick stems, and generally good colour, but the side branches just don't seem to be extending. And did I mention they were short. I mean..these things are dwarfs. I AM looking to keep them pretty short, which is why I picked white ice seeds, but this is not quite what I was hoping for! Barely half an inch growth per week

, though it has picked up a fraction in the past week!!!

I don't think it's a shortage of light. 320W of CFL and LED at the moment.

I waited about 3 weeks after the pots were first soaked, waiting for them to get nearly as light as a bone-dry soil "test pot" I rigged up. But even after 3 weeks, the pots were still pretty heavy, even though the top 2 inches at least were bone dry. Then a week ago the oldest leaves started yellowing...

I've now given them both a good soaking (I have a 3rd which is 1.5 weeks old but is in a better mix in a much smaller pot) since they look like they need nutes more than they need a full wet-dry root cycle! I added a little maxicrop Seaweed and complete feed into the water, just in case the wormcastings aren't quite covering everything. But I kept it very light. Have I done the right thing though?

Has anyone else had problems like this in a soil grow? Just wondering if the slow growth is going to hit final yield, or if I just need to veg for longer than normal? If the soil holds water really well how do you deal with water "pockets" that don't seem to dry out?

The roots themselves seem ok - starting to poke out in places at the bottom, so with luck this problem will resolve itself soon. But I'm worried about the after effects....

scroglodyte · Mar 26, 2012

are you root-bound? what size pots?

MajorCoco · Mar 26, 2012

scroglodyte said:
are you root-bound? what size pots?

Cheers for getting back to me Scroglodyte (I guess you grow in a cave then?

).

I would be surprised if they're pot bound already. They're in 8" diameter pots (just over a gallon I think), and the pots are taller and wider than the plants are currently.

I do actually have loads more background in my main LED thread/journal. There's a lot in there though, which may not all be helpful, but there are some pics.

https://www.rollitup.org/led-other-lighting/513853-home-made-led-grow-lights.html

Cheers again.

blueJ · Mar 26, 2012

probably root bound, heavy indica/kush plants that grow squat and slow tend to grow bigger roots than what is above.

While it's dry 'n light i would at least attempt to transplant, try a little tug on the main stem towards the bottom, i know for sure that i waited too long when the hole root ball and everything lifts right out of the pot.

What do you have in your mix to "lighten" up the soil? Perlite or anything? If you seriously put a shit ton of wormcastings and nothing to add more air to the mix then waterlogged could be the problem, could be a combo of both waterlogged and now rootbound.

I think either way your solution is to transplant those ladies - you said you had another that is in a different mix and is looking good? Well i would transplant into that mix, ya know what i mean? good luck

what are your temps? humidity? air flow? Those could all affect rate of growth/size just as easily, whats your water quality/nute mix?

Wetdog · Mar 26, 2012

I make my own castings and can 'play around' a bit.

I've found that when I went much over 25-30% castings it pretty much turned to mud with the problems you described. More perlite did not correct this.

Now, it's 20% max.

Wet

dvs1038 · Mar 26, 2012

One thing I can suggest although it sounds like u know what ur doing is to just remember that the plants are weeds and by nature fairly strong and some ppl sometimes just because of their own ocd end up doing too much to the plants whether watering or just general over care. Hey wait Lolz maybe its kinda like a chick the maryjane likes it when ur a dick to em (J/K)

Sunbiz1 · Mar 27, 2012

blueJ said:
probably root bound, heavy indica/kush plants that grow squat and slow tend to grow bigger roots than what is above.

While it's dry 'n light i would at least attempt to transplant, try a little tug on the main stem towards the bottom, i know for sure that i waited too long when the hole root ball and everything lifts right out of the pot.

What do you have in your mix to "lighten" up the soil? Perlite or anything? If you seriously put a shit ton of wormcastings and nothing to add more air to the mix then waterlogged could be the problem, could be a combo of both waterlogged and now rootbound.

I think either way your solution is to transplant those ladies - you said you had another that is in a different mix and is looking good? Well i would transplant into that mix, ya know what i mean? good luck

what are your temps? humidity? air flow? Those could all affect rate of growth/size just as easily, whats your water quality/nute mix?

No, not in a gallon sized container at this amount of time. It's probably the strain, I had the same growth issues with 3 jackberries. They needed more N and H20, problem solved.

Sunbiz1 · Mar 27, 2012

MajorCoco said:
I'm having problems with my plants. They're almost a month old, and still barely 5" tall. Plenty of nodes, thick stems, and generally good colour, but the side branches just don't seem to be extending. And did I mention they were short. I mean..these things are dwarfs. I AM looking to keep them pretty short, which is why I picked white ice seeds, but this is not quite what I was hoping for! Barely half an inch growth per week , though it has picked up a fraction in the past week!!!

I don't think it's a shortage of light. 320W of CFL and LED at the moment.

I waited about 3 weeks after the pots were first soaked, waiting for them to get nearly as light as a bone-dry soil "test pot" I rigged up. But even after 3 weeks, the pots were still pretty heavy, even though the top 2 inches at least were bone dry. Then a week ago the oldest leaves started yellowing...

I've now given them both a good soaking (I have a 3rd which is 1.5 weeks old but is in a better mix in a much smaller pot) since they look like they need nutes more than they need a full wet-dry root cycle! I added a little maxicrop Seaweed and complete feed into the water, just in case the wormcastings aren't quite covering everything. But I kept it very light. Have I done the right thing though?

Has anyone else had problems like this in a soil grow? Just wondering if the slow growth is going to hit final yield, or if I just need to veg for longer than normal? If the soil holds water really well how do you deal with water "pockets" that don't seem to dry out?

The roots themselves seem ok - starting to poke out in places at the bottom, so with luck this problem will resolve itself soon. But I'm worried about the after effects....

What strain?.....

MajorCoco · Mar 27, 2012

Sunbiz1 said:
What strain?.....

White Ice Fems, from White Label. So they should keep pretty short. I'm limited to about 1.5m, so was aiming to flower at about 50-60cm.

On blueJ's point, I did check to see if they were root-bound, and that definitely isn't it...though the root ball is much more impressive than the above-ground growth!

After seeing that I was much less worried about my yield potential. Good roots is always a good sign. Fingers crossed...I think these babies are going to turn out ok

(shh...don't want to jinx it...but I've seen a marked improvement today)

blueJ · Mar 27, 2012

Cool, in re-reading i noticed you mentioned :I waited about 3 weeks after the pots were first soaked, waiting for them to get nearly as light as a bone-dry soil "test pot" I rigged up. But even after 3 weeks, the pots were still pretty heavy, even though the top 2 inches at least were bone dry. Then a week ago the oldest leaves started yellowing... 3 weeks waiting to water them tells me they are water-logged, you are probably right in thinking "too much worm castings." EWC is a great (excellent) thing but need to have proper aeration in the soil to counteract the density of the castings.

MajorCoco · Mar 27, 2012

Wetdog said:
I make my own castings and can 'play around' a bit.

I've found that when I went much over 25-30% castings it pretty much turned to mud with the problems you described. More perlite did not correct this.

Now, it's 20% max.

Wet

I think you're spot on. I won't make that mistake again...I think I was distracted by some promotional blurb which suggested WCs don't have a drainage issue. I do love the stuff, and I really thought that 30% of perlite would help. Cheers for the info Wet.

MajorCoco · Mar 27, 2012

Cheers Sunbiz. I think you were spot on in the end. I've updated my grow log, but I'll do it here too!

I gave them a good watering yesterday (it was a tense moment!), with ph6.8 water and mild worm tea mix. The result was a sudden spurt of growth today

What I think might have happened is that most of the soil in the pot was basically bone dry, with only a small volume damp enough to provide nutes and water. Would that potentially make it grow like it was root-bound? With most of the root growing within the damp soil centre of the pot?! If the plant is only able to use a small fraction of the pot's volume to pull in nutes, then that could show as a deficiency I suppose?

By not watering, I'm guessing this was just slowing things down, because most of the soil wasn't useful to the plant. When I watered it probably opened up the rest of the pot so the whole volume was useful to the plant. Whatever the exact answer, things are looking up. I guess I was a little too worried about waterlogging my soil...which I did on my very first grow years ago. Over-compensation is never pretty hehe.

I hope the plants will soon be big enough and thirsty enough that my drainage problem will resolve itself, but I need to be careful over the next week...

I probably need to chill for a day or two. Not over-think things...and see if the positive results continue. If they do then I'll report back.

Cheers everyone for your input.

I'm loving the shared grow experience! Wish it had been around on my first grows

Sunbiz1 · Mar 28, 2012

MajorCoco said:
Cheers Sunbiz. I think you were spot on in the end. I've updated my grow log, but I'll do it here too!

I gave them a good watering yesterday (it was a tense moment!), with ph6.8 water and mild worm tea mix. The result was a sudden spurt of growth today

What I think might have happened is that most of the soil in the pot was basically bone dry, with only a small volume damp enough to provide nutes and water. Would that potentially make it grow like it was root-bound? With most of the root growing within the damp soil centre of the pot?! If the plant is only able to use a small fraction of the pot's volume to pull in nutes, then that could show as a deficiency I suppose?

By not watering, I'm guessing this was just slowing things down, because most of the soil wasn't useful to the plant. When I watered it probably opened up the rest of the pot so the whole volume was useful to the plant. Whatever the exact answer, things are looking up. I guess I was a little too worried about waterlogging my soil...which I did on my very first grow years ago. Over-compensation is never pretty hehe.

I hope the plants will soon be big enough and thirsty enough that my drainage problem will resolve itself, but I need to be careful over the next week...

I probably need to chill for a day or two. Not over-think things...and see if the positive results continue. If they do then I'll report back.

Cheers everyone for your input.

I'm loving the shared grow experience! Wish it had been around on my first grows

I think I just guessed right b/c I have the same issue with a blueberry dominant strain, very slow veg rates. This drove me nuts for 2 weeks b/c I am having zero problems with 3 other strains in the exact same medium...same water/light etc. I'm always very careful not to overwater, I wait until the soil is just about to make that small gap between it and the container side. However, this blueberry strain hates to be treated this way. They prefer wet soil for some reason, so I accommodated them. Of course I can't simply keep watering, so I just don't allow them to dry out as thoroughly. Sounds like you have things resolved, looking forward to the positive updates.

Cheers!

MajorCoco · Mar 29, 2012

Sunbiz1 said:
I think I just guessed right b/c I have the same issue with a blueberry dominant strain, very slow veg rates. This drove me nuts for 2 weeks b/c I am having zero problems with 3 other strains in the exact same medium...same water/light etc. I'm always very careful not to overwater, I wait until the soil is just about to make that small gap between it and the container side. However, this blueberry strain hates to be treated this way. They prefer wet soil for some reason, so I accommodated them. Of course I can't simply keep watering, so I just don't allow them to dry out as thoroughly. Sounds like you have things resolved, looking forward to the positive updates.

Cheers!

Blueberry...Mmmm, tasty. I love that strain. I kinda wish I'd done a mixed indica grow now, but the only other seeds I've got are Arjans Ultra Haze 2...and I didn't want to risk trying a sativa dom in my short grow-space. Hopefully the Ice will turn out well, but if I had a few different strains then it'd be easier to compare and rule out strain growth pattern as a problem...if you know what I mean!

Update-wise...It's all looking good now, but I'm getting impatient to start em flowering. I've decided now that I'm going to keep them in a smaller space than I originally thought...loads less height too. Rather than stress about yield this time round I'm just going to grow them straight and short. I want to see what size main cola I can get with no topping or LST. This make the grow simpler, and means I might possibly finish before June.

It's a dilemma though. They could be beasts, if I had the time and space, but as long as I get 2-3 Oz dry I'll be happy. So I'm thinking I might start on 12/12 soon. They're just so short still though I don't know whether I'll just end up with 3 miniature colas and nothing else!

Having said that, the tallest already has 7 nodes (just) and a trunk that's like a 1cm diameter mini tree trunk! :clap:

Short and FAT. It's a shame I can't take clones (I'm moving house sometime in the summer..which is why I'm trying to speed up the grow a little) because this one feels like it's fattening up for a very weighty cola hehe. (It's the far right one below...about 6.5" at the moment)

Edit: The leaves have finally started to smell now too if you get close. Instantly takes me back to previous grows. The 2 phenos really don't seem similar. Could be very nice!!

MajorCoco · Mar 29, 2012

blueJ said:
Cool, in re-reading i noticed you mentioned :I waited about 3 weeks after the pots were first soaked, waiting for them to get nearly as light as a bone-dry soil "test pot" I rigged up. But even after 3 weeks, the pots were still pretty heavy, even though the top 2 inches at least were bone dry. Then a week ago the oldest leaves started yellowing... 3 weeks waiting to water them tells me they are water-logged, you are probably right in thinking "too much worm castings." EWC is a great (excellent) thing but need to have proper aeration in the soil to counteract the density of the castings.

Cheers man. By the way, I think the temps and humidity are pretty good. 18C night, 24C day...though my humidity was way low for the first 2 weeks..like sub 40. It's up at 60 now though.

Ph remains the one issue I maybe haven't quite got dialled, but I'm more worried about my water than my soil. Worm casting are pretty neutral, and there isn't much else in there to change that. I'm making sure to bring all my water to ph6.8 now, which I didn't do for the first 2 weeks either.

I'm quite proud of my little ladies now anyway, they seem to be fattening up solidly!

Sunbiz1 · Mar 30, 2012

MajorCoco said:
Blueberry...Mmmm, tasty. I love that strain. I kinda wish I'd done a mixed indica grow now, but the only other seeds I've got are Arjans Ultra Haze 2...and I didn't want to risk trying a sativa dom in my short grow-space. Hopefully the Ice will turn out well, but if I had a few different strains then it'd be easier to compare and rule out strain growth pattern as a problem...if you know what I mean!

Update-wise...It's all looking good now, but I'm getting impatient to start em flowering. I've decided now that I'm going to keep them in a smaller space than I originally thought...loads less height too. Rather than stress about yield this time round I'm just going to grow them straight and short. I want to see what size main cola I can get with no topping or LST. This make the grow simpler, and means I might possibly finish before June.

It's a dilemma though. They could be beasts, if I had the time and space, but as long as I get 2-3 Oz dry I'll be happy. So I'm thinking I might start on 12/12 soon. They're just so short still though I don't know whether I'll just end up with 3 miniature colas and nothing else!

Having said that, the tallest already has 7 nodes (just) and a trunk that's like a 1cm diameter mini tree trunk! Short and FAT. It's a shame I can't take clones (I'm moving house sometime in the summer..which is why I'm trying to speed up the grow a little) because this one feels like it's fattening up for a very weighty cola hehe. (It's the far right one below...about 6.5" at the moment)

View attachment 2097321 View attachment 2097323 View attachment 2097322

Edit: The leaves have finally started to smell now too if you get close. Instantly takes me back to previous grows. The 2 phenos really don't seem similar. Could be very nice!!

G'Day!

What is your height limitation?. I would encourage you to veg and even stretch some more prior to flowering...or you will be disappointed w/low yield most likely. Photo number 2 looks like it could use a larger home, doesn't seem happy in it's current container. Also, I see no mention of lighting other than 300 or so CFL watts...I'm assuming that's an actual rating as in a dozen or so 26W?. If so, what are their lumen ratings?. I use CFL's for *supplemental lighting and run 400 actual watts, being 6 40W 6500 daylight bulbs and the remainder 2700.

Yep, the more I grow the more I notice wide strain pheno variations. I have some that reach over twice the size of others under identical conditions.

Have a good weekend!

MajorCoco · Mar 31, 2012

I transplanted two of them today, the biggest and the smallest, into 10" pots. I'm going to continue to run the mid-sized runt in the smaller pot it's in for now, see if I can bonsai it perhaps!! The two which got moved though were definitely in need of the extra space. Not totally pot-bound, but nearly..the small one you pointed out definitely needed the extra space the most, so cheers for the prompt.

Height-wise I'm really tight now. Probably only got 80cm usable space to play with between the soil top and the LEDs (excluding 10cm spacing for heat, so 90cm in total). At a stretch I could increase that to 1m or 1.1m....but that still isn't a hell of a lot.

The biggest plant is now 8", and I can see her hitting 10" within the week. She's 5 weeks old, and has 7 full nodes with the 8th node's leaves about 1" long emerging out the top. I'm worried that she's so dense that the lower nodes are going to struggle to get light! But she has such a sturdy base root system and main stem that she could really shoot up when flowered. Especially as the lower nodes try to reach the light.

Really the issue is that I've never grown such a slow plant before. In all my previous grows (just a few college 400W HPS soil grows really) the plants would always be over 1ft tall within the month, so I never felt the need to veg for more than a month. Mainly a genetics thing I guess...but it's really thrown my timing plans!!

My new mix was with Levington GP compost with added John Innes, plus about 20% worm casting and 30% perlite. I didn't cook the compost this time, so unfortunately I got a few tiny fruit flies in the room now. Any tips on getting rid of them organically? Sticky paper maybe?

Sunbiz1 · Mar 31, 2012

MajorCoco said:
I transplanted two of them today, the biggest and the smallest, into 10" pots. I'm going to continue to run the mid-sized runt in the smaller pot it's in for now, see if I can bonsai it perhaps!! The two which got moved though were definitely in need of the extra space. Not totally pot-bound, but nearly..the small one you pointed out definitely needed the extra space the most, so cheers for the prompt.

View attachment 2099245

Height-wise I'm really tight now. Probably only got 80cm usable space to play with between the soil top and the LEDs (excluding 10cm spacing for heat, so 90cm in total). At a stretch I could increase that to 1m or 1.1m....but that still isn't a hell of a lot.

The biggest plant is now 8", and I can see her hitting 10" within the week. She's 5 weeks old, and has 7 full nodes with the 8th node's leaves about 1" long emerging out the top. I'm worried that she's so dense that the lower nodes are going to struggle to get light! But she has such a sturdy base root system and main stem that she could really shoot up when flowered. Especially as the lower nodes try to reach the light.

Really the issue is that I've never grown such a slow plant before. In all my previous grows (just a few college 400W HPS soil grows really) the plants would always be over 1ft tall within the month, so I never felt the need to veg for more than a month. Mainly a genetics thing I guess...but it's really thrown my timing plans!!

My new mix was with Levington GP compost with added John Innes, plus about 20% worm casting and 30% perlite. I didn't cook the compost this time, so unfortunately I got a few tiny fruit flies in the room now. Any tips on getting rid of them organically? Sticky paper maybe?

Those flies are mostly likely gnats, they love compost...and peat as well. Gnat larvae also feed on root systems, not a good thing of course. The next time you water, check to see if you have them coming up for air/flying around. If so, try top dressing with coffee grounds for a while...or try this:
http://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=Gnatrol&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8

I'm amazed you're doing so well in basically straight compost. Compost is an amendment, not really a growing medium when used in majority. Your slow plant is most likely a bad/undesired phenotype.
You're utilizing straight LED's on this grow?. If so, it's a good time of year to put them outdoors for a few hours minimum on sunny days.

MajorCoco · Apr 1, 2012

I think the problem I started this thread for is no longer going to be a problem now that I've transplanted to a different soil mix. I'm keeping updates over on my experimental LED grow log thread...I've just spotted my first female pre-flowers today. Pics are here:
https://www.rollitup.org/led-other-lighting/513853-home-made-led-grow-lights.html

Pre-flowers can't be bad news anyway...though it has weakened my recent determination to let them veg for another 2 or 3 weeks before going 12/12. I'm going to take it day by day now I think. A 3 month finish would be very handy for me....even if my yield is hit.

That Levingtons is potting compost by the way, so I thought that it was a full growing medium mix rather than just humus material for soil improvement. Perhaps I'm totally wrong on that? We don't get FoxFarm over here in the UK but I'd heard this one is supposed to be pretty reasonable, easy-to-find alternative from a fellow grower online. We'll soon see if it helps anyway now they're transplanted and have had a day to recover..

I chuckled when you suggested putting them outside!! I think it'd take about 10 minutes for someone to spot them even though they are tiny...lots of neighbours!!

Anyway...check out my grow thread for updates right through to the dried product. (unless it's too embarrassing...)

Worm Castings soil holding too much water..am I torturing my babies?

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