Nothing much seems to had happen during day 8 and 9. The plants got a little bit bigger, but not by much really. They look healthy though, so I'm not changing anything at the moment.
Day 10 also didn't see much change. I'm still waiting for the growth-spurt to kick in, like I see in alot of the other diaries posted here.
On day 11 I gave them a little water in the morning. Still only very slow growth and I start to think that the cheap china grow-light might not be up to par.
Day 12 didn't see much change aswell. I guess I just have to wait and see how these plants evolve. All I can really do is try to keep the environment as good as possible. I don't see anything wrong with the plants and they look healthy to me. They just grow very, very slow.
In the morning of day 13 it was time for some little water again. I also moved the pots in their positions. Again there's not much else to report, as nothing much happened. The plants still don't want to grow any faster than a couple milimeters per day, but they look as healthy as before. No brown, yellow or white spots, no pest, etc.
Day 14 and I think I figured out the reason for the slow growth. Too intense light instead of the cheap chinese LED panel not being up to the task. I measured the panel at it's current 75cm above the plants and the meter is reading ~800 ppfd.
With my approach of giving the plants very little water, trying not to drown them and prevent root-rot I guess I was a little too cautious and in combination with the rather good light output from the cheap chinese LED panel the plants have started to fade in colour and bending their leaves downwards, as you can see in the pictures over time. Most noticable with plant 2, but the others have started to look the same now.
So I'll start giving them ladies a little more water now and see where this goes.
That's it for this week.
1. She looks like she can use some nitrogen although you’ve already added fertilizer in the soil. Even at week 2, soil doesn’t need feeding but your plant looks pale.
2. The light is too far you need to bring it down to less than 2 feet. You have a XS1000, you can definitely bring it down to less than 2 feet.
3. Your soil is too wet. You don’t want to oversoak the pot because your plant is too young and roots haven’t not developed yet. It’ll become root bound. The rule is to water a bit more than the size of the plant. Once it starts to grow well, that’s when you start to water the entire pot. Make sure to have at least 10-20% drainage.
4. Every one telling you it’s cal mag is not cal mag. You grow in soil. Soil has cal mag already. If you grew in coco, then it could use some but even then it’s too early to have those symptoms already.
5. For soil, your pH should be around 6.5.
6. General rule for soil grow: you will feed every other watering.
7. Buy some root enhancers such as Mykos. It has mycorrhizae , it’s fungus and it will help with root growth.
8. Your temperature is really low for young plants. You want it around 75-80F. You do the conversion.
9. Cheers.
@MaryJaneUSA,
Thanks for the detailed comment.
So far I have have tried to water as little as possible. I only give the plants some 100ml/half a cup of water every other day really. I even suspect that the soil in the bottom of the pot is dry so far as I've never completely soaked the soil to begin with.
The light I've allready lowered down to two feet now and increased it's intensity. So that should help I hope.
As for temperature... living in Finland where it's still freezing over night outside it's rather difficult to heat it up as much and I allready have a radiator placed next to the tent to get it to 22°C/72°F.
Soil and water should be ok pH wise. I used some teststrips to measure and it comes down to between 6-7 pH. The strips aren't too precise ofc.
So far I've used only things readily available to me from the local shops, besides the tent, growlight and seeds which I had to order online. For the next attempt I'll probably order soil, nutrients and whatnot from BioBizz, but for now I try to keep the current plants alive with what I have at hand.
@Wimskeweed,
Yeah, it's not going too well unfortunately. The leaves are pale and start yellowing. I just leave the plants alone for now and hope they'll recover somehow during the next few days, but I'm prepared to call them an unsuccesful attempt aswell.
I have three other seed-packages to try a new growth with slightly modified conditions, if the cuurent crop fails.
@Blarw, I say because, I had almost the same case. 4 seeds, turned lime green to almost bright yellow. But they all bounced back. I moved them away from light, gave a bit of A & B and somehow they came back to life. hope thats the case here as well. Good luck
@APOLLO,
I don't actively kill the plants ofcourse. The lights are on a timer and I refill the humidifier, but other than that there's nothing I can really do at the moment.
This diary is now closed down, as no further progress/development has happened over the last week. The plants simply did not develop, for reasons unclear to me.