By continuing to use the website or clicking Accept you consent to our cookies and personal data policy and confirm that you are at least 18 year old. For details please see Privacy Policy and Terms
I used the paper towel method and both seeds sprouted enough to plant after 3 days. Interestingly, the shorter rootlet of the two has turned out to be the much stronger plant. I put the germinated seeds directly into two 5 gallon cloth pots filled with Kellogg's Organic Potting Soil with a good helping of perlite mixed in. My first two waterings, I used 1/2 strength liquid fertilizer and they responded wonderfully. Since I live in Minnesota and our house is super dry in the winter, I opted to try a table-top grow tent, which really helped keep the humidity high.
At 1 week in the ground, I began a once weekly watering with Espoma Grow organic liquid nutrients, with 1 tsp per quart of water. I gave each pot 1 qt. of nutrient-laden water per week, and the seedlings shot up steadily. At 3 weeks vegetation, I increased the water+liquid nutrients to 2 quarts per pot per week.
At 4 weeks of vegetation, the plant on the left was 15 inches high and the one on the right was 9 inches high.
My first week of flowering, I switched to Espoma Bloom! nutrients, which the bottle says should only be given every other week. After that week, my taller plant grew too tall for the tabletop grow tent, so I cut a hole in the "roof" to allow the plant to keep growing unhindered.
During the 2nd week of flowering, I was out of town and things seemed to have gone awry. The flowers are progressing nicely, but the yellowing of leaves is much more pronounced, and the number of leaves that have yellowed has increased up the stem. I think having cut a hole in my tent to allow the taller plant to keep growing may be some of the problem, as the humidity was down to 45% when I returned. I taped up the roof so less humidity can leak out, and I put a large bin of water inside the tent, and now we're back up to 60-65% humidity.
I'm worried about the large leaves all having gone yellow during my week out of town. The buds look a nice bright green, but the other leaves have turned yellow. My soil did not dry out while I was away, but the humidity went down to 45% (see grow diary). Soil Ph is 7. Any ideas?
yellowing leaves from bottom to top is usually a sign of nitrogen deficiencies, could also the result of a nutrient lockout or ph, it all depend how you've fed them so far ...
leaves don't function well if they die, so kinda important to provide energy to the plant to power growth/ripening.
if it paled starting at bottom and moved up, that's N deficiency (also tip and in progression on leaf itself.)
Looks like you need to feed more, and probably across the board unless you recently reduced N proporitons of your mix. The mars light you are using is 100watts. 2.5-3sq ft is probably it's max, so it should have done better.. you likely had the light too far away. go for about 18" next time, but observe and react to resulting internode leghth (the anatomy of stem between 2 nodes). If too long, get it closer, if too short, pull it back an inch.
So that the light works well late in flower, vege at about 66% power over 18hours (vs 100% during 12h/12h flower). This way you only need to bump power to 100% and keep same hanging distance from plants when you switch to 12/12 cycle. If autoflowers, may want 18-24" and 100% power entire time you can cover more than 2.5sq ft with 18hour operating time and a bit more distance from plant. again, use the resulting internode lengths to guide your adjustments based on growth pattern.
that gnat problem could be control by preemptively using a product with Bti in it.. bacillus thurgin..something or other... there' won't be anything similarly named as far as the bacteria used.. Bti is the short version. Mosquito Bits by summit brand is the one you'll find in north america. bits are a top dress and dunks float in a reservoir. apply every 2-3 weeks.
Substrates are not often stored well by the sellers.. they stack them outside at some point and they get larva and all sorts of other petential infestations. use bti from day one and you won't see any.. maybe 1 occasionaly but they will never be enough to damage roots or escalate. adult gnats don't cause problems besides being annoying and reproducing, the larvea damage roots.
yellow sticky traps are good to leave up even if you don't have a problem.. you'll find instead of 100s there'll be 1-5 after an entire grow cycle using Bti.
Simply top dress some bits and as you irrigate, it awakens the bacteria from dormancy and it seaps into soil whereit will prevent larva from surviving in a highly effective way. using this product mid-problem would take 2-3 weeks to stamp it out. Much better to use it preemptively.
this bacteria or a subspecies of it, has been used on the world's food crops for many decades.. it is 100% safe.
Sotagirl
