'GDP x Bruce' by i49

**Copy/Pasted to Purple Star Killer Update, Week 2. Same notes and issues plagued both** Welcome to the poop shoot folks. The first picture above (pH test) is a good indication on how my week went with the girls. The vial on the left, my friends, is the fantastic seeding soil I had chosen to start the girls in (test on the right is with my potting-up soil). I put blind faith in the soil I was sold/using and only came to finally test it when all other parameters were checked off the list. I was loosing it. Here's a quick power-point that led me here: -Last weeks update, I mentioned I felt something was "off" but didn't know what yet. When updating DD and Space Cookies I mentioned I felt the soil was the culprit...but again, didn't know why. -I assumed the medium was inert, lacking any basic Nitrogen building blocks needed. I was seeing a Nitrogen deficiency, but was looking at the wrong solution. -Went ahead and added a top layer of amended soil, along with a micro dose of NPK trio, early week. They visibly grew after the top soil addition, then stopped. The feed did nothing at all. Both GPDxB and PSK were still showing strong signs of deficiencies w/ PSK being the worse of the two. -Re-ran through all my parameters again and again but couldn't find anything amiss. Only parameter I didn't test was the soil, as I still felt the soil was inert, not toxic. -On April 16th I made a determination that the Nitrogen deficiency I was looking at wasn't a lack of nutes but a straight lockout. Symptoms on Bruce's first set were curling upwards and void of green. Yellow working it's way from the outside, inwards. -I was really hoping I over-watered and let them dry out before finally testing the damned soil. Nothing changed and the symptoms were starting on the two girls that were planted last (Dutch Dragon and Space Cookies) -Friday morning (April 17th) I tested the soil w/ a 15min slurry test with 2:1 (6.0pH RO too soil) and that's the crimson red result you see in the picture above. I rejected the result immediately...couldn't be. It's brand new soil... Grabbed my potting soil and did the same test. Regardless of whether the slurry test is accurate in terms of reading an exact soil pH, the comparison was all I needed to see. -At this point and time, I was pretty upset. I knew I needed to move them, but just the constant garbage that's plagued this project was getting worse and worse. Like, can they even recover from this? I just let them sit and fry in -4.0pH soil. Immediately thought about scrapping the whole project, but screw it, let's see if I can bring them back. If I only lost time, this might be okay. **Emergency Transplant Power-Point** -Mixed new potting soil to move from the solo's up to 3 gallon fabric pots. Soil is 50% Pro-Mix (Mycorrhizae) and 50% Island Farms potting soil w/ 1:6 perlite ratio. -Added a 2/3rd's recommended dose of powered bone meal by Gaia Green (2-16-0). I knew the roots had to be fried and this was to hopefully bring them back. -3-4 inches below the transplant hole is a conservative sprinkling of Root-Stim #1 for soft-wood applications. Didn't want them to tap into this right away, but giving them a boost once they hopefully recovered and reached this lower layer. -All four plants were the same and the suspicion was correct, for good or for bad. They had a max of a cubic inch of roots after 9-12 days. They had no where to go and didn't barely touched the hot seeding soil. They were all top side growth w/ limited and fried roots. -Knocked off as much of the existing soil as possible, exposing most of the fried roots. Transplanted into the new soil and watered with 150mL of 6.2 pH RO around the circumference. **Recovery** -At the time of typing this, it's been 60 hrs and they have been visibly growing, but they're health is very shaky. Totally touch and go at this point. -In 48 hrs they had nearly doubled in size and started to push their 2nd and 3rd set (pending on plant). Again, however, the new growth is weak, leggy and a little off in color. They are pretty severely damaged and the last two days showed me just how far the root system has degraded. **Final Notes** -What can I say...I really screwed the pooch on this. Blind faith and being complacent has led the poor girls here and I don't know where they will end up. I'm not too pleased with myself, but after kicking myself over and over again, I've come to accept it and am ready to move forward with a new grow if I have too. Still hurts, but it is what it is. -I made a decision to observe the girls and see where they are by Wednesday (April 22nd). If I don't see positive signs of recovery (specifically the root system) I will stop this project in it's tracks, eat the 2.5 weeks it took and start from scratch. I don't want to do this. I'd prefer they tap well and recover, but after that much damage and sitting for soooo long in that soil, I just don't know. -So, you'll see one of two things next Sunday (26th). Recovering plants or a new set of seedlings. Thanks for looking in guys and girls. I must admit I'm pretty embarrassed by this whole debacle but I feel it's the right to lay it all on the table. Initially I didn't even want to type this because I was feeling so down about it all😟. But I've been taught it's best to be humble and I need to admit these mistakes, less I forget and repeat the same. If anyone has advice on how to help, over and above what I've already done, it would be greatly appreciated. Understand that while I'm asking this, I may not have access to needed supplements, additives or nutrients due to the COVID shutdown. Thanks again all. I really wish you a great week and a far better one then me and the girls faced. Much love, take care and stay safe👌