Hungry?

Patience helps. It's slow sometimes but more likely my phone or connection. Trashing the site at every opportunity isn't cool. You moaned about it six months ago and it's still full of bugs and crashing. Never seen anyone else. It could be you. It could be a manganese deficiency or it could be due to a clueless grower. I've seen your 100% perlite grow and after 12 weeks of veg it was only a foot tall. For an experienced grower you didn't top, lollypop and probably got an Oz tops. For an experienced commercial grower in speedy hydroponics with a veg time of 3 months to produce what you did makes me question at least some of what you say or said. But I gather you know best. Peace and I hope it works out for you

I typed up a whole ass response for you and site crashed again. I’m out. I have. 100% perlite diary on my profile. I didn’t make a diary for this grow because the first time I used this site was too frustrating. Thanks for the advice. Think I have my answer

I would stop thinking it's manganese or iron or whatever. If you are in perlite then a good base and maybe calmag will sort all needed nutrients as long as ph is on point. You say you don't need to oxygenate as the plants drink it up. You must never let the roots get dry in a substrate like that so unless the water is oxygenated then you will see problems relating to that. They do have a slight overwatered look to them which is a sign of what I mention. Hydroponics should have a continuous or very frequent watering schedule. You say you are very experienced and don't seem to be listening. Have you a diary or picture from previous grows and most interestingly 100% perlite grows?

Ya i dunno, when i do DWC i ususally just have a 3" rock wool cube inside a net pot and 2 drippers that don't drip, they spew a constant stream of solution over the rockwool. Honestly recirculating with a pump and drippers is only necessary until the roots are hanging in the water. Then all the recirculating part is useful for is distribution of pH down and to keep the water moving around but mostly just for pH distribution. You can grow a plant in damn near anything. As long as there is moisture and oxygen and nutrients in the roots it will grow. Perlite is inert like any other hydroponic medium, but it's unorthodox that's all. I think you would be better served by using something like Hydroton or Rockwool. If you want clean, then rock wool is the way to go. Hydroton is pretty clean too (expanded clay pebbles) but it can leave a little sediment as they rub together and erode. Lava rock creates a fair bit of sandy debris in your reservoir, and to re-use it it's a bitch to clean and pull roots out of it. I wouldn't mind giving Coco Chips a shot in the future, just for fun. Lotta air in that. I love RDWC but i don't like a daisy chained plumbing system because you can't move the pots around. It's too bad. Last year i did a few grows and did them on this website but i did them kinda half assed and didn't post harvest info so i just deleted them. I did a few hydroponic grows.

You are correct. I’ve grown Dwc, organic, indoor, outdoor, hempy buckets. I understand the 100% perlite feels contrary to your preferred methods. When I first grew Dwc, my drip system drowned my plants so I removed it. The overwatering that happens with these hempy grows tends to be from frequency not volume. I’ve never dealt with root rot in any of the above mentioned grows. My last 100% perlite grow had beautiful roots. I was tempted to toss them in a wok and stir fry them they looked so nice. I appreciate the advice about paying more attention to my ph, this has turned my attention to my ph meter which may be the issue. Maybe give a 100% perlite grow a chance sometime and you’ll get a break from root rot. Don’t knock it til you tried it. Keep in mind some of the aspects of hempy are a hybrid between hydro and soil methods.

You should never have a over watering issue with hydroponic growing. If that is an issue then your roots are laying in stagnant water out the bottoms of your pots. Thats a recipe for disaster. They will drown and rot. I'm not suggesting you can't or shouldn't use perlite as a substrate, but it's highly unusual. I can't imagine those plant are anchored very well in it. The reason DWC works is because the water is highly oxygenated with air stones, and the water is usually always circulating and is changed out weekly. Oxygen depleted water will suffocate the roots and they will die and rot. Root rot will spread if you don't identify and counter it reasonably quickly. My current diaries, all the plants suffered from root rot, lack of food, and lack of light. If you want you can check out my diaries to see what i did to bounce them back. I try to chronicle my activities as best and detailed as i can while keeping it easy to understand. I enjoy fucking the plants up, because it presents a challenge and an opportunity to experiment and learn. And the diaries are a nice way to show people how to fix problems that arise. It sucks that the black market industry has been utterly destroyed by legalization, but it's good at the same time from the perspective that there isn't all that pressure of producing the best and most successful crop possible. Of course it's nice when it goes great, but if it doesn't, then you don't have all that pressure of your big investment flopping, cuz back in the day it was a big cost when it was illegal. House rental, equipment, clone costs, etc. etc.

I ph every time, but within what I thought was an acceptable range. Yes, my method is a variation on hydroponics. These will be transplanted into Hempy buckets. With the way I water, they drink it up without needing air stones. I’ve considered adding air stones to the hempy buckets like I’ve seen others do just to see if it makes a difference. My cheap ph meter may need calibration. I feel like I’ve been adding more adjusters than normal for the amount of water/ph. Thanks a lot for the input.

I ph to 6. I grow in all perlite to keep a cleaner grow space and complete control over feeding. No pests. It’s usually rough at the seedling stage using all perlite but I enjoy the results. Sometimes feeding I let it swing between 5.8 and 6.2 out of impatience. Ppm on last feeding was a little high around 800. I feed with every water. Sometimes this leads to overwatered but underfed as the recipe gets dialed.

You planted entirely in Perlite, why? I think you have a pH problem. That's usually the case when multiple issue are present. Do you adjust your pH? If so, to what value? And if you wanna grow your plant in perlite, you will need to feed every watering, because perlite doesn't have any holding capacity.

The leaves also seem a little pale. The green one has a splotch that makes me think iron. I upped my GH micro. Light is ts1000 around 22in from plants at 75%. They get about 250ml each every couple days. 100% perlite. GH trio plus silica/calmag. Roots are starting to pop out the bottom on the three eldest. I was hoping for more vigor before transplanting. Thoughts?