Well, Ive visited the ladies and while high I believe I had another insight into my plants. I always have insights while high. Either about my life, life in general, or my grow. I never have these thoughts while straight. And people think MJ makes you stupid. As Fdd says, Bullshit!
I always seem to have problems with watering. Even at this stage. I can't always tell if they want water or not. But I think Ive got it figured out now.
I ran 2-3 gallons of water through each one 3 days ago, and 2 days ago for the remaining plants. I visited the plants each day after and checked their progress.
Day 1: Plants looked great. Barely any lower leaf loss, and no droopy leaves. Over-watering did not occur.
Day 2: Plants were still looking great at the canopy. No droopiness at all. But near the bottom of the plant, droopiness and paleness of the leaves was becoming evident. It could easily be confused for over-watering.
Day 3: Pots were pretty light to the lift. Plants were still looking great at the canopy though, but problems become easily evident as you went further down. Starting at the bottom some of the plants had leave that were completely scorched. These were the same leaves that were droopy and pale the day before. These scorched leaves literally crumbled in my hands when pulled off the skunk hazes(they were flushed 2 days ago!) Yet the branches these leaves were attached to were sorta droopy and limp. Once again easily mistaken for over-watering with how the stems looked.
But then I had my insight! My plants were losing their turgidity or turgor pressure. It was occurring at the bottom and working its way up. My plants were pulling water out of the lower leaves, stems, and branches to move to the canopy where they were most needed. This I knew, but I didn't think about how it affected the pressure within. As water is pulled out of the leaves, there isn't enough left to exert enough pressure to maintain the rigidity of the leaves. So those leaves become limp, but the plants are still moving water out. Once all the water is removed, you get the crunchy, scorched leaves, and branches.
I think a good way to understand turgidity is to think of the leaves as balloons full of air. If I gradually let the air out, there is less pressure and eventually it doesn't have enough pressure to maintain its form. It just becomes limp. Your plants are basically doing this to the leaves when under water stress. Its pulling the water out and moving it upwards in the plant.
Both of these different symptoms were manifesting themselves at the same time, which was confusing me, as one appeared to be a symptom of over-watering(droopiness), and one of under-watering(scorching). Before, when I was experiencing this, I was no doubt diagnosing the wrong problems and of course choosing the wrong solutions to the problem at hand.
DUH dummy! I think I finally get it now. Over-watering and under-watering symptoms are both one in the same. One becomes the other.
If you over-water you drown your roots, and your fine root hairs are the first to die. This is pretty bad, as they do the workload of absorbing water and nutrients. Now you have to rely on the epidermis for water uptake until new root hairs can be regrown. Heaven help you if the roots start to rot if you really over did it. This happened to my JTR male thanks to my friend. It didn't recover, and the clone didn't make it.
If you under-water, the root hairs are again the first to die as they are the most delicate. Eventually the roots will begin to dry out and shrink if not watered immediately. When the roots shrink they lose contact with the soil particles and thus soil solution, and now water absorption becomes even more difficult.
I know this post is going on and on, but hopefully someone is learning something.
Especially those people who think marijuana enjoys cycles of wet/dry for the roots, which is a huge fallacy.
The argument I hear for a drying out period is that "They go in search of water." Ahem.
Bullshit.
Your roots dont just sit around and go. "Eh, we got enough water for now. So im not gonna do anything today. Ill just sit around and watch tv all day."
Your roots aren't lazy. They're go-getters. They're growing and looking for more water and more nutrients all the time to fuel growth. The more the roots grow, the greater the growth above ground. The only time they stop growing is because some dummy decided not to water their precious plants.
That could be
YOU.
Heres a great read on roots. I haven't read over much of it yet, but its worth reading.
http://www.canr.msu.edu/vanburen/watergrw.htm
Okay. I think Ill stop going on now.