Went out of town for a day, came back to drooping leaves, and doesn't seem like I'm fixing it

mikek420 · Tuesday at 10:47 AM

I went to my mom's house on Saturday and came home Sunday.

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Ok this looks easy, it's been hot and I didn't give a full watering Saturday before I left, so it's been about a full day in hot sun with next to no water.

I gave it about a gallon of water. I have about 250 cacti and flowers/peppers in the same soil (potting mix, perlite, peat moss, salmon, egg shells) all of my other plants perked up within 20 minutes or so. This one did not. It was still very droopy a couple hours later so I gave it another gallon of water or so. I also lightly fertilized with my salmon water (I have a bucket of water and salmon which I then add to other water to dilute)

Here's what it looked like at night before I gave it the extra gallon.

Here she is the next day, perking up

Here she is right now looking sad again... I just gave her even more water now (all my plants were just a little thirsty but not this dramatic)

Here's a full shot, you'll notice that all m leafy plants are strong again.

Any ideas of what I should be doing?
It's a banana kush x grape og f1 I bred

Unga Bunga · Tuesday at 12:02 PM

It's possible that the roots got baked .

mikek420 · Tuesday at 12:55 PM

What could I do to alleviate it?

Unga Bunga · Tuesday at 12:58 PM

mikek420 said:
What could I do to alleviate it?

If it was me I'd just keep them moist , not soaked or dry . Just enough to keep the roots moist . And get it in the shade for a bit . Not sure if getting it in a bigger pot would help or hurt it . Others may have more ideas .

tehdansauce · Tuesday at 5:17 PM

Do you supplement with any type of silica? Could definitely go a long way with drought conditions as well as some other benefits.

LewberDewber852 · Tuesday at 7:04 PM

Watering habits.
That’s the only issue I see. White buckets wouldn’t be my first choice either.

Large volume of soil (north of 35 gal) for dry amendments only.

If not that then regular irrigation with a liquid feed to supplement the lack of naturally available nutrients.

Id just very lightly top water and avoid letting any future rain continue to flush em unless you’re factoring that in.

Btw very cool cacti!

mikek420 · Wednesday at 8:58 AM

So I unpotted it to check how the soil looked, it was lightly damp which was weird to me. I think the soil got too dry, then when I watered it the top soil got wet but the water ran out the bottom (did not get absorbed)

I was thinking of putting it in the shade(I don't have much in the yard tho) so instead I put it in ground. I have a French drain which drains where I put the plant, hasn't rained in weeks but on the off chance it does it'll hold more water. She's looking better today.

The weed was in a black pot. I have a mix of black to white pots, I think the black ones dry out quicker.

LewberDewber852 · Wednesday at 7:48 PM

mikek420 said:
So I unpotted it to check how the soil looked, it was lightly damp which was weird to me. I think the soil got too dry, then when I watered it the top soil got wet but the water ran out the bottom (did not get absorbed)

I was thinking of putting it in the shade(I don't have much in the yard tho) so instead I put it in ground. I have a French drain which drains where I put the plant, hasn't rained in weeks but on the off chance it does it'll hold more water. She's looking better today.

The weed was in a black pot. I have a mix of black to white pots, I think the black ones dry out quicker.

Soil becomes very hydrophobic when watering is not just right. Then prone to overwatering after such events. So I’ll stick to dial in your watering habits and feed accordingly with a soluble sourced NPK through finish.
The black definitely creates a hotter medium while the white allows light for non-bene’s to bugger their way in there. But other than that 5gal only goes so far with soil dependents grows.

green valley grows · Thursday at 10:03 AM

Pull the plant back out of the bucket, fill the bucket with water and soak the root ball until all the medium is wet and let excess water drip out of rootball. If the water is running out the bottom and not absorbing that sounds like the problem.

Hollatchaboy · Thursday at 10:46 AM

Bottom watering would probably be easier

green valley grows said:
Pull the plant back out of the bucket, fill the bucket with water and soak the root ball until all the medium is wet and let excess water drip out of rootball. If the water is running out the bottom and not absorbing that sounds like the problem.

green valley grows · Thursday at 11:02 AM

Hollatchaboy said:
Bottom watering would probably be easier

It would work but bottom watering would take a long time to reach the top of the soil. Soaking the rootball would only takes about an hour or so depending on how packed the medium is.

Hollatchaboy · Thursday at 12:37 PM

green valley grows said:
It would work but bottom watering would take a long time to reach the top of the soil. Soaking the rootball would only takes about an hour or so depending on how packed the medium is.

True. You could bottom water first, then top water though. Removing the rootball from the container, and then putting it back in, could be stressful, unless you're really careful.

green valley grows · Thursday at 12:51 PM

Hollatchaboy said:
True. You could bottom water first, then top water though. Removing the rootball from the container, and then putting it back in, could be stressful, unless you're really careful.

OP said they already took it out of the bucket so I thought, what the heck.

Hollatchaboy · Thursday at 12:55 PM

green valley grows said:
OP said they already took it out of the bucket so I thought, what the heck.

Good point. I seen op said that, but it didn't register in my mind. At that point, yes. Should just soak the rootball.

green217 · Thursday at 1:28 PM

mikek420 said:
So I unpotted it to check how the soil looked, it was lightly damp which was weird to me. I think the soil got too dry, then when I watered it the top soil got wet but the water ran out the bottom (did not get absorbed)

I was thinking of putting it in the shade(I don't have much in the yard tho) so instead I put it in ground. I have a French drain which drains where I put the plant, hasn't rained in weeks but on the off chance it does it'll hold more water. She's looking better today.

The weed was in a black pot. I have a mix of black to white pots, I think the black ones dry out quicker.

Just have to chalk it up as a learning experience possibly. If the leaves haven't perked up by now it probably killed off a lot of roots. The plant probably won't die but the shock is going to reduce growth rates dramatically and yields unfortunately. I've let plants get to dry before there is a point of no return and if the leaves don't perk back up within a day you probably crossed that point.

Went out of town for a day, came back to drooping leaves, and doesn't seem like I'm fixing it

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