can u underwater ur plant without it wilting. i think thats my problem

bobman

Well-Known Member
on my young plants from seed(about a foot tall) (in two gallon containers) my main root ball stays moist but the surrounding soil is bone dry. the root ball is about fist size. the plant shows no symptoms of under watering but all kind of others weird symptoms and yellowing. i think the new growth is growing into the dry soil and causing problems. i ruled out ph and some plants have gotten older and stopped showing problems. I used 50/50 perlite.
 
on my young plants from seed(about a foot tall) (in two gallon containers) my main root ball stays moist but the surrounding soil is bone dry. the root ball is about fist size. the plant shows no symptoms of under watering but all kind of others weird symptoms and yellowing. i think the new growth is growing into the dry soil and causing problems. i ruled out ph and some plants have gotten older and stopped showing problems. I used 50/50 perlite.


just give it more water when mine were a foot tall they actually had some pretty big roots growin so as long as you have good drainage id give it alot of water then wait a few days ... dont know what your problem is exactly but thats a start see if things start to clear up dont expect it to be instant
 
i know its a weird question but its the only thing i can think of. i do not go from seed often. just did a batch of 15 seeds a month apart. older batch is starting to really come around. i am going to flush and then run nutes with the last gallon. i just cant seem to ever go from seed to a 3 gallon pot without problems. seems every time i pot up it happens until it grows into the pot. until i can get a plant fully rooted into a 2 gallon i have problems. i never have this problem with clones.
 
just put them in a 2 gallon about 10 days ago. i watered when i transplanted and just watered tonight. usually when i transplant it takes 8-10 days for the first watering to dry. i could have gone longer no signs of wilting and the pot is not completely light. this seems to happen when ever i pot up seedlings.
 
for every gallon of medium I usually use a 12 or 16 oz solo cup full. there is a little run off but not much.
 
dont just water at the roots water the whole pot , i tend to water the side of the pots to promote roots towards the moisture, and make sure u let the soil almost dry out dont keep the root ball wet
 
also how old are your young plants ? a foot tall id say what 4-6 weeks? its a defiency probly , give it a good feed every 2nd watering
 
and not wilting at all. plenty of perlite. the reason i go so long now is because when i first started i had the opposite problem. my plants were sitting in soggy soil and did not look over watered. that really fucked the up.
 
they r probably 8 weeks and 16 inches tall but no side branching. the branching is there but not moving. One plants side branching just exploded this week. so i am not to worried about the long term picture but i would really like to figure this out. they r in a good environment 1k mh, temps good and all that. seedlings just give me trouble.
 
i have been feeding lightly every feeding

I did that once and it was a bad idea. Someone told me that there has to be at least one fresh watering in between fertilizing because of something like the salts crystalizing and building up in the soil.

I don't know if that's exactly what he said, but I believe it to be true because that crop got fried. I had one clone that survived it. When budded her, I noticed the soil had an orange tinge. And even though it had been months since that happened when she was finally ready to harvest, her buds were still more fried than my new grows. Her growth had been stunted and her leaves (even though no nutes had been added for 5 months prior) were still characteristic of over-fertilization.

Look up some feeding schedules online for whatever brand you're using if you threw the info they came with away.

Also, can someone else please refresh my memory as to what [chemically] happens when you fertilize every watering? Thx
 
It sounds like your pots may not have good drainage holes as well. Make sure they are nice and unobstructed. It did not sound like you had much runoff when you did water. The transplant is definately going to slow down the water uptake, I would make sure your drainage holes are big enough and make few more if needed so you can fill and have plenty of runoff to keep the feedings consistant. Think of your feeding as happy meal for your plant, your plant may be a bit spoiled and only eat the fries and take a bite out of the burger, the next feeding you give another happy meal and the plant again just wants the fries but leaves the rest behind. Eventually the nutes get all fucked up as far as levels. Its not as simple as I am putting it but just a simplistic way to look at it. So wihout the runoff you end up with a lot of spoiled burgers and sodas, you basically present the plant with a fresh meal and when needed the plant can change its mind and eat the burger and leave the fries alone and maybe even one time it eats everything (this will probably never happen) Anyway the Nutes have NPK values as well so if the NPK is 4-2-2 and I dont allow runoff, the next feeding instead of remaining constantly 4-2-2 you end up with 8-0-2 or some shit due to the plant eating only fries. It wont matter soon because the PH will also be all fucked up by 3-4 feedings without runoff then your plant is stunted and stops growing and uptaking water. Runoff is most important!! I take all plants out of the grow room once a week so I can put in kitchen sink and properly clean dead leaves and feed with 10-20% runoff and then normally I will only need to water once more during the week with plain water.
 
thanks guys i really appreciate the input. i am going to flush them today since i just watered them last night.
 
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