Not happy girls :( Soil, water, inside

I've got some girls that are probably 1 1/2 months from seed now and they aren't very happy little chaps. I'm not sure what has gone so wrong with them. The problem is they are all showing different signs of problems and all seem to be stunted, even though I'm not doing anything different from the last grow.

They were booming and going great guns from seedling under a propagation fluro, then I upsized their pots from a plastic cup to a 30ltr pot and put them under a 250wat MPS and for the first week they were going great but then they all sort of stopped and now having issues.



1) PICTURE OF PLANT See pictures
2) Growing indoor 240wt MH veg light.
3) Watering schedule once every 1 to 2 days depending on dryness of top soil
4) Growing Medium - The soil is Osmocote Professional Seed and Cutting mixture with 15 % perlite., no nutrients as yet, I tried adding some grow nutrients and calimag when I first saw signs of issues with the leaves so stopped any nutrients. Water is at 6.5hp
5) What stage of growth veg - almost 2 months

Plants
1. its browning at the tips and curling up then the brown moves and covers the whole leaf, it only happens to 2 sets of leaves at a time.

2. Showing brown spots, and the new leafs are stunted and small and thin, not like a normal healthy new foliage.

3. Showing signs of Browning on the very tips of 2 of the biggest leaves towards the bottom, otherwise plan seems healthy a bit stretched as its on the outer edge of the light.

4. This poor guy is in the same room but hes about 3 months old, started off as a runt seed that didn't sprout after 1 week so I threw it away in some soil, sure enough almost 3 weeks later it sprouted in the spare soil. He got attacked by the dreaded spider mite, which I'm pretty sure I have cured with some eco neem oil, and a few lady bugs. But the little bastards have done some damage

i could be wrong but it looks like nute burn... What soil are you using?

excuse my ignorance, but what is MPS? I also want to ask how are your temps? I'm wrong guy to say, but I'm interested. You have some little white dots here and there. Spider mite damage? Did you spray the neem oil on or water it?

iknownothink said:

I've got some girls that are probably 1 1/2 months from seed now and they aren't very happy little chaps. I'm not sure what has gone so wrong with them. The problem is they are all showing different signs of problems and all seem to be stunted, even though I'm not doing anything different from the last grow.

They were booming and going great guns from seedling under a propagation fluro, then I upsized their pots from a plastic cup to a 30ltr pot and put them under a 250wat MPS and for the first week they were going great but then they all sort of stopped and now having issues.



1) PICTURE OF PLANT See pictures
2) Growing indoor 240wt MPS veg light.
3) Watering schedule once every 1 to 2 days depending on dryness of top soil
4) Growing Medium - Soil, no nutrients as yet, I tried adding some grow nutrients and calimag when I first saw signs of issues with the leaves so stopped any nutrients. Water is at 6.5hp
5) What stage of growth veg - almost 2 months

Plants
1. its browning at the tips and curling up then the brown moves and covers the whole leaf, it only happens to 2 sets of leaves at a time.

2. Showing brown spots, and the new leafs are stunted and small and thin, not like a normal healthy new foliage.

3. Showing signs of Browning on the very tips of 2 of the biggest leaves towards the bottom, otherwise plan seems healthy a bit stretched as its on the outer edge of the light.

4. This poor guy is in the same room but hes about 3 months old, started off as a runt seed that didn't sprout after 1 week so I threw it away in some soil, sure enough almost 3 weeks later it sprouted in the spare soil. He got attacked by the dreaded spider mite, which I'm pretty sure I have cured with some eco neem oil, and a few lady bugs. But the little bastards have done some damage

Click to expand...

You just need to feed it.

Some show a potassium deficiency..another could be phosphorus deficiency, the last one seems def in multiple elements, iron, possibly zinc. Too much info missing like what you're growing in, what have you fed it, are you certain ph is in check? And what's an mps light?

Sorry guys the light is a 240 watt MH bulb that was a typo ,

The soil is Osmocote Professional Seed and Cutting mixture with 15 % perlite. I'm using this soil as its readily available from Bunnings, and has great reviews on these forums, I didn't have any issues with this soil for the first 2 plants.

RaggyB - Yes those tiny white dots is from the Spider Mites, I got onto it pretty much straight away with the Neem Oil as soon as I saw the white dots showing, so far I haven't found any more spiders in the last few days. I found 3 lady birds and put them on the plant and they seemed to hang around and eat off any that were left over. Fingers crossed I don't get any more. Temps are around 24-26 degrees

I've matched up what I think the problems are with the abundance of information on google as to which nutrient burn or deficiency it might be, but what is doing my head in is why are 3 different plants having 3 different symptoms, when they are treated identically

is it by chance a different strain than before? maybe this strain just doesn't like the soil. Or could be a deficiency.

Sounds like most things are fine but at about 2 months without ever getting nutes sounds long so tend to agree with Blitz35 that its on the deficiency side. If your nervous about overdoing it, maybe try fish fertilzer 1/2 strength which is very gentle N and see if it helps them green up a little.

These are 3 different strains compared to the first 2 which I'm not even sure what they were, these are Jack Herrer, Riply OG, and Dinachem all Feminised.
I've got some nutrients here ready to go, but my last 2 plants grew very well from this soil with almost no nutrients, I might just give them a 1/2 strength dose next watering and see if it makes any improvement. I think the only thing different from these plants and the last 2 is the size of the pot, these pots are almost double the size of the first 2 plants

I think it might be over watering or watering too often. I think with the larger pots I am now using they are actually holding onto the water a lot longer than the smaller pots I'm used too, so instead of watering every 1 or 2 days I should maybe switch to 4-5 days and let them dry out.

This could possibly explain why I'm getting different symptoms from each plant as they are effected in different ways from the same problem.

"Overwatered cannabis plants are droopy with leaves that curl down. As a result of overwatering, leaves often turn yellow or show other signs of nutrient deficiencies (especially when it comes to younger plants and seedlings!)" CHECK some some of the leaves on some of the plants are looking very yellow

"droopiness and leaves with brown spots that appear to be a nutrient deficiency." CHECK plants number 1 and 2 have brown spotting.

"The main sign of a cannabis plant being overwatered are the droopy leaves" CHECK all the leaves do look droopy..

iknownothink said:

These are 3 different strains compared to the first 2 which I'm not even sure what they were, these are Jack Herrer, Riply OG, and Dinachem all Feminised.
I've got some nutrients here ready to go, but my last 2 plants grew very well from this soil with almost no nutrients, I might just give them a 1/2 strength dose next watering and see if it makes any improvement. I think the only thing different from these plants and the last 2 is the size of the pot, these pots are almost double the size of the first 2 plants

Click to expand...

First off, you can't compare how other strains react to the conditions..just because they sit in the same medium and receive the same feed, doesn't mean at all, that they will react the same way! If you planted to a 30 litre pot..8-9 gallons..then yes..you shouldnt be watering every 2 days unless your medium (coco) requires it. 'Soil' should be watered ideally every 3-5 days depending. Droopy leaves also will come from not enough water..but in your case it's likely overwatering/underfeeding. Also, just because your last grow in this same soil didnt require feeding, doesnt mean this one will go the same way. if your soil came ammended and your previous grow(s) have used up said ammendments, then you'll need to feed sooner. i had a plant in my pro mix that i didnt have to feed at all in a 45 day veg..nothing..i actually only watered it 3 times in that stretch..3 grows later..in the same mixture..i have to start feeding the plants in week 1!

iknownothink said:

I think it might be over watering or watering too often. I think with the larger pots I am now using they are actually holding onto the water a lot longer than the smaller pots I'm used too, so instead of watering every 1 or 2 days I should maybe switch to 4-5 days and let them dry out.

This could possibly explain why I'm getting different symptoms from each plant as they are effected in different ways from the same problem.

"Overwatered cannabis plants are droopy with leaves that curl down. As a result of overwatering, leaves often turn yellow or show other signs of nutrient deficiencies (especially when it comes to younger plants and seedlings!)" CHECK some some of the leaves on some of the plants are looking very yellow

"droopiness and leaves with brown spots that appear to be a nutrient deficiency." CHECK plants number 1 and 2 have brown spotting.

"The main sign of a cannabis plant being overwatered are the droopy leaves" CHECK all the leaves do look droopy..

Click to expand...

I was going to say could be overwatering too because 240W isn't that much and you're sometimes watering every day.

Blitz35 said:

First off, you can't compare how other strains react to the conditions..just because they sit in the same medium and receive the same feed, doesn't mean at all, that they will react the same way! If you planted to a 30 litre pot..8-9 gallons..then yes..you shouldnt be watering every 2 days unless your medium (coco) requires it. 'Soil' should be watered ideally every 3-5 days depending. Droopy leaves also will come from not enough water..but in your case it's likely overwatering/underfeeding. Also, just because your last grow in this same soil didnt require feeding, doesnt mean this one will go the same way. if your soil came ammended and your previous grow(s) have used up said ammendments, then you'll need to feed sooner. i had a plant in my pro mix that i didnt have to feed at all in a 45 day veg..nothing..i actually only watered it 3 times in that stretch..3 grows later..in the same mixture..i have to start feeding the plants in week 1!

Click to expand...

Are you serious you only watered 3 times in 45 days ? How's that even possible. how big were your plants compared to your pots etc.
I'm try not watering them for a week and see if they improve

Foliar feed a mild MKP solution. and get some in the pot. I'd add some Epsom salts to the soil too.

This shows you their size compared to the pots, they seem happier even today since stopped watering them

iknownothink said:

Are you serious you only watered 3 times in 45 days ? How's that even possible. how big were your plants compared to your pots etc.
I'm try not watering them for a week and see if they improve

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It was in a 5 gallon that i watered thoroughly a couple days prior to transplanting into it..i watered it just around the base with a few shot glasses of water as it was summer and i didnt want the top drying too much. It got its first actual water..i think 2 litres about 3-4 weeks later. Mind you..it was growing strictly under a few 23 watt cfl bulbs lol

Yeah man, that's not a good size for small plants.
There are two ways of watering, regular (more like proper hydro), or dry and water cycles, still better than soil but less performance than method A.
Once you start method A you need to decide multiple small feeds a day from the top, or ebb and flow from the bottom etc. (I dunk my plants in a container just larger than the bag so, manually).

Large pots take very long to dry, and oxygen moves very slowly through a pot. So water will get stagnant and anaerobic If you just dump a bunch in there and leave it. The plants are too small to transpire much of it away, so the roots sit and drown. A small pot watered regularly (multi feeding) can yield just as much as a large pot while using less media. A small smart pot will airprune those roots and make a denser ball from the center rather than roots circling the edge of your pot. (actually, that is the best thing for them to try and do if they stay in one pot all their life, but it is not their full potential). Some other things that are problematic with the dry/wet cycle thing are pH swings, Nutrient level swings, dry pockets that don't let air and water in. With a small enough pot that can drain freely without trying to hold lots of water the cycle from saturated to free breathing is much shorter for the roots. I dipped my plants yesterday, this time, those bags are already at half weight, apart from one or two with smaller root systems.

The trick is getting that gradient from irregular feeding to regular right. It is easy to create some of the problems above by misjudging the amount of water you add or spot watering. (which is why I like dunking for a smaller number of plants, with water being ppmed after every dunking. I dunk one smaller plant, check PPM, if it is not much higher than what I fed after letting the water drain back out, I will dunk a larger plant in the same water. The ppm levels start getting too high after 2 plants, so I dump that water while putting the plants on a drying rack.
Refill beaker, check ppm, dip next pot or bag, add to dry-rack, check ppm add a plant, throw out water, repeat. 1st place would be to give each plant 100% new food, but we are in a drought. This way also gives the bigger plants more food and the smaller ones less.

When you start a plant in a reasonably small pot or bag and it feels like it is taking too long to go dry, most people would do nothing. I am not most people. I would water at least one side of the pot enough that I see some water come out the bottom if a plant takes more than 5 days to dry. This way I know the roots have access to some clean fresh water and oxygen and exudates can be washed away. When the root zone gets too hot nutritionally speaking, the plants end up with lots of sugars in the leaves that are supposed to be in the roots or back out in the soil, this makes them very attractive to pests. The journey is to get the plant to that point where it can take a good watering several times a day, once you hit that spot, the work and stress is over.

ANC said:

Yeah man, that's not a good size for small plants.
There are two ways of watering, regular (more like proper hydro), or dry and water cycles, still better than soil but less performance than method A.
Once you start method A you need to decide multiple small feeds a day from the top, or ebb and flow from the bottom etc. (I dunk my plants in a container just larger than the bag so, manually).

Click to expand...

Wow man, thank you for spending the time and effort into a very detailed and helpful response ! Much appreciated.

All of what you said does make sense though, and narrows down my problem to over watering even more because my first 2 plant grow were in those 290mm square pots about 1/3 of the size of these new ones.. I just got told by everyone bigger pots + bigger plants, its on just about every forum/ youtube video so you don't even question it. And because I don't plan on using any Nutrients if I don't have to, the logic is there is more food there if they need it in the extra soil. I have read before about the plants having too larger post when they are small, but I figured these girls were an alright size when I put them in around 30cm length on the main trunk.

I wonder if I should switch them back to the smaller pots now, or just change my watering schedule to suit and just see now they go.

I'm going to do a bit of testing on this subject about the too larger pots, I've pulled 3 out and put them back in smaller pots about 1/4th the size , and also left 2 of them as they are. Nothing else at all has changed, so I'll just see if this possibly could be the fact that their pots were too large for their size.

I didn't want to touch the largest one as it seems to be happier now the mites have all died