Root bound? Please help me I’ve had a hell start

I appreciate the help because I really need some right now. I’ve had a hellish start with.

For the first time in my life (and I’ve had plenty of seedlings), even as a kid I would just mess around having some on the window. But for the first time, I got damping off and unfortunately it hit all of my seedlings. I ended up cloning all tin of my seedlings of blackened oranges and although some of them were very small I got most of them to survive.

My second issue was using Peat pots which I had never used before. I was at Home Depot and I would normally have never bought them but I wanted something sterile that wasn’t the solo cup so that I could not deal with stamping off ever again. Turns out this was a bad choice and the pot with the sterile jiffy mix I bought ended up lowering my pH quite a bit And the plants became very unhealthy. Had to transplant those into some Coco coir with perlite and worm castings And everything was so beautiful for about two or three days and it was like magic. Everything became perfect again.

So long story short everything is pretty dialed in at this point. The only thing that was off was the humidity for about three days. It was pretty low here in the low 30s today and yesterday and the day before. The problem with the plant started a few days ago as well about when the humidity dropped. I raise the humidity today up to about 70%. They looked worse after this, all of them.

I do want to add that not all of them are having problems. The younger blackened oranges are actually doing fine it’s when they get a little older and that’s why I’m wondering if they’re root bound? I used some Azos and I’m wondering if this made the roots just absolutely explode in the soil? I’m thinking about transplanting the bigger ones tomorrow and seeing if this helps because they look pretty bad. The bigger ones have been in for about 7 days. They came straight from clone all tho some were already established little two week old plants.

My PH, heat and the tent, and lights are all dialed in or at least not burning or affecting the plants. If it is root bound I figured it had another week but maybe since it was a pretty established clone it just decided to explode. The one in the picture is the most affected and it’s also the biggest. The others don’t have the canoe and taco leaves on the top like that. The only other thing I can think of is broad mites which I’ve experienced and will totally give you taco leaves but I’ve searched it with my microscope and cannot find any.

Once again, the older plants that went to dirt first are having the most problems. Their roots are coming through the bottom of the holes for sure. I think the Azos may have boosted them? It’s only been a week, seven days at most since the older ones were in the cups

Thank you for any help that may come my way
 

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BucketGrower

Well-Known Member
Judging by the pic it's either root bound or really thirsty. If you wanted to, you could take that plant out of the cup to examine the roots to see if she needs a transplant to a bigger container.
 

Renfro

Well-Known Member
No way those are rootbound.

How do you water? Do you water heavily then wait for the soil to dry and repeat?

Are you feeding them? If so what?
 
No way those are rootbound.

How do you water? Do you water heavily then wait for the soil to dry and repeat?

Are you feeding them? If so what?
I haven’t given them any food yet. They’re just in cocoa coir, perlite, and worm castings With ph water 6.8- 6.5. I’m pretty good about watering, I water them pretty heavily and I always pick up the cups to see how much they weigh and then I let them dry out quite a bit. They’re dried out quite a bit now but they still look like shit. I’m probably just going to transplant it usually solves my problem if it’s a weird situation like this. They’re not too dry either because they’ve been watered plenty and had plenty of water yesterday
 

Merkn4aSquirtn

Well-Known Member
I haven’t given them any food yet. They’re just in cocoa coir, perlite, and worm castings With ph water 6.8- 6.5. I’m pretty good about watering, I water them pretty heavily and I always pick up the cups to see how much they weigh and then I let them dry out quite a bit. They’re dried out quite a bit now but they still look like shit. I’m probably just going to transplant it usually solves my problem if it’s a weird situation like this. They’re not too dry either because they’ve been watered plenty and had plenty of water yesterday
Drop your ph down to 5.5-6.0
Coco is a soilless medium.
I would probably transfer to a 1 gal soon.
Transfer/Nute them/ happy growing
 
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