Nutes applied to DRY soil, instant burn to the delicate root hairs. You know, the ones who do the work, like taking up water & nutes. Always moisten the soil a little before applying nutes.
Printable View
Nutes applied to DRY soil, instant burn to the delicate root hairs. You know, the ones who do the work, like taking up water & nutes. Always moisten the soil a little before applying nutes.
Related to catbud's warning is the fact that when you let the medium dry out thoroughly, you must be careful to water very slowly the next time you do. When most potting soils dry out, it takes a bit of time for the new water to saturate the entire 3-dimensional space of the soil. The water will take the path of least resistance, and that is often a channel or the sides of the pot. Sou you end up with unevenly dispersed water in the soil, and nutrients concentrated in relatively small areas. Whenever the medium gets really really dry, water by adding a little at a time, and waiting a few minutes before adding more. Add more to the center first, and then more to the perimeter of the pot as you go. Adding water a bit at a time lets the moisture reach through the medium by capillary action, and if you're patient it will eventually saturate the contents of the pot completely. Then you can water with a few bigger doses until it flows through the bottom more like a seep, rather than a trickle or stream. Then you know you have "re-wetted" the soil, and you will now avoid these kinds of "hot spots" and uneven moisture distribution.
wow....i never would of thought of that..i feel retarded...guess you gotta screw up to figure it out.....cat whats your take on their survival...since this morning and the flush...they do seem to have uncurled a smidge but not huge...thinking of germ'ing some new ones here next week if these dont look to greatQuote:
Originally Posted by catbuds
well my young ways are showing again....damn....literally my problem in life too lol i rush all the time...thank you for your help lady and gents....i will keep everyone posted.
They'll survive, but catch pots will help you. When you water, if you have 1/2 or so of water in the catch pot, then its gone in a few min, that will tell you that it ran down the sides of the pot, & the missed (dry) sections of soil sucked up (capillary action) the run off. Add more water till they stop sucking up the run off, then dump excess out of the catch pots. Catch pots are a gardeners friend ;)
I should have mentioned, the leaves that have hardened (kinda crispy) won't uncurl, but most of the soft pliable ones probably will. I can't always find enough catch pots, so I take a bigger pot as a form, & shape a double layer of foil into a catch pot, using the bottom of the larger pot. Making sure the catch pot is larger than the pot ensures for drainage & air to the roots. The tops of the plants use co2, but the roots need oxygen & without it, moist soil will 'sour'. Soil that's gone 'sour' is another old nurserymans term meaning stagnant soil. Once you get them healthy again, they'll finish fine. Just keep posting pics & texting descriptions so we can catch it quick if you get in trouble again.
-- I'm not getting email alerts to the threads I subscribe to like I should. Several months ago, a spammer was following me allover this forum, pushing a pyramid scheme, saying 'you don't have to sell illegal drugs, sell my legal product!' I looked up his posts, & for three or four days, ALL of his post were posted right after mine, & only mine no matter where I posted. I should have alerted Burnt Toast, but instead I unsubscribed to all the threads I was following to get that shit off my email alerts. He was caught at it, & the threads he posted to cleaned up. But since then, I only get forum alerts hit or miss. That spammer was so annoying I almost left cann.com because of him. Anyway, the point to that is I sometimes don't get my alerts & I'm not blowing anybody off, it just sometimes looks that way. :)
Hey bro saw your question in the reputation comment. Based on your pics, looks like you are overdoing the nutes and changing the ph much to drastically. You said your following the nute schedule...I tried to find in your thread but couldn't find it, what nutes/soil are you using? I would say its way more key to learn how to read your plants and base your nutes on the what the plant actually needs not on a predetermined schedule. I have been doing organics for a long time now and don't really care for synthetics so I am prob the wrong person to council you proper usage on chemical nutes. Best advice I can offer, is flush double the amount of gallons of water as your pot with some reverse osmosis water (tap water has chlorine/fluoride/chloramine in it which will destroys your soil) and back off the nutes. More then likely any areas of the leaf that have gone crispy wont recover sadly :(
Your plants aren't ruined, but they probably are gonna be stunted a bit. Chalk it up as a learning experience finish them out and learn from it. The grow bible is a must have to learn the ropes.
Don't feel bad, I've said before that you'll remember it better if your involved. This thread was a lot of info that you have probably really digested now, and that will make you better. When I see that leaf clawing(new term to me),I usually think of root damage. Then the plant is reacting to it. Seen it happen for several reasons, drain hole in pot plugged or not there, plant drowns(roots rot). Nute burn to roots, believe leaves curl to stop transportation(shut the stomas). Insect larva eating the roots, the most extreme case for me was a mouse took a liking to roots, actually made cave in the soil while eating. Cold will also cause it(just saw extreme case of it in my tent).Quote:
Originally Posted by budbro28
Drying(wilting) looks a little different, leaves hang down lowest first, eventuality will drop leaves from bottom up. But the guys covered that, once the root ball dries enough the soil pulls away from the sides of the pot, giving water a path of least resistance. Thus cat's catch pot, or my 'let it sit in the water' to resoak.
Prognosis, not good, best case stunted with yield cut. But what don't kill you makes you stronger, same with plant and maybe potency. But look at roots when your finished, they may tell the tail.
In short 'live and learn', but take heart a lot of people may learn from this. Know I really offered nothing new, but the help offered here by others really impressed me!
papapayne..thanks for gettin gback to me...im using fox farms ocean soil...and there nutrients...grow big big bloom and tiger bloom....who ever said this shit is easy..obviously is nuts...haha im going to keep these going till the end, but they are starting to look a little worse this morning...well the main one(the one that was dried out the most)Quote:
Originally Posted by papapayne
so whats the best kind of water to be using? reverse osmosis, tap that has sit out...or spring water thats been areated with airstone or shaken like a mother...?
humbling experience to say the least...a little defeated by mother nature but not totally...i really do appreciate all the sound help and advice...from all thank you...will keep pictures and updates daily
and ranger...thanks for being the calm through the storm (along with weeze) was tripping over here....gunna germ some new next week if theydont show some signs of improvement.
budbro when using Ocean Forest you must be really careful with added nutes. That soil is loaded and I have burned plants with it. It's great soil, but adding any ferts to it should be done sparingly. A few people have impressed on me that the Foxfarm feeding schedule is too hot. Especially the Grow Big I use at half strength, and during veg I added NO ferts ever, and my plants grew like freaking trees. Everyone has to learn what works for them and no two gardens are the same. But in the future you should try to adopt a "wait and see" approach with especially the high Nitrogen nutes. In other words, if the plant looks good, there is no reason to keep hitting it with heavy nutes. Eventually it will start to exhaust the soil, but if all of your other conditions are good and your pots are the right size you shouldn't really ever be in an emergency situation with nutes. I rarely hear anyone panicking over a plant that needs nutes, it's almost always the other way around. A continuous, low-level feeding is better than a cyclical, heavy-hitting regime. That becomes a stress unto itself.
I, along with a lot of other experienced growers, have a tendency to forget a lot of first time growers have never grown any kind of plant before, so we really need a sticky thread that's pretty much 'plant basics 101'. Proper watering is THE most important part of helping a plant to thrive. First of all, when you pot up a plant, always leave enough room between the pot rim & soil surface for water. About 1"-1 1/2" for party cups up to 4" pots, the bigger the pot, the more room for water. 6" for a 5 gal bucket, sometimes I'll give it 8". Let the top of the soil dry, stick your finger in it & feel for the moisture (some people heft the pot & go by weight). If its dry an inch or so down, time for water. DONT let it dry to the bottom of the pot unless its a damned cactus! You don't want it so dry the soil shrinks, but should that happen, water lightly, not enough to hit the sides of the pot, keep it in the center to make sure its absorbed rather that travelling down the side between the soil & the pot. This will cause the soil to expand & fill the pot again. Once that happens, fill the pot to the top with water. Making sure you've used enough water to 'run through'. I usually let it sit in the run off 2-3 min. If there were any dry pockets in the soil, they will absorb the water. Then dump the access out of the catch pot. Water again when the top inch or so becomes dry again. That would be for a party cup (don't forget to punch 4 drain holes in these guys) or a 4" pot. The bigger the pot, the deeper you go on the surface dryness. NEVER give anything other than plain water to a plant in bone dry soil or one that is dry enough to wilt. Anytime you've let them over dry, let them sit in the run off in the catch pot untill they stop absorbing water. This is NOT over watering. Over watering occurs when you water too FREQUENTLY, not allowing the soil to dry somewhat between waterings. The roots litterly drown from lack of oxygen. Perfectly watered soil is soil that is moist, but still has small air spaces between the soil particals. Well drained soil holds water within itself while allowing very small air spaces for roots to breathe. Fox farm soils are a good example of this. When using a rich organic soil such as fox farms, hold off on the nutes untill the plants say they they need it. Usually 2-3 wks after transplanting into bigger pot/fresh soil, & about 1/4 strength the first feed, 1/2 for a while. I never use high nitro/ growth nutes stronger than 1/2 recommended strength because I use rich soils. I even use tiger bloom 1/4, then 1/2, & then the recommended amount 1/2 way into budding. Remember, you feed the soil & the soil feeds the plant.
-- read this post more than once. What you've done is burn the hell out of the root hairs by feeding dry soil. Nitrogen is the worse for burning, & I can tell by the color & texture of the leaves that this is a nitrogen burn. Also, the fact that there's no 'gloss' at all to the leaves, I would say they've been water stressed for a while before the nute burn. Probably not watering through & leaving a dry air pocket just below the root ball. This probably happened after the roots filled the pots & the plants required more water than before, but the water amount wasn't changed as they changed. If you do the catch pot thing & let them sit in the run through water a few min you can prevent this from happening again. Remember, before you feed, make sure there is some moisture to be felt by your finger tip slightly below the soil surface.
-- Sounds like its possible you will loose the worst one, & the others will be stunted & yield decreased because of this, but with proper watering & backing off with the nutes for a while, they should survive & give you something to harvest. Everybody here has given you good, sound advice, but like I said, we do tend to forget first time growers have never grown anything before, so better late than never, I've given you the basics. I hope I've made it easy to understand, if not, just ask & one of us will clarify. Good luck & I'll make it a point to check your thread often. :)