how do you guys do it??

[sensilights]

pH of 6.0 will make your plants ugly I had a similar situation, my water (distilled+CalMg) was a pH of 6.0 and was causing my seedlings to ugly out quite a bit, apparantly below pH 6.5 the root system can't absorb the nutrients needed (whatever is in the soil) (here's a linky http://boards.cannabis.com/grow-faqs...u-can-use.html ). If I understand correctly, this can cause (at least in my case) salt buildup,general plant uglyness, and slow growth. I remedied this problem with some earth juice ph up. I used a seperate container to make a small amount of pH buffer (water and pH up), then added that sparingly to the water for the girls (use very small amounts as a little bit goes a loooooooooong way) and a good flush of the ugly plant.

Check the pH of the runoff, for me the only plant that had a runoff pH of below 6.6 was the ugly poor performer, so a flush was in order with some pH balanced water and this seems to have taken care of the issue.


EDIT: I checked C-I-L's website and they say the seedling starter mix is soil, perlite, and peat moss.

sensilights Reviewed by sensilights on 12-17-2008. how do you guys do it?? how do you folks get your plants up to 4th set of adult leaves in seedling soil? (example is stinkys donkeydick grow log) Do you really use no nutes? I ask because my seedlings have looked the same for the last week, i have them in C-I-L seedling mix and all they are up to is thier first set of true leaves and the very beginning of thier second set (they are maybe 3 mm) and they have been looking exactly the same for a week now. I am watering with tap water which was left to sit for 24 hours Rating: 5

[michaelpeg]

thank you for the responses, so basically i think what you are saying rusty is that i am using a soilless medium and what you are saying sensi is that even if i am growing in soilless i should still keep the ph around 6.5 regardless? I will start using ph 6.5 water to see if it makes a difference. Also like you said rusty that big pieces and bark are probably not good, well that mix has alot of big chunks of bark so that may be another reason. I haven't always grown with ph 6.0 water i used to grow with ph 6.7~ and i have had this same problem but i keep reading soilless is a mix with no nutritional value and peat based like what i am using and I keep finding that the ph is supposed to be around 6.0, i thought this would fix my problem but obviously not. my runoff currently comes out around 6.1.

Anyways i figured out how to fix this kind of, the same way i grew my very first plant, when i first started, i didnt read as much as i should have and i used some soil with almost no drainage and slow release ferts for my seedlings. they were doing very poorly but i just pulled them out of that soil and put them in the seedling mix and they grew great for some reason. I just transplanted one of my seedlings out of the seedling mix and into the horrible soil and the new leaves have started to get going. Once they are near death i plan to take them out and put them back in the seedling mix and hopefully they will start growing normally. Im sure most of you guys will think this is stupid but it worked before hopefully it will work again.

P.S, cool chart on the link, will use as a reference if i forget.
and Rusty dont worry about taking a while to answer you cant be everywhere at one time.

[Rusty Trichome]

Germinating seeds in general:

...Peat is also on the acidic side and most seed starting mixes have a soil pH around 5.8, which is fine for starting most seeds.

For cannabis seeds:

I'd raise the ph to between 6.5 and 6.8 for soil. 6.0 is wayyyy too low. :thumbsup:

This applies to runoff ph also.

[michaelpeg]

ok cool, thank you sir i will keep the runoff around 6.5