I think I killed them!

[Prodaytrader]

I discovered recently that my timer was set to 24 hours of light with no dark. My plants shot up nice and tall and then sort of just fell over! I discovered the mistake, propped up the plants and now I wait. I do have new growth but if the stalks don't fatten out and the roots take hold I may end up in trouble. I think out of the 5 that I recently started, maybe 1 or 2 will survive. And who knows if any of them are even females.

Prodaytrader Reviewed by Prodaytrader on 10-11-2009. I think I killed them! I discovered recently that my timer was set to 24 hours of light with no dark. My plants shot up nice and tall and then sort of just fell over! I discovered the mistake, propped up the plants and now I wait. I do have new growth but if the stalks don't fatten out and the roots take hold I may end up in trouble. I think out of the 5 that I recently started, maybe 1 or 2 will survive. And who knows if any of them are even females. Rating: 5

[Rubberbubbler]

its ok if your light was on 24 hours a day as long as you are not in flowering.
you make it sound like your plants grew a foot over night and fell over. Are these seedlings? and do u have any air movement in your grow room?

[disrupt86]

how high is your light from the canopy

[Prodaytrader]

I heard to keep the light close so the lights are no more then 6 inches away. Today I went to water them and I discovered that out of 5, 2 are indeed dead at this point and the remaining 3 don't look like my friends who only planted a week or so before I did. The oldest plants don't look so well anymore. I think the problem may be with the weather. My grow room is up in the attic without direct temp control. I guess I thought the temp wouldn't get down low enough to bother them, but I am starting to second guess that now. Last week the temp dipped into the 40's outside so I would have to assume my plants at least approached 50 to 60 degrees. I think this was too much. I'm thinking I need to enclose the space in the attic with dry wall or just plastic maybe. Then I can put a small heater and fan in there to more directly control the temp. At what point is the plant in danger in terms of temperatures? We don't normally worry about freezing temps but lately the weather hasn't been so nice. I thought the plants would be ok in the attic...how cold can it really get up there if the outside temp is 45?

[dustoxx420]

umm stay up their with them if the 24 hour light is on, to get the exact temp.

[JackdaWack]

It really depends and is hard to say, if its 45 degress out and you have vents in your attic, it could reach around 50 assuming some heat is rising up into it. But with that said 50 degrees wouldnt harm your plants it would just slow down growth, your lights should be as close to the plants with out burning them, a good idea if not already enclose the plants with the lights and that will give u some heat. Look around the attic for vents and close them up some if its too cold.

What lights are you using? and if the plants are too tall you can use a stick to prop them up and keep them from falling over.

[Prodaytrader]

Ok so it would appear the temperature isn't what is causing my issues then. Maybe my lights aren't close enough. I thought 8/10 inches was close enough but maybe 2/3 inches is what I need. The lights are bare hanging bulbs (no reflectors or sheeting of any kind around them), there are 6 surrounding a 3 foot area and they are 6500k spectrum CFL's. Do I need more? I think I need them closer, but is 6 not enough? Obviously more refraction would help, but is that what is killing them, not enough refraction as in not enough light. They sure liked the 24 hours of light when I made that mistake. It was too much light, I think at that point.

[Mustelid]

The lights being too far away is definitely your problem.

8-10 inches might be good for a 400 watt cmh, but for a compact fluorescent, one or two inches would be better.

Your plants stretched up to try to get better light, causing the stocks to get too spindly.

[Prodaytrader]

in response to last post:

I think your dead on. I started with 2 sprouts first, then a week later I planted another 2, then a week later, finally 1 last sprout. The last 2 I planted died this week because there was a very brief cold snap and I think the temp dipped too low for them to make it. The first 2 sprouted like twigs and I thought I had a problem, but as it would turn out, the third sprout is now as tall in as short of time as the first 2. So now I am left with 3 plants all of equal height with various degrees of growth. This would appear to be normal for this plant then. I am just not used to this process I guess so I am unsure of what to expect.

As to the lights, I think I do have them too far away or did at least. I have relocated all 6 of my lights no more then 3 inches away from a plant. I had my plants sort of spread out on their own drop pan, but today moved them all onto one 18 inch plastic drip pan in 6 inch pots. The lights have all been restrung to more effectively surround the plants as well as one in the middle of them. Since the lights are hanging from the rafters, I will need to wrap the electrical wire with some sort of stiff wire so that I can position the lights easier. They are kind of a pain to get exactly right.

As I was repositioning the lights and so forth I noticed that the leaves on all the plants are droopy looking. Is that due to not enough light? It cant possibly be a moisture problem since the soil never drys out. I bought a moisture control soil and apparently it works too well since the soil is always moist. Never standing water though or pooled water, any water that wants to drain away can easily do so. I also noticed the tops browning on 1 or two leaves which has me curious as well.

My last thought is towards the air movement. Keep in mind that the grow room is in the attic, should I put a fan on the plants directly? I have an attic fan although it's not on these days since the heat control is off due to temps below 80 degrees now. There is a whirly bird thing just above the plants, but I doubt this creates that much wind movement. The air is "still" up there, not stagnant like a shed or barn would be though. I wonder if they need more air movement to bring in CO2 from out side the attic? Would that cause the tips of the leaves to brown and the leaves to droop?