Growing bagseed under LEDs indoor 2x4 tent. I transplanted from 1 qt cups to 3 gallon fabric pots last week using Black Gold Natural & Organic soil (1.5 cu ft bag amended with 2.5 cups DTE Bio-Live, 1 cup dolomite, extra perlite, 4 cups earthworm castings, 1 cuz azomite, 8 cups cotton burr compost, .5 cup neem meal, and .25 cup humic acids). Soil was moistened with RO water and turned weekly for 1 month prior to transplant.
Now that my girls have been in the new pots for 5 days I expected the leaf colors to improve, but here is what I’m seeing so far. Not sure if anybody can chime in if there’s anything to be concerned about.
FYI - I did overwater after transplant which caused drooping, but like I said that was 5 days ago. Water is from R.O. filter. I heard i didn’t need to worry about cal-mag deficiencies if using organic soil. Maybe I just need some reassurance I’m not screwing anything up.
Looking at the soil, it has .5% nitrogen and no potassium or phosphorus. I’m assuming dolomite is lime and I wouldn’t know what the other ingredients are adding as far as nutrients. With that said, I am sure you are lacking in many Micronutrients such as magnesium, iron, sulfur, boron, etc. Therefore you should pick up some liquid fertilizer for soil. Some will have something called micro. This is for all micronutrients, then there will be something for veg, and something for bloom (flowering). An NPK of 3-1-2 is ideal. You should also get a rapid test for soil and see where the ph is on the soil you nade. Your soil ph should be between 6.0-7.0.
Use your fertilizers once a week with purified water and water with pure water at least once a week. Always ph your water AFTER you add the fertilizer. And always ph your pure water. You want your water between 6.4 - 6.6. You will need a ph pen for that. Get a good one.
The plant looks ok for now, but she should be a little darker green, so your lacking some nitrogen and this will get worse as she gets bigger, so you’ll need that fertilizer. And don’t over water again.
I added approx 1/4 cup of DTE Bio-Live per gal of soil , so roughly 2.5 cups total per bag of Black Gold soil. Wouldn’t this product take care of the nutrition?
The Dolomite is lime and the Azomite rock dust was added for micronutrients.
The bio-live looks more like an inoculation of Mycorrhizae, which is good bacteria that helps facilitate the uptake of nutrients. The lime is going to sweeten the soil, but to what degree? You need to find out what the soil ph is. If the ph isn’t right certain nutrients will be locked out. The only nutrient you’ve added looks like worm castings. You would have been better off buying a good potting mix. Sorry.
Now I’m even more confused bc Bio-Live fertilizer states NPK of 5-4-2 and its ingredients are similar to Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil as it contains fish, crab, and shrimp meal. It also has alfalfa & kelp meal, while FFOF has bat guano & castings instead. Does anybody else have any experience using this amendment? Could something other than my soil be causing the light color of my leaves? Thanks, Outdoorman, for your input. (I will be getting my ph pen delivered this weekend)
Ok, my apologies, I must have looked at the wrong product. I see the one you’re referring to. Nevertheless, you have added only 2.5 cups per 1.5 cubic feet of the other soil and I have no idea whether or not that would be enough. I think this is a question for @canagen. He has experience with making soil from scratch. Let’s see what his opinion is.
Disclaimer: I am not an expert on organics. Just feeding forward my experiences.
Thanks for the tag @Outdoorman. I do mix my own soil. ProMix Veg/Herb is about the only commercial ingredient I am using.
@yinyang814, those are lovely plants. I really can’t see any issues with your plants other than the leaves drooping a bit, possibly from over-watering? They look wrinkled in spots.
I had a look at that soil and fertilizer you are using and it looks like they would work well together. You mention using RO water, what are you adding for supplements then? And you also mention spraying the 1G and watering with solution. What solution is it and do you use it on all of them?
If this was my grow and seeing what you are seeing, I would feed with a tea of worm castings, kelp and molasses. The ratio I usually use is 1/2 cup each of castings and kelp plus 1T of molasses per gallon. Brewed overnight with an air pump then wateored in. If you wish you can top dress with the dregs although this tends to attract bugs.
Your soil looks like it already has microbes in there. They just need to be fed. HTH.
I got worried last night and threw some Dr Earth Kelp Meal, Aloe powder, and RO water in a spray bottle for an hour and foliar fed just the small pot before bed to see if it makes any difference before my ph pen and Recharge get delivered this weekend. I had just transplanted into the fabric pots last week so I hadn’t fed anything thinking the plants would be okay for the first week in their new homes/new soil. Thanks for the quick response!
You have to remember, you have just transplanted them into 3Gs. They will take some time to get their roots going again. I expect you should see an improvement within the next week as long as no other issues arise.
I’ve read good things about that Recharge though I have never tried it myself.
Me being relatively cheap, I prefer to source out natural resources for substitution. And this is where the hobby branches off to. There is worm farming or vermiculture, composting and then you have your Korean Natural Farming (KNF) and all its iterations. It get’s crazy sometimes.
