New grower here and new to message boards as well.
I’ve gotten so discouraged with my past failures that I’m hoping joining this grow community will give me the direction I need.
Indoor set up:
I had 1 successful plant (out of 3 seeds) on my 1st attempt, which was a white widow and yielded very nicely. Since then (4 x with 3 seeds each time) I’ve done the germination and seedling stages the same with paper towels and using seedling starter mix (Jiffy brand) without adding any extra nutrients. At about 4 weeks in, my seedlings all look great, but then starts the yellowing of the bottom leaf tips and then eventually stunted growth. In my last attempt I did add Grow fertilizer around week 3, but it did the same thing. I’m not sure if I need a different grow medium or what my issue is. Any help at all is appreciated.
Your first mistake is the size of your containers. I’d use regular 6-8 oz plastic cups until you need to water them every other day, that’s when you’ll up-pot to 1 Gallon container. Once they need watering every other day you’ll up-pot to 3G smart pot if that’s your final size but if you’re going for 5G pots then after 1 Gallon you’ll transplant to 2 or 3 gallon plastic pots and then to 5 Gallon smart pots when need watering every other day.
Give them only reverse osmosis water with Great White & Fish shit & Full Power by BioAG until they grow 2 sets of true leaves. The very first two that appear are not leaves so wait for first single leaves followed by 2nd set of triple leaves to appear, that’s when you can start adding fertilizers but I would start with a half the recommended dose and then gradually increase. When they are in vegetative stage they don’t need much but when it’s time to flip to flower that’s when they’ll need a lot of fertilizer.
The second issue I see is that the soil looks extremely moist and that seems like your other issue because your leaves are curling down which is a sign of too much water. When you plant your seed and water your container, don’t water them again until the container feels very very light like it has no more water, that’s when you add more water. You don’t want to keep them saturated but you also don’t want to keep them dry for too long. They can go a full day without having any water at all before they start to show drought deficiencies which is more than enough time for you to notice that they need to be watered. Make sure you provide enough moisture in the room around 50% to 70% RH with temps 75° to 85° F. Cannabis plants love warm temps around 82° to 85° F. I use Black Dog LED PhytoMAX-3 8SP light and they recommend 85° from seed to harvest and this is what I use and I’m getting wonderful results. One of their workers is managing a growing facility, warehouse with over 6,000 plants and they’re using only Biobizz products all around with excellent results. I started using them as well and I’m also getting really good results.
I use Biobizz Light-Mix soil and I use Biobizz nutrients as well.
Thank you for all that advise! Definitely sounds like I’m over watering. These were the last of my feminized seeds, but I have about 7 bad seeds I might practice on next.
I agree with has already been said by the previous member. You want to start photoperiod seeds in small pots or containers and then work your way up to bigger gallon pots and what not. I made this mistake too and the reason why photoperiod plants die off so quick when they’re in big containers from the start is because they need to develop a root ball in their current pot so they can be switched over to a bigger pot that will allow their roots to spread. Making it easier for them to look for water, oxygen, nitrogen, and what not. Good luck on your grow. These mistakes are only naturally apart of the process of learning how to grow properly.
As a last bit of info. The only time you want to throw your seeds in a huge pot is when you’re growing autoflowering seeds. Unike photoperiods, they like to be in big pots right from the jump because of the short amount of time they have to grow until they flower.
@ChronicCorinne
Woohoo this lady is looking very healthy Great job taking the advice of starting in a smaller container. Once you have to start feeding them every other day or every day then that’s a sign that you need to transplant them to a 4-in by 4-in cup or something like that until they start drinking every other day, then transplant them to one gallon plastic pot until they start drinking every other day, then to your final 3 gallon pot if that’s what you’re doing but if you’re going up to a 5 gallon then after the 1 gallon you should transplant into 2 gallon and then to 5 gallons. That’s the proper way to do it but you don’t really have to go from one gallon to two gallon and you can go straight from 1 gallon plastic to 5 gallon smart pot. I hope this helps.
100% correct! I concur!
If you put them in too big of a pot the roots can rot because the pot will be waterlogged because there are not enough roots to take up all that water so they are going to stand in water for too long. You also don’t want to water them too often either, give the soil time to dry so roots can start looking for moisture and when that happens that’s when they grow more, but don’t let it sit in dry soil for more than a day otherwise it’ll start showing deficiencies.
Side note:
If you notice that the soil got very very dry, when you water give them very little water and wait 5 minutes because the water will go right through the soil and into your drip tray because that’s what happens. Then after 5 minutes or so it’ll get a little moist and when you feed, water won’t go right through to drip tray, instead it’ll soak up the water you’re feeding the way it normally does.
The reason I’m telling you this is because once in awhile it happens because I let it dry a little too long and when I water I notice the water goes right through into the drip tray. I then immediately stop watering and wait until it soaks up the water I just gave them and after 5 minutes or so when I feed the water doesn’t go right through, plant starts drinking normally.
this lady is looking very healthy