HELP! Motley yellow seedlings keeled over.

[Crowdad]

Hi folks. This is my first grow so I'm looking for a little reassurance that I'm dealing with this the best I can. I'm about one week in with 4 Maui Wowie germinated in 5 gallon Smart pots loaded with super soil and Happy Frog on top. (Can't get Coco Loco up here in Canada for some reason). Two of the four came up quite stretchy and when I watered them they keeled over. I took this as an opportunity to start with the necessary LST that comes with raising Sativas indoors. Is this too early for that? I've also noticed some motley yellowing on one of them. My diagnosis is too much light because it reached too high. Pinning them down takes them to the same height as the other two and I raised the light to a couple inches higher (46") than the highest spacing recommended (which is 44"), for early vegetative stage. They also recommend 12/12 for the early veg stage but I'm not sure when that period ends. I'm using the Vipar Spectra R900 with veg and bloom switched on. This all fits with the recommendations from the manufacturer other than the extra two inches. There also seems to be a bit of nutrient burn on one of the shorter ones. I was reassured by Nebula's counsel on the GWE website that this might be temporary and will abate as the nutes are used up. I've read other comments on this forum that think Happy Frog is too hot for seedlings. I'd love to hear some comments on this if anyone's interested.Keeled over, pinned and motley yellow

[Driller]

If you could put some pictures up it would help people diagnose if their stretching it sounds like not enough light. pics would help.

[Crowdad]

Sorry, I thought I did attach a photo. I'm also new at forums I'm afraid. I'll try again. Thanks for the reply.

[Canuck147]

Turn off your bloom light - and pics would help

[growell]

dont know about 1212 switch in early veg i agree with driller your lights are way to high that why strech if the fell over put more soil round them so they stand on own i wouldnt start lsting to early dont think they strong enough sort the other problems first hope it helps mate

[Crowdad]

Here are all four . Hope this works

[Tersky]

Light was too far from plants and it stretched. Pinning down is fine but next time lower light. Googled the light you have and it said 32 for veg. Never heard of any manufacture recommend 12/12 lighting for cannabis plants at seed. That is also probably why your plants stretched. And the bloom being turned on. Red light spectrum causes stretching. I would disregard what they say as i dont think they are talking about cannabis. If they are, they must not grow it as 12/12 will put you directly into flower then your plant would reveg when you changed schedule to and get stressed and possibly hermie. I would turn off bloom, lower lights to 38 inches and switch to 18/6 light schedule.

[Tersky]

Oh and personally i would use a T5 light for seedlings as LED's and HID are too strong. I start mine with CFL or T5 then when it has roots established i move to HID lighting

[UndergroundFarmer]

Absolutely. The great thing about starting out with T5s is they don't become obsolete when you buy better grow lights! You can always use a T5 panel for seedlings, clones and mother plants you don't want growing out of control.

[Crowdad]

Thanks for that info. You may not have Googled deep enough about my light. The manufacturer recommends a break in period @ 44 to 48 inches 10/14 for three to five days, then @ 40 to 44" 12/12/ for seedlings/young vegetative.( I don't know how long that is), and then 32 to 40" 18/6 for the vegetative stage. I fear I would burn them if jump to 32. 18/6 or even 38 too early. I've been warned about LED light and burning. As for the bloom switch. the manual states you can also tun on veg and bloom for the entire grow throughout seeding and flowering stages. They also recommend bloom switch on in the veg stage in their chart. I've attached a scan of the page in the manual. Another thing about this case. Only half of the seedlings are stretchy. The others are much shorter. If they stretched for lack of light or because of the red spectrum, why didn't they all stretch? I've read tutorials that recommend the Brand for cannabis and my particular model is mentioned as an LED option in a grow journal on GWE: 400W MH/MPS Cannabis Grow setup and Tutorial. I should mention, after I raised the lights and pinned the high ones the discolouration hasn't gotten worse. I haven't seen the yellowing quite like that in any of the help photos.

[SoOrbudgal]

I have never ever heard of 12/12 during veg stage. Auto never. Photos only during flowering or when you want to put it into flower.

[Tersky]

Your right i may not have googled far enough, but i know how to grow weed and i think the info you got was wrong due to my experience as a grower. But be my guest. Sometimes you gotta find to the hard way. Dont see any yellowing but that because the lighting is not natural and colors are distorted. Good luck.

[Driller]

My only thinking would be as you have 4 plants in 5 gal pots the surface area of your grow meant 2 of your plants got enough light but other 2 didnt causing them to strech toward the light...this is only a guess. Im using 1000w led in my grow my tent is only 40x40x130 have my lights 28" above my plant and had no issues with stress so far. I know leds can be variable from different makes. I have only just put my bloom lights on my plant is 4 weeks old and just starting to flower. I would run with terskys advise and lower your lights plus turn bloom off for now I have run my lights on 18/6 and plant has been flourishing.

[Canuck147]

Must be a foreign manufacturer which has no idea what cannabis plants need. All that info you spewed out looks a bit daft to me.
Just my opinion.

Should listen to Tersky - he knows what he's talking about. Your seedlings stretched cuz your light was too far away. Let the plants make up your mind where to set it at and leave it until they start growing. Which they haven't done much of yet.

Same strains given the same conditions can grow different ways - only clones grow the same as each other.

Good luck growing.

[growell]

if u put your lights on 12 12 they will automaticaly go into flower then if you go 18 6 youll back into reveg lower your lights keep an eye on them i burnt mine other day they bouce back i would throw that manual out sounds totaly wrong theres a lot of clever people on here who know what there talking about and will steer u in right direction canuck tersky hope this helps mate

[Crowdad]

Any idea what's causing the yellowing? I thought it was light burn. It happened on the first one to germinate which makes sense because it spent the most time under the lights. Vipar Spectra is a US manufacturer and I heard it was a brand that's getting very popular on this forum. I mean no offence but a lot of the advice you've given so far doesn't really ring true based on what I've read. Nebula Haze's article on LED lighting suggests to go by the manufacturers suggestion for spacing since all makes and models are different. I hardly think that quoting the manual is spewing but I'll contact Vipar Spectra and see what they can tell me. Maybe I got the wrong manual! If LED lights can easily burn it makes sense to introduce the light intensity slowly at first doesn't it? Isn't this how it happens in the natural environment? Surely the young seedlings wouldn't go straight to flower at their tender age. I thought photoperiod types need minimum three weeks before you can force them to flower. My seedlings are only 1 week above ground today. Regarding the red spectrum, another article said there's no evidence that it needs to be introduced for the flower stage only. Lots of growers are using full spectrum lights for their entire grow. I know I'm only going by instructions and have zero experience but surely the tutorials can't be that far off!

[Tersky]

Sounds like you got it all figured out. So why ask questions?

[Canuck147]

Natural environment they get full on sun - doesn't get any better.

[Crowdad]

Thanks guys. I guess I'm just trying for a second opinion. Experience certainly trumps information and I might learn the hard way. The yellowing isn't chronic and it hasn't gotten any worse so I'm hanging in with my approach for now. If it gets worse I'll come crawling back with a better photo.

[homegrown]

Well Crowdad, you've gotten at least 6 or 7 second opinions all telling you the same thing. I Did read the whole article/write-up on your light. You do realize their talking about vegetables, fruits and succulents right?? There is a pic of strawberries, lettuce,and a succulent plant directly beside the 44" hight and 12/12 recommendation your following. Bring your light down,raise your plants, whatever, Veg light stays on all the time..24hrs..dont water too much. New growth often comes out a a lighter green color and will darken as the leaves grow.

[Crowdad]

Thanks homegrown, I found the article you mentioned. It was on a cannabis growing website called 420 expert adviser. Strange that they would provide advice on vegetables and succulents when their website's focus is cannabis. Being a newbie, I'm easily thrown off and maybe a little too logical.

[Crowdad]

Ok, thanks for the input. I suppose my intuition is off on this one. So far the word from the manufacturer is, these are general guidelines and I should listen to the pros. I haven't seen any kind of articles like the one you describe. Could you share a link? I've been going by the manual that came with the R900 and the GWE tutorials which are all weed all the time. I suppose all information should be tested against real world experience which you all have in droves. Sorry if I have insulted anyone with my doubts. It was foolish of me to pick such a difficult strain in the first place. I chose it before I read the "choose the right strain" article. This could be an interesting learning experience if nothing else. Anyway, I'll go 18/6 today, lower the lights to 38" and hope I haven't wrecked anything. Tersky said it's ok to pin the longer ones down and I like that because it puts them all at the same distance from the lights and gives me a head start on training. Fingers crossed. If there are no ill effects I might try 24/0. I think in the future I'll also use CFLs for the germination period. This has been proven and is probably better than the gradual exposure method in the manual which it seems no one but me has followed. Any suggestions on when to safely move the seedlings from CFLs to the LEDs? Should the CFLs run @ 18/6 or 24/0? BTW, I'm curious if I screwed up when I uploaded the picture of my weakest seedling. When I look at the forum page and find my post I can see a large photo of my weakest plant right below the text. Is that only for me or can others see it? It's not hard to see the discolouration even in the purple lighting. This doesn't really match any of the GWE websites pics of distressed plants which are yellowed around the edges. Mine is more as I said- motley. Since I sent the photo the first leaves have curled a bit but the yellowing hasn't gotten worse.The first folks to respond asked for photos so I found the proper way to upload photos and sent pics of all four plants. Since then I've observed all four plants growing at very different rates with two of them showing minor issues. This might be another reason this is a difficult strain. I thought I might try shuffling the pots to different places to see if there are hot spots in my tent. Thoughts?.

[Driller]

Hi its easy to get wrapped up in the theory side of this. Growing is different than reading I found, I spent about 6 months reading up researching nights spent on GWE which is the best place for information In my book. But I still managed to overwater my plant until I got help on here which was slightly different than the information on GWE but it worked no one on here wants anyone to fail we all love this. All you can do is try different things and see for yourself if it helps or not. These are pretty tough plants and can bounce back quickly with right care. Im a newbie so still learning I cant add anymore info you have been given some expert advise in my opinion. Just enjoy what your doing. Good luck