Before I get started I just want to say that I haven't taken any pictures of the progress. But I have kept a journal right from the day of germination of seeds.
Ok. the confusion I have is that half my plants look great and doing what they are supposed to.The other ones look terrible. I’ll get into that in a minute. Here is what I have on the go.
Plants: 3 x White Widow, 2 x Blueberry, 1 x Unknown sativa that was given to me as a cutting that has been going for 17 years.
Room is (complete overkill are the exact words that everyone seems to keep using) in the basement in the corner covered in reflective mylar on two sides(concrete walls) and the black and white plastic on the other two walls. There is a sink and counter along the back wall which is good for watering and a work area. Under the counter is set up as the clone/veg area that is blocked completely from the rest of the room. So no light leaks. The area is 9x7 in total (9x9 minus the 2ft for the counter).
Now the good stuff. Lighting is 1000w LED & one 600w HPS/MH. Venting for the 600w from a 4” fan direct from outside vented back outside. Fresh air intake coming from a lung room using a 6” variable speed fan and exhaust through a carbon filter being pulled out by another 6” variable speed fan into another cold room and another carbon filter. No need for any smell to be escaping.
There is no worry about any electrical issues as each light is on it’s own breaker. (Wired in by an electrician. He did a nice job by the way.) The floor is sitting on 1 ½” of Styrofoam covered by ½” plywood. The whole floor is covered in the back/white plastic running up the edges 6”. So all is waterproof.
Now the problem. The blueberry & unknown sativa are doing fantastic. The white widow have been a fight from the beginning. All was right in the universe with germination and transplanting into 1 gallon pots. They were doing great with some soil that I mixed up to use in my tomatoes the prior year. Ok. Time to transplant into 7 gallon pots. This is where everything went to hell. A friend that has been growing for a long time gave me his “secret” soiless mix recipe. Sunshine mix : perlite : vermiculite, 1:1:1. So a third of sunshine pete moss perlite and vermiculite. Aaaaaaand got a free ph meter out of the deal as well. I was using the drops up until this point. I think some of you are shaking your head all ready. Growth stopped and leaves were getting spots on them and turning yellow. Hammer them with nutrients 10-52-10. Again. Must be still shock from transplant. Been two weeks. Checked the run off water and PH is 6.6. All good there. Has to be lack of nutrients. Hit em again. Panic. Nothing is growing, stems are red. Leaves are turning brown and yellow and holes and shiny stuff on the leaves. Wait. Holes? Shiny slime?
TV Infomercial voice: AAAAAAAAAAnd if you act now you can also get an infestation of Thrips! That’s right! For a limited time only, you can deal with these little crop killing suckers! Feel like burning the whole works? Want to throw in the towel? Think all your time is wasted? Congratulations! You are the frustrated owner of a room full of thrips!!!
Took for ever to get rid of those little bastards!!! Not only can I not figure out what’s wrong with my plants but I have bugs sucking what’s left for life out of them.
I went down to the local grow experts and they had the same opinion. PH problems. Can’t be. Checked it with my PH pen. Did you check with PH test kit with the drops? It was time to water anyways so I picked up some PH drops to verify that my PH pen was working. And I discovered nematodes while I was there. Started to flush the plants and used the ph pen. 6.7. Then I double checked with the ph test kit. The color on the bottle says 5.0. What? Do it again. Same. So out to the shed and dig out my soil test kit that I use in my garden.
The soil tested at 4.8PH. If you weren’t laughing before now is the perfect time wipe the tears from your eyes. Bloody PH Pen doesn't work. Cheap piece of junk. No wonder it was a gift.
So I started to flush the plants with 8.0ph water. Took me over 6 hours to get it all to 6.2 ph. It was about another week after that until they started to come back. Then everything started to look good. Even the white widow plants. Keep in mind I haven’t sexed these plants either. I was so mad that I just wanted to cut the lights back and what ever was female stayed and the males are gone. The 2 white widow that have given the most problems, I was convinced they were males. Long stringy growth.
I left the plants for 2 weeks in veg after getting things back on track and they were growing the way they should be. The bugs were gone. The nematodes worked like magic. So with everything nice and green and growing, I set the lights to 12/12. With my new PH pen I made sure all the run off water was 6-7ph every time I watered.
Everything was looking good. 2 weeks into flower and you can clearly see everything was female. Even the two I was positive were male. So 6 plants all in flower. This brings us up to date. Just over 4 weeks into flower and the white widow are turning yellow and getting brown spots on the leaves and the veins on the leaves are red. The blueberry and the sativa are doing great. Everything has gotten the exact same nutrients or water. Everything gets hand watered until I get about 20% run off. The ph of the run off water is sitting around 6.2-6.7 in all the plants. The ph is double checked with both ph test kit and the pen. I really don’t know what the reason why the white widow plants look like death again and everything else looks good. I don’t know what I’m overlooking or not addressing.
Oh and the best part is that I got called away from home for the next 4 days so this gets put on hold till I get back. Ok so this is the part where I ask for the quick and easy solution to my problem...........oh wait. If there is anything that I have learned is nothing that is quick and easy with this. You can't hurry mother nature. I was so happy when everything started going good. Now I'm scratching my head again.
Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading about my journey up till now.
Ok. the confusion I have is that half my plants look great and doing what they are supposed to.The other ones look terrible. I’ll get into that in a minute. Here is what I have on the go.
Plants: 3 x White Widow, 2 x Blueberry, 1 x Unknown sativa that was given to me as a cutting that has been going for 17 years.
Room is (complete overkill are the exact words that everyone seems to keep using) in the basement in the corner covered in reflective mylar on two sides(concrete walls) and the black and white plastic on the other two walls. There is a sink and counter along the back wall which is good for watering and a work area. Under the counter is set up as the clone/veg area that is blocked completely from the rest of the room. So no light leaks. The area is 9x7 in total (9x9 minus the 2ft for the counter).
Now the good stuff. Lighting is 1000w LED & one 600w HPS/MH. Venting for the 600w from a 4” fan direct from outside vented back outside. Fresh air intake coming from a lung room using a 6” variable speed fan and exhaust through a carbon filter being pulled out by another 6” variable speed fan into another cold room and another carbon filter. No need for any smell to be escaping.
There is no worry about any electrical issues as each light is on it’s own breaker. (Wired in by an electrician. He did a nice job by the way.) The floor is sitting on 1 ½” of Styrofoam covered by ½” plywood. The whole floor is covered in the back/white plastic running up the edges 6”. So all is waterproof.
Now the problem. The blueberry & unknown sativa are doing fantastic. The white widow have been a fight from the beginning. All was right in the universe with germination and transplanting into 1 gallon pots. They were doing great with some soil that I mixed up to use in my tomatoes the prior year. Ok. Time to transplant into 7 gallon pots. This is where everything went to hell. A friend that has been growing for a long time gave me his “secret” soiless mix recipe. Sunshine mix : perlite : vermiculite, 1:1:1. So a third of sunshine pete moss perlite and vermiculite. Aaaaaaand got a free ph meter out of the deal as well. I was using the drops up until this point. I think some of you are shaking your head all ready. Growth stopped and leaves were getting spots on them and turning yellow. Hammer them with nutrients 10-52-10. Again. Must be still shock from transplant. Been two weeks. Checked the run off water and PH is 6.6. All good there. Has to be lack of nutrients. Hit em again. Panic. Nothing is growing, stems are red. Leaves are turning brown and yellow and holes and shiny stuff on the leaves. Wait. Holes? Shiny slime?
TV Infomercial voice: AAAAAAAAAAnd if you act now you can also get an infestation of Thrips! That’s right! For a limited time only, you can deal with these little crop killing suckers! Feel like burning the whole works? Want to throw in the towel? Think all your time is wasted? Congratulations! You are the frustrated owner of a room full of thrips!!!
Took for ever to get rid of those little bastards!!! Not only can I not figure out what’s wrong with my plants but I have bugs sucking what’s left for life out of them.
I went down to the local grow experts and they had the same opinion. PH problems. Can’t be. Checked it with my PH pen. Did you check with PH test kit with the drops? It was time to water anyways so I picked up some PH drops to verify that my PH pen was working. And I discovered nematodes while I was there. Started to flush the plants and used the ph pen. 6.7. Then I double checked with the ph test kit. The color on the bottle says 5.0. What? Do it again. Same. So out to the shed and dig out my soil test kit that I use in my garden.
The soil tested at 4.8PH. If you weren’t laughing before now is the perfect time wipe the tears from your eyes. Bloody PH Pen doesn't work. Cheap piece of junk. No wonder it was a gift.
So I started to flush the plants with 8.0ph water. Took me over 6 hours to get it all to 6.2 ph. It was about another week after that until they started to come back. Then everything started to look good. Even the white widow plants. Keep in mind I haven’t sexed these plants either. I was so mad that I just wanted to cut the lights back and what ever was female stayed and the males are gone. The 2 white widow that have given the most problems, I was convinced they were males. Long stringy growth.
I left the plants for 2 weeks in veg after getting things back on track and they were growing the way they should be. The bugs were gone. The nematodes worked like magic. So with everything nice and green and growing, I set the lights to 12/12. With my new PH pen I made sure all the run off water was 6-7ph every time I watered.
Everything was looking good. 2 weeks into flower and you can clearly see everything was female. Even the two I was positive were male. So 6 plants all in flower. This brings us up to date. Just over 4 weeks into flower and the white widow are turning yellow and getting brown spots on the leaves and the veins on the leaves are red. The blueberry and the sativa are doing great. Everything has gotten the exact same nutrients or water. Everything gets hand watered until I get about 20% run off. The ph of the run off water is sitting around 6.2-6.7 in all the plants. The ph is double checked with both ph test kit and the pen. I really don’t know what the reason why the white widow plants look like death again and everything else looks good. I don’t know what I’m overlooking or not addressing.
Oh and the best part is that I got called away from home for the next 4 days so this gets put on hold till I get back. Ok so this is the part where I ask for the quick and easy solution to my problem...........oh wait. If there is anything that I have learned is nothing that is quick and easy with this. You can't hurry mother nature. I was so happy when everything started going good. Now I'm scratching my head again.
Any input is greatly appreciated. Thanks for reading about my journey up till now.
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