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Enriched Potting Soil?

flytier

flytier

New member
Ok, now I'm new to growing weed and I've been having a bitch of a time getting it to germinate. Out of 15 seeds planted, I have 4 plants to show for it. When the few lucky ones do come up, the tips of the leaves are brown and dry, as can be seen in the attached photo.
I used the paper towel method to get to the taproot stage and when they go into the soil, this is what happens to them. From what I've been reading, it looks to me like nutrient burn.I could be wrong, bearing in mind I'm inexperienced with growing weed.
After wracking my brain over it I thought to look on the bag of soil and it says that it's enriched with plant food. Could this be the cause of my problem?
The soil is from a Canadian WalMart, Pro-Mix with MycoActive (TM) Organic Growth Enhancer, which gives a "gradual release of nitrogen." Does anybody have any experience growing weed in this soil, and if so, what kind of results have you had with it?
Other than that, my setup is in a small alcove that the fridge used to occupy. For lights I use a combination of CFLs and screw-in LED floodlights; the source of heat is a small space heater placed just outside the setup; the source of humidity is a pot of water for evaporation; and air movement is accomplished using an 8" fan.
Any information would be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance and happy growing!
 

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Oh, ok. I never came across that particular page. I'll have to have a go through it. With my inexperience at this I never thought to look on the bag. And if I did, well, I probably would have considered it a good thing! Thanks for the reply, Biker.
 
No problem fly. Don't worry did the same thing on my first grow lol. That's why it looked familiar. My fix was to flush my plant a lot and change my growing medium. I grow in Coco Coir with 40% Perlite. They are neutral as far as nutes and ph. Another thing I have been religious about has been ph'ing my nute mix when I make it up and also check the ph of my runoff water.
 
Hi Flytier, next time you could try placing your germinated seed in a root starter and place the root starter in a pot with the top 20% of the soil being a mild organic soil like ecoscraps (Lowes carries it) and the rest of the soil a hot soil. This way the seedling would not get burnt and grow in to the hotter soil.
 
I'm not sure if we have Lowes in Canada. I've never seen one around. I live in a fairly small town and to be honest, we're lucky to have a WalMart! I have a bag of dollar store soil which, according to the ingredients, contains only humus, peat moss, perlite and limestone. When I plant my next crop I will be starting it with this stuff, as it seems to be a good basic mix.I guess I'll find a better type of soil for the main part of the grow. May even fire in a couple worms. Thanks for the info; I can use every bit that comes my way at this stage.
 
Well, I never expected my first grow to be perfect anyway. So if you did the same thing, I'm interested in knowing how it turned out.Did the extra nitrogen screw up the buds or anything?
 
Once I flushed out the time released stuff from the soil and I started feeding her etc. there did not seem to be any long term damage, buds were fine etc.
 
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Well, the White Widow (or at least this one in particular) has proven herself a survivor. After the initial nutrient burn she took right off. The first picture is at the top of this page and here she is a week later, transplanted into a bigger pot as of yesterday. I had a couple types of soil, so I took the enriched bag and "diluted" it with some plain stuff. We had a beautiful day in Atlantic Canada yesterday so I was even able to give her a bit of sun.
 

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I usually start seeds in a solo cup with a mixture of Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil and a seed starter soil. FFOF can be a little hot so I start out with the "diluted" mix but once plant is established she can handle the hotter soil. Looks like yours is doing the same. Good luck and keep us posted!
 
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hey flytier when I start seeds I use 4 or 5 full size paper towels,fold them repeatedly until you have a 5" by 5" square put them on a plate wet them down tip the plate to let towels to drain. put seeds in between last folds of towel then I put them on my cable box it provides the warmth and dark that the seeds need to crack there shell . Once the seeds are showing the tap root I put them in root riots( you can split them in the middle to gently put seed in them ) if you break the tap root the game is over ,Once the root show though they are ready for dirt. (see pic) some people plant seed right in there grow medium I find it is to hard to control water and feeding so I use the root riots. I use a mix of coco/perlite once they are planted I start off with a weak nute solution
 

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I've read lots of stuff on how good that Fox Farm soil is, but I've never seen any of it around here, I'll take a look around; maybe they have some in the city, but I rarely get down that way. I'll have to basically read the label on what I buy,
 
The seeds I have on the go now are in the paper towel stage and three of the five have the beginnings taproots on the go. I'll see how they look tomorrow and if they look ready they will be hitting the pots. BTW, what kind of lighting should I use for them as soon as they go in soil? perhaps some 2700K to ease them into the light? or maybe give them the cool whites right off the bat to get the growth going ASAP? And what are root riots? Never heard that term before.
 
It ain't cheap but it's what I have always used based on GWE's recommendation but there are other soils that are just as good. My local nursery quit carrying it and said Bushdoctor was coming out with a new and improved soil. FFOF owns Bush doctor so I don't know if those improvements will come at a cost!!
 
Is FFOF an American brand of soil? A lot of times we don't get that kind of thing across the border in Canada. I guess my plan is to play trial and error and find something that works for me, unless I can get hold of someone here who can give me a shortcut to a decent brand. I work at a salmon hatchery and we compost all our dead fish, but I wouldn't want that stuff in the house. Although I'm half considering putting a plant or two on the deck when it warms up and it would go good outside. I didn't know you could get seed starter soil either; I'm gonna have to start harassing the nursery staff and get some ideas from them on how to grow my "tomatoes".
 
We got other growers here from Canada, they can give you advise on good soil available there. Salmon hatchery? Are you on West coast? My Mom is from a small town north of Vancouver.
 
Never been to BC. I'm from Newfoundland but I live in New Brunswick now, the other salmon hotspot. I work for a locally-based international aquaculture corporation, one of the world leaders. We hatched out 10 million fry each of the past couple years. Pretty cool industry, despite the propaganda you get from protesters. Some people just gotta have something to complain about, but I digress...

Yeah, I gotta find some local growers and see what they use, but to the best of my knowledge, everybody here grows outdoors. I chose indoor because it'll give me something to play with all year, and I don't have the patience to wait until fall. One of my plants started showing buds today, as a matter of fact. https://www.420magazine.com/gallery/member-galleries/p1352352-first-grow-starting-to-bud.html
 
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