Need some assistance. In veg. Around week 3. These plants looked good until 2 days ago. Feed them a gallon of distilled water each last Sunday (1 week ago) with no nutes. Soil meter shows soil still most, but then again that was the whole pot and roots near the top. These are Runtz autoflowers. They looked healthy all week and then hit this rough time. Lights are 24" above and Mars Hydro TS3000 at dimming of 75%. Temp around 79-82 & humidity around 60-70. Lights on 18/6. Fans on 95% of time light or dark. Just couple 20 minute rest breaks during night. The plants seemed to be extra dark green before then shriveling up like this and developing crinkly leaves. My first ever grow. This is Fox Farm Ocean Forest soil. In there since they were seedlings. Solo cups first 2-3 weeks.
This morning I gently removed loose soil around roots and sprinkled alot of Great White mycorr all over the soil root area, lightly covered with soil and soaked. Also raised lights to 30" yesterday and although there is some fan breeze hitting them, it's not a ton like the other side of the tent gets with my photo period plants that are coming up nicely.
Please help me save these plants!
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They look either overwatered or under watered. That 1gal of water in each pot was probably too much. It's been awhile since this post. Have they gotten better?
I start my seeds in rockwool then just transplant with mycorr on the roots into the final pot. This has worked for me everytime. It looks like your plants need water.
I can't speak to using rock wool or cubes I simply toss the seed into my medium and let them pop there. I don't soak in water or use paper towels or anything like that. I'm lazy. As heck.
If those roots were ingrained into that netting and you were removing it, it could of had a negative impact on the root structure. Those little roots are very sensitive and are usually handled with the utmost of care. I've seen many growers just keep whatever excess material when cloning or such, and just plant the whole thing into the medium. No need to trim moving forward so you don't risk anything. Just plant and let it grow.
That on top of getting water once a week could of been the demise of these little ladies. I do hope they bounce back so please keep us updated on what's happening with them
One thing I will mention that may or may not have anything to do with it. I originally germinated 8 photo period plants (soaked in wqter 23 hrs, then damp paper towels, then planted) but only 4 made it which made me try a change. On the next 5 seeds, I soaked 24 hrs but then instead of paper towels I used Jiffy peat moss cubes and had 100% success.
That said, they have that screen material around the cube. When I put them in the Solo cups I cut off as much of that as I could to at least allow roots to grow unobstructed straight down. But then I noticed some leftover netting when transplanting. I tried to get rid of a little more. It's possible I tore some roots removing some excess netting. But I'm not sure and again they did fine for a couple weeks after that. But I did see a tad more netting today when I was around the roots and removed it. I like the Jiffy cubes, but the netting is a major pain!
Yep I sprinkled mycorr on roots after transplant 3 weeks ago. Just thought more might help if it's a root issue. They had a growth stunt for 7-10 days, then took off, looked good for a solid week. Watered on Sunday and then they were solid until Friday. Then it's as if something happened, but I hadn't made any changes to anything which throws me off.
I tried to be careful around roots and hopefully I was OK there. Guess I'll know soon enough.
So you had them in solo cups the first 2-3 weeks and they have now been transplanted into these big pots. So, 1 week after transplant they started getting pissed at you? 1 week without water seems like a long, long time. I usually water every other day. Don't use a ton of water so the roots dry out, but you should be able to plant the tip of a finger in the soil and feel how dry it is. Also raising/lowering the grow pot to get a knowledge of the weight the pot should be at will also help determine water needed for the grow.
When you transplanted did you sprinkle great white then? That's the optimal time to use it since all the roots will be expose. Digging near the roots can cause extreme harm to the plant. Some plants are extremely susceptible to necrosis and their root system is extremely fragile. Some aren't so fragile. Depends on the genetics. Depends on what oil / dirt /debris were on your hands when you went digging.
Just trying to help :) I wish you luck and hope they bounce back for you