HELP!!!! Whats wrong with my baby?

[MrHempStar]

I know the stem is thin. I just transplanted her from her starting container. She turned a little yellow the next day. That day I went out and purchased a set of nutrients for her and proceeded to water her with it. Yesterday the plant looked great, it was reaching for my 600 watt MH bulb! I watered it with a cup and a 1/2 of its food. Now today the leaves are droopy but still look healthy. Did I over water? The water that went into the catch tray was eaten right up by the plant. Could anyone help me out with a good watering regiment for veg.?
Here are some pics of the patient... Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Matanuskan Flo]

why would u give such a young plant nutes man?? if it were me, i would immmmmmmediately flush your plant. then, the last flush should include a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide, h2o2 in 3% form. its $0.89, so no biggy. this will provide your roots w/ needed oxygen from your already waterlogged soil, im assuming. but, b/c u added nutes toooo early, i would rather u flush, add h2o2 & then start a regular watering schedule. as in, feel the weight of the pot when its fully wet & nearly dry. when it is light, you know it is time to water. make sure the bottom does not feel tooo heavy before watering, its tricky, but u'll catch on quickly once u experiment. but, thats the best way beyond spending $7 on a moisture/pH/light meter at Lowe's. in droughts, plants tend to stretch, so its best to avoid droughts. just use sense man. oh, don;t give any nutes unless they are ridiculously diluted until at leeeeeeast 2 weeks. 3-4 weeks, you can start very incrementally. don;t shock the plant as you have done just now. it is so young, the soil has plenty of nutes to carry it for 30 days if its decent. what kind of soil or mix do u use?

 

[Mile Hi Dave]

must agree with the above poster...think of it as a baby...you don't give a baby steak do you? Flush with 3x the water for the size of your container. If it's 1 gal...then 3 gals of flush. Do this for a couple days, your girl will come back!

 

[MrHempStar]

why would u give such a young plant nutes man?? if it were me, i would immmmmmmediately flush your plant. then, the last flush should include a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide, h2o2 in 3% form. its $0.89, so no biggy. this will provide your roots w/ needed oxygen from your already waterlogged soil, im assuming. but, b/c u added nutes toooo early, i would rather u flush, add h2o2 & then start a regular watering schedule. as in, feel the weight of the pot when its fully wet & nearly dry. when it is light, you know it is time to water. make sure the bottom does not feel tooo heavy before watering, its tricky, but u'll catch on quickly once u experiment. but, thats the best way beyond spending $7 on a moisture/pH/light meter at Lowe's. in droughts, plants tend to stretch, so its best to avoid droughts. just use sense man. oh, don;t give any nutes unless they are ridiculously diluted until at leeeeeeast 2 weeks. 3-4 weeks, you can start very incrementally. don;t shock the plant as you have done just now. it is so young, the soil has plenty of nutes to carry it for 30 days if its decent. what kind of soil or mix do u use?

The plant is 3 weeks old. Thats why i gave it nutrients. I'm talking a tbl spn in a gallon of water, nothing crazy. What do you mean by flushing the plant?

 

[Mile Hi Dave]

The plant is 3 weeks old. Thats why i gave it nutrients. I'm talking a tbl spn in a gallon of water, nothing crazy. What do you mean by flushing the plant?

Flushing means running enough clean, PH'd water thru your medium to clean it out...to remove as many nutes as possible. With most mediums, if you flush with 3x the weight of your container for 2 days, you will be fine. Spread the flush out over the day.

 

[darksith]

They are right, you gave it nutrients way too soon, but do not put H2O2 in the water, that will kill some of your roots, and you don't need that at this early stage. You also transplanted way too early unless you were growing in a really small cup. No nutes until it is 12" tall, the soil will provide all you need, and you need to get more perlite into your soil, its too late now, but it looks like there isn't enough drainage. And any water that collected in the catch tray wasn't soaked up by the plant, but by the dry soil at the bottom of the pot. You plant is still a baby, and you must treat it very delicately. But no peroxide, it will kill some of you roots, you don't need that, it will recover. Give it 24/0 schedule for now to help evaporate some of the water, and definately flush it with lots of pH'd water. ph=6.5

 

[Mile Hi Dave]

The plant is 3 weeks old. Thats why i gave it nutrients. I'm talking a tbl spn in a gallon of water, nothing crazy. What do you mean by flushing the plant?

Flushing means running enough clean, PH'd water thru your medium to clean it out...to remove as many nutes as possible. With most mediums, if you flush with 3x the weight of your container for 2 days, you will be fine. Spread the flush out over the day. Some fokks put their pots in a bathtub and run water in em throughout the day...until the water starts to run clear.

In soil, I tend to use all nutes at 1/2 to 3/4 strength, since the soil will hold some of the excesses. Alot of people fail to realize this. Also, I measure my PPM's from my runoff to keep up with it. Hydro is more forgiving than soil because of this....If I over-feed, or do something else that is nute/water related...all I do is dump my res and start flushing. The results are alot faster, because there is no soil for the nutes to cling to....

They are right, you gave it nutrients way too soon, but do not put H2O2 in the water, that will kill some of your roots, and you don't need that at this early stage. You also transplanted way too early unless you were growing in a really small cup. No nutes until it is 12" tall, the soil will provide all you need, and you need to get more perlite into your soil, its too late now, but it looks like there isn't enough drainage. And any water that collected in the catch tray wasn't soaked up by the plant, but by the dry soil at the bottom of the pot. You plant is still a baby, and you must treat it very delicately. But no peroxide, it will kill some of you roots, you don't need that, it will recover. Give it 24/0 schedule for now to help evaporate some of the water, and definately flush it with lots of pH'd water. ph=6.5

H2O2 will not harm the roots at all in small amounts...all it is is water with an extra oxygen molecule. In fact H2O2 will destroy bacteria, both good and bad...so maybe that is what you were thinking. Roots love the xtra O, as long as you don't use too much

 

[darksith]

H2O2 will not harm the roots at all in small amounts...all it is is water with an extra oxygen molecule. In fact H2O2 will destroy bacteria, both good and bad...so maybe that is what you were thinking. Roots love the xtra O, as long as you don't use too much

You might wanna check this out then
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=165005

And roots depend on good bacteria which surrounds the root tips and is the actual mechanism which takes up nutrients. The root does not take up nutes, it steals them from the good bacteria that surround the root tips. You do not want to kill that bacteria, if you do that indavidual root tip will dry and die. I only use H2O2 for steralizing after a grow is done, I don't add it to my water ever. Anyway, Im sure its a debate for the ages, but I wouldn't just assume that the extra O atom will act as a O2 molecule.

 

[Batboy]

With respect to the helpful suggestions that you have already gotten, might I suggest another approach: DO NOTHING.

While I agree that it was probably too early to feed, 1) you didn't say what type of nutes were fed and 2) the plant doesn't look like it's being harmed by the nutes. IMO - the plant is droopy because it's overwatered, and flushing will only extend the problem. Looks to me like what you have is a young, small plant in a large, wet pot. That's a recipe for overwatering due to the fact that most of the soil is still untouched by roots and will retain moisture for a long time. Do nothing and watch it rebound.

Now if the plant were showing signs of over-ferting or burning, then I would agree with the flush.

BTW - if you do flush, don't do the H2O2. You soil is healthiest with its bacteria and fungi and other microgoodies. They die too when you add hydrogen peroxide.

 

[MrHempStar]

The plant is back

The plant is back

You are absolutely correct sir the plant looks great today with me doing nothing. I fed the plant General Hydroponics flora nova one-part grow plant food 7-4-10. I put one tbl spoon in a gallon of 6.5 ph balanced water. I also gave it to my other little plant and the response was actually pretty impressive. So in about two weeks I can start giving it nutrients again?

 

[dxs420]

No offense, but lay off the nutrients.

Age in weeks doesn't really matter, age of a plant should be determined in its node structure and branching. English language time is our only approximation for determining the plant language of time.

Liek Batboy suggested, lay off of everything for a while. Feed it only water, only if your plant starts behaving unusually, ie; yellowing leaves, then it's time to start with nutes.

This is your first grow, yeah?
If so, stick to the basics until you have a good grasp of how plants grow and the type of food they need. While it's in veg just give it Nitrogen rich nutes (N). In flower, give potassium rich nutes (K). That's it, don't go crazy. You'll do more harm than good.


Otherwise, glad your plant pulled out of it. Now chill for a while and enjoy watching it grow

 

[Batboy]

You are absolutely correct sir the plant looks great today with me doing nothing. I fed the plant General Hydroponics flora nova one-part grow plant food 7-4-10. I put one tbl spoon in a gallon of 6.5 ph balanced water. I also gave it to my other little plant and the response was actually pretty impressive. So in about two weeks I can start giving it nutrients again?

Good job HempStar. I'm still a novice myself, but I can spot a newbie overloving his plant from a mile away. It has been said on these boards many times: more MJ plants have died from love than neglect. I definitely struggle with wanting to be hands on, when most of the time the best thing to do is NOTHING.

As for what to do with this plant, I think you need to take the hands-off approach for awhile. The nutes you already gave are still in the soil and most probably haven't been taken up yet by the plant. You are still in a danger zone where your plant could show signs of over-ferting. I would think that seeing signs of over-ferting is much more likely in the next 2 weeks than the plant needing nutes. After that, it's up to the plant to tell you it needs something. In your pic I see a tiny bit of yellowing on the tips. While that little bit isn't something to worry about yet, it could be showing signs of being burnt. I'd keep any eye on that. You never mentioned what type of soil your plant is in or what the strain demands, for all we know, you might never need to fert!

If you are the type that isn't content to just sit and watch, in the future you might want to try a different growing style/approach, such as perpetual, where you will always have a cloning, vegging, flowering plant to tend to, or coco/hydro where you will need to be always on top of your PH/EEC/res temps . . . . or LST, where you get to constantly be hands on with tying and snipping, etc.

This post has already gotten too long, but let me end it with a story:
as is my way, I researched the shit out of things before my first grow. When I finally had a real, live plant, I followed that Fox Farms Ocean Forest and trio of nutes recipe religiously. 2 weeks in Ocean Forest soil with no nutes, then started with Big Bloom, then Grow Big, then the 2 together, then Tiger Bloom, yada yada. Keep in mind though that the plant never showed one sign of needing any nutes. I burnt the tips a little, undertook some messy flushing, but my first attempt resulted in a (mostly) problem-free grow with a successful harvest. For my second grow, I tried something different; same strain and same soil, but I decided to wait for the plant to tell me it needed something before I gave it anything. Guess what, the plant never showed a deficiency! (granted these were auto flowering plants, which are generally quicker and therefore need less). My second grow was the virtual mirror image of the first, with an identical successful harvest, yet one involved measuring, consulting feeding schedules, ph balancing nute mixtures, stressing, etc., the other involved watering and watching for signs. I think that I learned a great lesson with those grows, and hopefully you can take from that lesson.

One last thought. A lot of ICM is people talking about nutes and amounts and mixtures and ph and ppm and ecc. Remember that a large part of our community is made up of hydro growers, coco growers, outdoors growers, really advanced growers, etc. Don't mistake their styles for yours. Don't think that you are doing anything wrong if you aren't constantly mixing up the next batch of superthrive liquid gold uranium-enriched plasma-powered nitrogen infused potash tea. Beginners like us should take baby steps; sometimes the answer is water, or not.

Good luck. I look forward to seeing more of your grow. (sorry the post got so long-winded; slow work-day)