Need help with brown spots, stunted growth, and yellowing leaves on 2 young plants.

[PlateausOfLeng]

Greetings IC! I'm a relatively inexperienced grower, just starting up a small grow. I have read quite a bit about plant problems, but I feel that I need to seek some advice.

I recently (29 days ago) planted 2 germinated beans (Afghani Milk from CH9 and Pineapple Chunk from Barney's Farm). At the time I only had "Miracle Grow Organic Choice Potting Mix" & "Miracle Grow Perlite"available, so I mixed it 60/40 and threw em in. Admittedly not the ideal soil.I have been afraid to give them any nutes for fear that the soil is already full of them, though I do have Fox Farms Liquids trio on hand.

The Pineapple Chunk (PC) has brown spots on some of the newer growth, along with yellowing and drying of earlier leaves (moving up the plant from the bottom). A the bottom-most leaves have already fallen off.

The Afghani Milk (AM) has some browning tips on the newer growth, with the same bottom-up yellowing and drying that the PC has. The bottom leaves have fallen off of this plant as well.

I've been watering them with distilled water when the top inch or so of soil is dry and the cups become light. They both got a bit of superthrive in one or two of their waterings.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[jonnybgood29]

problem with miracle grow soils os ph and lack of micros. if oit were me, id flushe the soil and add some proper nutes to the mix. miracle grow can kill your plants imho and personal experience with the non organic soils!

 

[tiktok420]

You can throw your Pineapple bitches away, they look like they are past any hope to me (you can give it a try, you might get lucky and bring them back). As for your Afghani transplant them into to some good soil like Fox Farm Ocean Forest in a pot that is double or tripple those cup sizes and water them with some ph adjusted water at 6.3 ph. Test your runoff and make note. Then wait and see what happens. Post back in a few days.

 

[PlateausOfLeng]

JonnyB: I ran a large amount of water through them on their last watering. I'll mix up an appropriate FF/Superthrive/FishEmulsions cocktail, PH it, and hope they like it.

tiktok: Unfortunately I do not have any way to get FF:Ocean Forest around here, and I am unwilling to pay to have it shipped. I picked up some nute-free potting soil, and some garden compost since I planted these seeds. I've been mixing it at 1pt soil : 1pt compost : 1pt perlite.

 

[RetroGrow]

Flush them with RO water.
Transplant to bigger pot.
PH and feed them lightly to start.
By the way, Miracle Grow is not "bad" soil per se.
There may be better, but many people, including myself have used it successfully.
The organic mix does not have added nutes, so, give them a light feeding after transplant.
Remember, PH is important.
Also ditch the distilled water and use RO water if possible, or tap water that has been aged for 24 hours to get the chlorine out of it, and then PH it.

 

[PlateausOfLeng]

Retro: I'm a Micro-Grow SOG, so I was hoping to avoid transplanting these for a little while and keeping them as bonsai mothers. I don't think that the size of the container is much of an issue at this point only because my 2 month old mothers are still in 16oz cups and doing fine (though they are getting quite root-bound and will be transplanted within the next week or so).

The water in my home is treated with one of those big water-softeners (the kind that takes big salt pellets), and is very hard. I don't think it would be wise to use it. As far as RO goes, I can't really afford an RO system right now, though it is on my "want-list". Do you recommend that I buy spring water instead of distilled water?

I just got a pH pen & calibration solution this week, so the pH levels should be much more stable from here on out.

 

[tiktok420]

@PlateausOfLeng

tiktok: Unfortunately I do not have any way to get FF:Ocean Forest around here, and I am unwilling to pay to have it shipped. I picked up some nute-free potting soil, and some garden compost since I planted these seeds. I've been mixing it at 1pt soil : 1pt compost : 1pt perlite.

Let me explain it a different way. Get some premixed organic potting soil of high quality that is already mixed and ph balanced for you. Something that has bat guano, worm castings, kelp meal, alfalfa meal, dolomite lime, etc. (or something similar). Don't mix it yourself from scratch, at least not until you have had more experience. Your local nursery should carry some good soil that will meet these specifications. I get my soil from a local nursery and I like it better than FFOF.

 

[Granger2]

Leng,
Just to rule out root aphids, gently remove the root balls from the cups and inspect roots and soil. You'll have to be quick. And if you wear glasses, have them on. If you see something crawling into the root ball, you'll need to treat for the little bastards. Good luck. -granger

 

[PlateausOfLeng]

tiktok: Is there a particular type of potting soil I should be asking for at my local nursery? Or just make sure it's pH balanced?

 

[tiktok420]

Some advise before I answer your question. Take notes every day on what you do, ph runoff, temperature, growth, etc. This will make you a better grower faster than anything. Also for seedlings use a peat based soil with no fertalizer like fox farm light warrior. Feed diluted strength ferts until first transplant. Transplant into quality soil (mentioned below) when the plants are on thier second or third node.

Ok to answer your question no particular brand, each nursery seems to carry something different. Make sure its peat based. For example the one I use has the following description: organic peat based potting soil with alfalfa meal, worm casting, kelp meal, bat guano. I would also make sure it has some Dolomite Lime for ph buffering and if it doesn't add about 2 tablespoons per gallon of soil. That's it. I also like to add a little blood meal (1 tablespoon per gallon) and bone meal (2 tablespoons per gallon) mixed into the soil (I only transplant once). Test your soils ph before using it, should be somewhere around 6.5, and also test ph run off each watering. By doing this I usually don't need to use liquid ferts until the second week or so of 12/12, at which point I use fox farm tiger bloom and adjust ph to 6.3 before watering. I also water with about 1/2 teaspoon of Epsom salts per gallon of water every week during flowering and every other week during veg (sometimes more if the plants tell me they need it). Sometimes I might do a flush half way through flowering to rid the soil of salts and waste if the plant tells me it is needed. Hope this helps. Good luck.

 

[PlateausOfLeng]

tiktok: I have been keeping a daily log of what I do to each plant. Now that I have a pH pen I will be recording that data as well. It is really helpful to be able to look back at what I've done!

Thank you for all the advice! I need to read as much as I can about soil.

Granger: Thanks! Should I check them when the root-ball is dry or wet? I once observed some very tiny translucent/white insects crawling on the bottom of one of my jiffy-pellets (which I use for cloning). I immediately sprayed the clone area with a neem oil spray, though I am not sure if the neem oil is effective against what I saw (as I still am not sure what they were).

 

[CannabisFox]

may I suggest to go hydro? especially in smale scale grows its nice not to fuck around with soil.... and once you have ph/ec pen you dont really need much more.

 

[PlateausOfLeng]

CannabisFox: I've really been considering it. I bought 32oz cups for a Micro-HempyBucket experiment (which I haven't started yet). That is the closest I've come to anything resembling hydro.

 

[CannabisFox]

Im just blast away since I do hydro.
Im going with lucas formula and its so easy. Just add nuts till the water shows between 500-1100 ppm add ph- and thats it.

Roots hang in there just like on vacation and the growth is much better then anything I experienced on soil! PLUS you dont have to water them with some stupid dripp system or hand watering.... well considered you use a bubbler or dwc.

Only thing you need to be aware of is the water temp.

 

[bobman]

you are giving them too much water. the roots are suffocating they need air. i have seen this a 1000 times. the plant needs a good wet dry cycle. if you want to solve fast repot into a new mix and only lightly mist the new soil then leave iit alone for a week.

 

[bobman]

are there holes in the bottom of that container?

 

[SeaMaiden]

They're hungry, and you're using distilled water. Stop using distilled water, use tap (leave it out overnight or dechlorinate it if it's got a lot of chlorine smell, otherwise, don't worry about it, but DON'T use softened water unless it's reverse osmosis).

They need to be fed. Period. Flushing won't help that, it will make things worse.

I can see why there was the suggestion of root aphids, but in my experience and opinion you need a lot more root material, and problems arise once you see flyers. The flyers closely resemble fungus gnats but aren't thwarted by the typical fungus gnat treatments. In fact, one of the methods of FG control (allowing media to dry out) actually spurs greater numbers of root aphids.

Find yourself a simple, low NPK (all numbers below 12) fertilizer and use that. Stop using Superthrive. Stop using distilled water. Start simple, then work your way up to the complicated stuff. Or, assuming you're healthy and aren't taking Rx drugs, you can use your own urine at a rate of 5-10:1 water:urine.

 

[bobman]

the last thing these plants need is more water or food.

 

[SeaMaiden]

Bobman, how much food do you think they're really getting, given this 'feeding' regimen and the fact that he's using distilled water (acts like a solvent, no?). I disagree, I think they need food. Whether they get it via foliar feeding (limited use) or via root drench, they need it. If the OP doesn't have drainage accounted for then yes, i would absolutely agree that watering less is excellent advice. But that doesn't make them look less hungry to me.

I recently (29 days ago) planted 2 germinated beans (Afghani Milk from CH9 and Pineapple Chunk from Barney's Farm). At the time I only had "Miracle Grow Organic Choice Potting Mix" & "Miracle Grow Perlite"available, so I mixed it 60/40 and threw em in. Admittedly not the ideal soil.I have been afraid to give them any nutes for fear that the soil is already full of them, though I do have Fox Farms Liquids trio on hand.

The Pineapple Chunk (PC) has brown spots on some of the newer growth, along with yellowing and drying of earlier leaves (moving up the plant from the bottom). A the bottom-most leaves have already fallen off.

The Afghani Milk (AM) has some browning tips on the newer growth, with the same bottom-up yellowing and drying that the PC has. The bottom leaves have fallen off of this plant as well.

I've been watering them with distilled water when the top inch or so of soil is dry and the cups become light. They both got a bit of superthrive in one or two of their waterings.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

These are all signs that they're hungry, along with their appearance. I still suggest he stop using distilled water in favor of water with some minerals in it, and give them some food since they're eating themselves up.

 

[bobman]

i bet if he takes the plant out of the container the roots are going to be extremely stunted. they are unable to uptake anything properly right now. the roots need some air. usually when plants are hungry they start to lightly yellow at first. he has got the whole pot out of whack because he is not giving them a dry cycle. right now the roots are basically sitting in mud it looks like a ph problem and a food problem but the fact is they just need to dry out. i bet he is watering them everyday and if not everyday then way more then they need right now they could go a week between waterings easy.