Light Stress and coco

[blahman]

I'm in the middle of my first serious coco grow. I've been mainly growing in soil for the last couple years. I grow 65 plants for medicinal use legally.

I just currently switched to 12/12, and I'm about 5 weeks in veg so I have some serious trees growing. But the entire grow I've had issues with light stress. I have 10x1000w's , currently I have 6 on normally I would have all 10 on without issues at this point. Every time I turn on more lights I stress the plants out, they yellow and droop. So I end up turning the light off directly over them and turning on another light next to them. When I turn on a new light I have it cranked up to the ceiling at say at least 3 ft above the plants.

I'm feeding AN sensi, during the veg I was feeding up to 900ppm pretty much every watering hoping the food was the issue with the light, I even got a little bit of nute burn before I backed off a bit. I added sensi cal for a boost in cal/mag since i'm using RO hoping that would help as well.

The plants look absolutely beautiful though, very bushy compared to what I get out of soil. So i'm hoping I can get this worked out so I can get an amazing crop off this run. But if I can't get more lights on so these things bulk up during flower I fear it won't be so impressive.

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[praisehim.]

im assuming you've ran 10k in the same room using soil. SO, you would probably know if its light burn. My best guess would be a cal/mag issue. If you search around you'll quickly notice that basically everyone gets calmag issues with RO their first time in coco.

when i get calmag deficiency i usually add 8mls of calmag per gallon, but adjust other nutes to not burn em. You should notice a difference within two to four days. hope that helps.

 

[BigDawg]

dunno man..

what size room, size pots, do you water to run-off.. how often do you water.. temps ok? New ballast or dif bulbs? Humidity ok? sealed room or no?

and for soem reason i don't understand what you mean by this: "I just currently switched to 12/12, and I'm about 5 weeks in veg so I have some serious trees growing."

do you mean you vegged for 5 weeks and you're currently in the beginning of flower mode?

 

[blahman]

im assuming you've ran 10k in the same room using soil. SO, you would probably know if its light burn. My best guess would be a cal/mag issue. If you search around you'll quickly notice that basically everyone gets calmag issues with RO their first time in coco.

when i get calmag deficiency i usually add 8mls of calmag per gallon, but adjust other nutes to not burn em. You should notice a difference within two to four days. hope that helps.

I started using sensi cal mg about 2 weeks ago, I've added it at a rate of 1.5ml per liter or 6ml per gal. They called for 2ml/l or 8ml/gal on the bottle. So think I should bump it up to 8ml/g? It also says on the sensi cal mg bottle that if your running the sensi a+b you don't need to add cal/mag. But I guess they aren't accounting for the RO?

Also I don't really have any visible signs of cal/mag deficiencies. But It could be affecting their ability to process light????

 

[SeaMaiden]

Remember, light is the driver! Try upping the feed, because you must also remember that coco cannot feed the plant the way soil can when the plants demand for food increases. Remember, light is the driver!

Feeding formulaicly will lead to these sorts of problems, IMO/IME. Don't worry about what the damm chart says, read the plant.

 

[praisehim.]

like seamaiden says, the demand for food increases. But, how long does it take for them to droop ? how often do you water ? yellowing and drooping isnt good. maybe the yellowing is from starvation and the drooping from not enough water ?

how big are your pots ?
wat are your temps with all the lights on ?
whats the size of your room ?
and when and how do you water ?

 

[SeaMaiden]

Based on past experience, I can also say that cold roots can cause drooping, as well as transpiration issues.

 

[blahman]

dunno man..

what size room, size pots, do you water to run-off.. how often do you water.. temps ok? New ballast or dif bulbs? Humidity ok? sealed room or no?

and for soem reason i don't understand what you mean by this: "I just currently switched to 12/12, and I'm about 5 weeks in veg so I have some serious trees growing."

do you mean you vegged for 5 weeks and you're currently in the beginning of flower mode?

24' x 9' , 5 gal pots, yes I at least aim for a 20% runoff. I water every 2-3 days when the pots are half of their fully wet weight. Temps are a max of 80F , same ballasts and same bulbs, humidity is 55%. Not a sealed room, plenty of ventilation.

Yes that's exactly what I mean, I flipped to 12/12 minutes before creating the post and they've had a 5 week veg.

 

[blahman]

like seamaiden says, the demand for food increases. But, how long does it take for them to droop ? how often do you water ? yellowing and drooping isnt good. maybe the yellowing is from starvation and the drooping from not enough water ?

how big are your pots ?
wat are your temps with all the lights on ?
whats the size of your room ?
and when and how do you water ?

Remember, light is the driver! Try upping the feed, because you must also remember that coco cannot feed the plant the way soil can when the plants demand for food increases. Remember, light is the driver!

Feeding formulaicly will lead to these sorts of problems, IMO/IME. Don't worry about what the damm chart says, read the plant.

The drooping starts 2 or 3 days after turning on a new light. The yellowing seems to mainly affect the top leaves. I always catch it before it gets bad and give them a break from the light and they green up and perk up within a couple days.

Giving them more food is the first thing I tried, I ended up with a little bit of nute burn before backing off. So I figured the amount of food I was feeding was the max they could take.

I currently have 7 lights on and half a dozen plants are starting to get stressed. I think I'm going to keep the lights on now and hope they suck it up, its getting frustrating!!!

 

[BigDawg]

are you running all the same strain? if not, do you notice any particular strain that's being effected more by the problem? I think you should only be running around 3ml of sensical.. no matter what the bottle says. You could be over-doing it and it's causing a lockout.

 

[blahman]

are you running all the same strain? if not, do you notice any particular strain that's being effected more by the problem? I think you should only be running around 3ml of sensical.. no matter what the bottle says. You could be over-doing it and it's causing a lockout.

All the plants are the same strain. I wasn't running any sensi cal mag for the first 3 weeks of veg and the problem was actually a bit worse. But I think running 18/6 was much harder for them then 12/12. The 6 less hours of light isn't quite as hard for them to process. They definitely aren't getting as bad as quickly as before.

 

[BigDawg]

You aren't feeding frequently enough. Keep feeding how you are but increase to once a day until stretch is over then feed twice a day. Don't worry bout the 'weight' of your pots. This should fix your problem. If it doesn't, then only thing else is some kind of insect problem in your roots. Everything else you have described seems fine, except how you water.

Go ahead and crank those lights full blast and enjoy your buds.

 

[blahman]

You aren't feeding frequently enough. Keep feeding how you are but increase to once a day until stretch is over then feed twice a day. Don't worry bout the 'weight' of your pots. This should fix your problem. If it doesn't, then only thing else is some kind of insect problem in your roots. Everything else you have described seems fine, except how you water.

Go ahead and crank those lights full blast and enjoy your buds.

Ok I will give this a try, I was hoping not to have to water that frequently because its by hand. But if it improves things I will setup top drip lines to all the pots. Also what feed to water ratio should I be using. I was doing 3 feedings to one with just water. Should I keep it at 3:1 or drop to 2:1 since it'll be every day?.

I suspect the roots are in good shape, I see plenty coming out of the holes at the bottom of the pots and they are nice and white.

Thanks for the help! greatly appreciated I'll post the results

 

[BigDawg]

feed every time.. no need to give plain water. around 1.2-1.4 ec should be good daily. With 5 gallon pots you need to be feeding everyday, especially with bigger plants like you have.

 

[praisehim.]

^^ yeah bro. your in coco, feed everyday. coco needs to keep its moisture in order for the nutrients to properly bond. letting it dry too much is keeping the plant from eating right.

try that an keep us posted.

 

[touringfunkband]

Hey BMan-
Just curious what brand bulb your using and I assume your flowering with an HPS? I just had similar uses with light stress with my coco plants which were under a Ushio HPS 24/7. I only put them in my flowering room for a week at 24/7 before I flip them and I was too lazy to swap out the HPS bulb for a an old MH. I figured the new Ushio bulb would be better even though it was an HPS as it was only for a week but the light intensity stressed them out. I hope you got your situation under control. Good luck to you!

 

[blahman]

Hey BMan-
Just curious what brand bulb your using and I assume your flowering with an HPS? I just had similar uses with light stress with my coco plants which were under a Ushio HPS 24/7. I only put them in my flowering room for a week at 24/7 before I flip them and I was too lazy to swap out the HPS bulb for a an old MH. I figured the new Ushio bulb would be better even though it was an HPS as it was only for a week but the light intensity stressed them out. I hope you got your situation under control. Good luck to you!

I'm running all eye hortilux with 3 grows on them. The light stress I was seeing calmed down quite a bit when I went from 18/6 to 12/12 . But it is definitely still there. I did not have light stress to this degree growing in soil ever. But coco is a new ballgame for me. I tried coco about 5 years ago when I was growing under 2 x 400w's and I treated it exactly like soil and it turned out fine.

I've grown in rock wool slabs before with drip lines and I fed them at least 1 to 2 times a day. I'll just treat the coco the same way, all the reading I did on coco said that it could be treated like soil. But in my situation with the amount of lumens I'm throwing at them I definitely can't.

Thanks and good luck to you as well

 

[blahman]

Well they've gotten 1 watering a day over the last 5 days and wow. My growth went nuts!, they are taking all the light without issue. I can't get how much of a difference watering once a day has made.

Thanks for the advice!!

I so need to setup some top drip though, watering the plants by hand is pretty time consuming. Any advice on how to do a top drip on 66 plants in 5 gallon pots ? I was thinking about running 5/8" lines around to say groups of 12 plants( I don't think i can evenly water 66 plants at once with my little giant hence the groups of 12) Then the usual drip line to each pot. But will a single drip line to each pot disperse the water good enough for the pot to get fully soaked? or would I have to gear up something like a drip ring?

 

[praisehim.]

^^ i'd finish this round by hand watering, you'll get a better feel for how much water theyll need through their life cycle. Then you can properly setup the drip, knowing you wont over or under water.

check out moonshines "co labratory grow" he seems to have a pretty effeicient drip setup.

glad ur plants are better.

 

[SeaMaiden]

The drooping starts 2 or 3 days after turning on a new light. The yellowing seems to mainly affect the top leaves. I always catch it before it gets bad and give them a break from the light and they green up and perk up within a couple days.

Giving them more food is the first thing I tried, I ended up with a little bit of nute burn before backing off. So I figured the amount of food I was feeding was the max they could take.

I currently have 7 lights on and half a dozen plants are starting to get stressed. I think I'm going to keep the lights on now and hope they suck it up, its getting frustrating!!!

You know what I just realized? If this were any other plant, I would give them Fe, see what happens.