New growth, leaves curling/drooping, no yellowing, no fertilizers yet, help?

Hi!

First time organics grower here.

-Tent is 4x4, with 5 plants (3x kosher kush, 2x bubblegum with 1 late arrival to see what BG will yield 12/12 from seed).
-3gal (11L) pots with biobizz all-mix
-Carbon scrubber -> TD 125/350 -> 600W HPS+cooltube -> out
-No nutrients yet as the soil is quite hot (except for little seaweed extract two weeks ago)
-been in 12/12 for 8 days now

Everything has been going very smooth, except i noticed two days ago that the new growth is curling down from the tips, and a few of the bigger leaves seem to have a weird look to them. The newer leaves are also curling up from the sides. There is no yellowing or any other obvious signs. The plants are a lush green colour with vigorous growth.

I have been watering them quite lightly, little under a liter of PH'd water per plant every 3-4 days, not watering till runoff (yet). Spraying with water 2-4 times a day.

RH has been quite low during the grow but seems to hang in the 40-55% now. Temps are around 25-29C (77-84F) and a little higher near the tops, night time temps are around 17-20C (62-68F). The problem(?) arose when the plants grew closer to the light, about 40cm / 15".

I took the light a little higher and added a fan to move some of the hot air from the canopy.
I'm planning on giving the plants 1ml biobizz grow + 1ml biobizz bloom in 1 liter water per plant, probably going to get some runoff.
Is this a solid plan? I'm guessing the problems might be heat/light/humidity related, but also a sign that the girls are SUPER hungry since I have not fed them any nutrients besides what they are getting from the all-mix (transplanted there 2-3 weeks ago.)

Sorry for the quality of the photos, I was in a hurry, if you guys need better pics I might be able to get them later.

http://tinypic.com/r/2rf7pfs/9
http://i65.tinypic.com/2qw1jz7.jpg
http://i68.tinypic.com/2vwbpxx.jpg
http://i63.tinypic.com/2uzwn86.jpg
http://i68.tinypic.com/ztg4s2.jpg

hey mate,
impossible to give a correct diagnosis with these pics
but from what i can see your plants look fine.
if leaves are lushy green and fleshy you don't have nutes issues...
what you are seeing comes from enviromental issues, probably due to higher "day" temps: 29 °C is tolerable but still a tad too high... be sure air circulation is oversized.
RH is okay even if they would love to be in the 60-70% range before real flowering starts.
always go by feel to judge when to water: just raise pots with your hands, if they feel lighter it's time to water.

I would start feeding now: 1ml/l of both biogrow and biobloom since you flipped (i would've waited judging from plants' size... but again pics are not clear...). if your water is not very hard i wouldn't water till runoff... with the 11L's i would start water 0,8L/1L going up to 1,5/1,8L they will tell you this... f.ex. if you water 1 L and the day after the pot feels light again, it means that plant wants a little more... you have to find your balance and always judge each plant separately.

BTW if you had deficiencies (most common being N) you would see yellowing of lower fan leaves.
did you upgrade the light when you flipped? curled new growth might also be from enviroment change stress...
cheers!

p.s. i would stop spraying that much. once or twice a day, with lights off. hps is strong and water drops on leaves can bring light burn...

Yeah the pics are quite bad... You can still see the top growth bending down from the tip, and the weird(?) shape some of the leaves have (other side of the central vein is smaller than the other half). The plants were popped from seed under this same light. Forcing flower this early because of time issues and had a few hicups earlier this year which prevented me from starting sooner... I'll try to get better pics for you guys, the new growth kinda has a different texture to it, different "shine" or "fleshyness", and they are bending down from the tips, with the leaves curling up little bit from the sides..

getbuck said:

they are bending down from the tips, with the leaves curling up little bit from the sides..

Click to expand...

sounds like heat/air stress to me... odd shaped leaves is something that can happen... what strain is that? try to get better pics without the hps yellow tinge...

Nothing alarming imo ..

The soil does not look too dry, so maybe there's slight over watering?! I used to champ at over watering!

If that's the case.. and why it could be

The pots are fairly large for plants that size, so it is easy to over water them. But don't water them too little either, a mistake made by many who have over watered their plants, me included.

Stick your finger into the soil, which gets almost impossible once there is a proper root mass, and see if feels too soggy; if so, let them sit for a day or two or till they, individually, start to droop abit, and then go a bit easier on them the next 2-3 waterings. You can water the first time "after the droop", till little run of; the 1 litre like you had in mind
.. and the next few times kinda just keep the top soil moist and give the bottom some time get dry enough for the next till-run-off-watering ..but soon you can start watering them normally, according to their need, once the plants get little bigger


Better method to check the soil moisture w/o instruments, which takes a while to get used to..

Try to learn how to "feel" how much the pot weighs in your hands when it's fairly dry and the plant is drooping abit, compared to how much it weighs after you have watered it till good run off. When you get the hang of this, it's fairly easy to estimate how much there is still moisture in the soil.

When the plants have grown larger and have developed a large root mass, then they can handle little over watering better than at that size they are now.

Also don't give each of them the same amount of water/nutes every time (not saying you did), rather try to learn how the individual plants behave, cause some plants drink more than others, and some plant's have smaller root system than others

..and the "lifting the pot" trick is good to learn for these reasons.




I gonna continue my lecture on over watering, regardless if that is the case with your plants
..cause i championed at it, like i told you!

Right pot size is key for proper flush, and so to smooth & clean smoking product, imo, unless you REALLY know when to stop feeding your plants and only give them plain water till harvest.

It's because if the plant is too small for the pot size or the plant has really poor/small root system, you can easily over water them during flushing also, if you run lots of water through the pots, that is.
..and so the growth might stun for a few days, or in the worst case a plant might develop stem or/and bud rot if it's prone to those.






But looking good, nothing alarming there. Start feeding them soon like you planed and take it easy

I don't see anything wrong personally, but the curling reminds me of when I over-watered my plants. Once I stopped over-watering, they became rock-flat, literally. My leaves are so straight and flat, facing the light like champs, they look amazing.

Hi guys,

Two waterings later with 1ml biobloom + 1ml biogrow + 1ml seaweed.

Watered yesterday (sunday) evening, thursday morning before that. Pots were dry. The first watering was around 0,8L and a little bit of runoff came through. Yesterdays watering was around 0.9-1.0L and no runoff this time, pots were a little dryer though.

Looks like one of the kosher's is showing a bit of deficit/burning on the new growth (N def?), otherwise the drooping is better now and everything seems to be going fine. New growth is a little lighter shade of green but nothing catastrophic as of yet. Temps are now near optimal, RH is still on the lowside 38-48%. Some red streaks have appeared on the stems.

They have grown/stretched a ton. Plants are about 50cm and tops are about 40cm from the HPS.

Pics were taken just as the lights came on.

http://tinypic.com/r/2aj42eq/9
http://tinypic.com/r/alrrlz/9
http://tinypic.com/r/2vchyrq/9
http://tinypic.com/r/2yoopc2/9
http://tinypic.com/r/dfvc6g/9

sorry meant the burning of the new tips might be N overdose, not def, as the lower leaves are not yellow at all.