I'm a bit concerned for my plants. I am growing them from widow seeds. They have been about 2.5-4 inches tall for about 4 days now without any noticable growth. They broke soil about a week ago and still only have 4 small leaves each, two rounded ones and two pointy ones. They are under a 400 w HPS light about 2 feet away. There is a fan on them and I havent had trouble with heat. Should they have shown more growth yet? I regrettably only used potting soil and didn't mix it with vermiculite. My guess is that during this stage the plants are putting most of their energy into root growth and the soil probably isn't airy enough for the roots to grow real fast. What do you guys think / what are your experiences with early growth rate? I don't think I have been overwatering. thanks in advance J
It's either overwatering, or the soil is too compacted, sounds like the latter. Always make sure to add plenty of perlite to the mix if you're working will dense soils. It's always better to have too light of a soil than too dense.
thanks for the replies so far. my plan is to go pick up some perlite (or other course stuff.) Are my plants too young right now to replant? I have heard before that they are sensitive to nutes. Once i start fertilizing i plan on only making the solution about 60% of what the bottle says.
Make sure the perlite you buy doesn't have anything added to it, no extra nutes etc. Most hydro shop will carry huge bags of chunky perlite for like 15 bucks. Start out way below 60%. I start out feeding at 1/4 strength, every other watering. Keep in mind though that I'm growing in promix, which has almost no added nutes in it. Maybe you could make a new mix, and very carefully break up any little root ball that has formed then transplant.
yeah, when i said 60% i meant that would be the strongest i will ever use. I'll probably start out at 25% I picked up some vermiculite at a pet shop and transplanted the youngsters back into their own pots after i added a bunch of it. They had hardly any root growth at all. The potting mix was so dense that they never would have had a chance. After adding the vermiculite the soil no longer clumped up easily. I think I actually was over watering and I'm glad I didn't wait another day to fix this. I'll kept everyone updated as to the status of my girls. I hope all 4 survive.
day 2: the plants have not grown much, but still look healthy and are now all facing toward the light again after the transplant. I was unable to break up most of the soil around the roots when I transplanted because it was so dense I would have probably damaged the roots. I think it may be a few more days till they break through to the good soil and start growing. Let this be a lesson to new growers: Loose soil is very important.
Should have started them in peat blocks or rockwool, then transplanted to larger containers with a regular soil mix. Anytime you disturb the roots, you're going to shock the plants for a few days. Using smaller blocks and then transplanting eliminates this problem. You also have to watch the soil PH level. Some soil mixes are acidic. A PH that is too high or too low will affect the plant's ability to absorb nutrients even though the soil rich with them. Be patient. The plants know what they're doing. If you have plants that are more sativa than indica, you're looking at slower growth because sativa plants have a loooong season. Indica are native to places like Afghanistan where short summers are the norm. They grow much faster. Do you know where your seeds came from? x
In the future I plan on starting in some sort of smaller container like you said. I'm not worried about the ph of the soil as of right now. The soil and everything else put into it have been neutral so far. The plants are white widow (Dutch Passions) . I believe they are about 80% indica.
