Got everything put back together. Plant 2 (the one I worked on) definitely got pretty sad and droopy through its ordeal, but perked up a little bit once I ran water through it. So I’m hopeful it’ll bounce back.
I got my silicone gasket installed, and it isn’t leaking! So that’s exciting. Also here are pictures of the new measures to reduce errant roots.
Plant pot “trivet” to let water run toward the drain and not sit up against the pot
I’ve never trimmed roots either! But I would imagine it would be considered large. The pot is 4x4, the bus tub is something like 21x16 including the handles, and the roots were reaching to all corners and in a pretty thick mat in some areas. And I ripped them all off to the weed cloth pot. So…we’ll see what happens!
I don’t know why you ask for help, you’re a. Mc Giver with that printer , what’s the humidity? I’m worried these cuts could rot, maybe you should do the cuts farther from the node and stem and cover them with honey to cicatricize…
Present conditions are 80F, 68%RH, ~1 vpd. I have it set to stay between 1 and 1.1 on vpd. I can snap a more specific picture next time I’m down there, and I’ll examine the other plant tomorrow when I have it out.
That makes sense! My lung room is about 50% RH, and I’ve been misting the tent and plants with HOCL once a week or so. Does it make a difference that the RH sensor is down below the canopy now? I’d think that makes it read a higher RH than it would otherwise.
I’ll change my settings to keep it under 60%, I think the plants had some stress at lower humidity when they were younger, but they’re close enough to going to flower, I think they should probably handle it ok. We’ll see!
I have already expressed appreciation for my ac infinity controller, but being able to change settings without having to go down and then back up 2 flights of stairs is hiiiigh on the list of reasons.
As a back check against my limited plant knowledge: should I defoliate that plant ASAP to reduce load as far as what the significantly smaller number of roots are trying to support?
I am getting mixed up on whether it’d be better to keep them to help fuel things or since the roots can’t provide nutrients and moisture it’s better to lighten the load.
All thoughts welcome on that.
I think it got some heat damage in these areas, not sure if I’m interpreting the issues correctly, but it would make sense based on the day it had yesterday.
There’s a lot of info around on how to do them and materials to use, wouldn’t be difficult to transform.
If you defoliate now it would just promote more “green” production, so you would have the same problem afterwards.
Regarding those cuts I would remove with a scalpel all the brown, spray it with some peroxide and cover with honey, if it keeps growing it’s too close to the stalk. You might post this issues in the Sick plants & problems section so you can get more opinions …
Honestly I wanted to keep the plants small anyway, I am slightly overwhelmed with how big these have already gotten. Keeping the roots contained to a small space was the goal originally.
I’m definitely not going to get the other plant dealt with today, so I’ll have at least until tomorrow to see how it recovers. I’ll evaluate it at that point and see what makes sense as a course of action.
I had initially said I was going to leave the roots, but once I got into the second one, it was worse than the first one. I decided I’d rather risk losing the plant than blocking the drain and having anything overflow. It shouldn’t get outside the tent, but I also don’t want to deal with that.
If it looks like it’s not going to recover well, I might just take cuttings off both and try to root those while keeping the initial clones alive/separate.
Small update: I don’t fucking know how it’s doing! I tweaked some environmental parameters more last night and today I changed how my vents were situated, covered my hydroton to cut the humidity down a bit more, and trimmed off all leaves with visible damage.
I think it seems perkier? Forgot to take a picture because I was rushing to take my dog out. I’ll try to get one later, but here’s one from my in-tent cam (that I also moved around a bit now that I have that cross bar).
I think it’s recovering! Which means I am going to cut the other one’s roots and then keep things at current environmental conditions until it recovers.
Plants, new camera mount location, plastic over hydroton
Pretty much as soon as I get the other one’s roots trimmed and it has solidly recovered (so hopefully by the end of the week maybe?). Also planning a potentially drastic defoliation in the very near future, so I want to be sure they’re both fully recovered from the shock of the roots.
The other plant won’t have nearly the stress of the first one, because I know exactly what I need to do to swap it out, the process will be a fraction of the time. Won’t dry out nearly as much.
You seem to have a handle on it, these plants are pretty resilient for the most part… I have zero experience in your type of growing so it’s fun to watch all the hassles you guys go thru…
Multiple of the hassles in this shakedown run have been accidentally created by myself and are not necessarily representative of hydro growing in general
ha, that’s fantastic! I thought your name/pic looked familiar, but I have read so many posts on this site I couldn’t remember where, I’m guessing at least one place is from the northeastern grower’s topic.
but at least it’ll go faster.
, what’s the humidity? I’m worried these cuts could rot, maybe you should do the cuts farther from the node and stem and cover them with honey to cicatricize… 
I tweaked some environmental parameters more last night and today I changed how my vents were situated, covered my hydroton to cut the humidity down a bit more, and trimmed off all leaves with visible damage.
