I recently started my newest coco / perlite grow. Here are my infos first of all:
Canna Coco Pro Plus 70 / 30 Perlite
1L Fabric starter pots
Canna Coco nutrient line (A+B, Rhizo, Cannazym), Sensi Calmag, GH PH Down
Apera PH20 PH Reader
Dechlorinated tapwater @ 0.35EC
MarsHydro FC3000
Inline smart fan, 2 environment fans
76-78°F / 60-65% humidity day
68-70°F / 65-70% humidity night
18/ 6 schedule
So my 3 newest seedlings (same strain / breeder) were germinated with the papertowel method, then put into pre-soaked soil with a 0.5EC nutrient solution with CalMag & Canna A+B. Only around 0.15EC of nutrients though, as my tapwater already has 0.35EC.
They came out the substrate just fine, but suddenly one of them started drooping SEVERELY and turned yellow on the tips. I watered daily with 0.5EC @ 5.7-6.0 PH, always changing a bit.
Now a few days later, two of them are stunted, they don’t grow a lot in size, while the third seedling seems fine, but the leaves are a bit wonky. The other two are yellowing from the outside inwards, and the leaves are drooping. The tips of one of the two smaller seedlings are also starting to “crumple” up, and I’m just insanely scared as to what’s going on here. They are my last seeds.
I then fed, as recommended by Canna, with an EC of 1.1, but it just seems too high for some reason. I don’t know if this will help in any way, or just worsen everything. Am I maybe watering too much? Are they too small to be watered daily in 1L fabric pots?
I also made a huge mistake when checking PPFD. It was at around 280PPFD by my phone, but later on it turned out that it was actually around 380PPFD as my lense was obstructed slightly. I now lowered the PPFD to around 250.
Can someone help me please? What’s going on here? Some images:
Coco Coir dries out fast, especially in the fiber bags you are using. It requires more watering. The problem with this in especially young plants is that the more watering the less air your roots are receiving. In young plants root production is essential.
I would suggest you mix perlite into your coco coir as from what I see this is your problem. 20-30% perlite should work out fine. And remember in coco you feed every watering as there are no nutrients in that medium.
I grow in pure canna coco coir no additives just rehydrated with my jacks 321. It looks like she’s just a bit overwatered tbh. How often and how much are you watering? This happens to me sometimes when I get ahead of myself and just water to runoff even with low nutes. When they are small like that put a solo cup over the top of the plant to cover it and water around the cup creating a ring for the roots to seek moisture. They don’t need a lot of water so I like to start small 10-50 ml a day so the roots stay on the hunt. Eventually your coco will start to dry out as the plants get bigger then you can water to 20% runoff and it will dry in a few days to a week. I like to run rain science bags and pure coco coir no additives that way I can water sooner and get my plants bigger leaning more towards a hydro setup because in the long run they are going into autopots fed by 25 gal reservoirs. Not to diminish any answer from those 2 above but it just simply looks overwatered as your environment seems in check
It’s around 30% perlite, I only added a 1/4 inch thick layer of pure coco on top so I don’t see the perlite, because I don’t like looking at that stuff. I forgot mentioning that, sorry!
So as expected, the opinions are between “too much water” and “too little water”. Coco really is confusing
It’s not confusing at all once you get the hang of it. I’m sure the feedback your getting is confusing deciding what advice to take. Me personally I never liked the perilite mix and going to straight coco was cheaper and better
Coco doesn’t need to have perilite mixed in. I think some of your issues are your night time temps and RH levels. The plant won’t need to drink if the air is constantly saturated.
I know with around 50% perlite in that coco, the coco can stay wet 24/7, impossible to overwater. I bottom feed my plants in veg. Seedlings get 1.8ec maxibloom feed and they soak it up. These need up-potted now, but you get the idea ^^
There is always a 1/4 inch of water in the bottom of my trays. These pics are Dixie cups with slits in the bottom from awhile ago, now I’m using seedling nursery fabric bags as shown in the first pic.
Sounds like you already lowered the lighting and upped the feed so maybe wait and see what happens?
EC is way too low. Also over watering. They don’t need to be fed every day at that size. You only really wanna do that once the roots get very established in the pot.
Feed them once at a much higher EC and leave them alone until the pot starts to at least slightly dry out. At this point it will probably take days in between feedings
So first, about temps - What I currently have is the maximum I can get out of my setup, without spending hundreds for electricity. It was REALLY hard for me to perfect this environment right now, especially it being so stable at those 76-78°F every day, with high 60s at night while still having air exchange 24/7. I sadly can’t change it, but I feel like those temps should be fine?
Might the pots just be too large? I took one of them out of the pot to check if a smaller plastic pot will fix it. Yes not recommended at all, but I have 5 plants altogether right now. 2 of them are in organic peat, both autos, and they’re REALLY happy right now. They aren’t shown in these images though. As I said, washed / disinfected my hands, and took the smallest and most yellowed one out of the substrate, carefully. They came out the soil on the 21st this month, around 7 days old now (add 3 days in substrate after germinating in wet paper, so 10 days). The taproot of the little girl was around almost 2 inches long, with almost no side roots growing out. Almost no branching, nothing. Just a really tiny root system. I’m used to it being triple that size at this stage in coco. The tap root was white, and the few tiny side roots were white, too. Seemed healthy.
I imagine I pretty much did indeed suffocate them in too much wet coco? I’m just wondering as to why one of them is actually rather fine, while the other two in the same exact substrate / water source / nutrient solution are just dying and are severely stunted.
Here are a few images of what’s currently going on, all 3 coco plants:
Ditch the rhizotonic and cannazyme for a couple of feedings or a week as see if they turn around.
I may have mentioned the same your other thread.
I too grow in coco and water them until the top layer of coco gets dry (light brown compared to dark brown, wet). Once roots are established, depending on pot size, you can feed them multiple times.
I stick to max once a day in 1 gals only during flower. In veg I allow the medium to dry out a little.
I don’t use silica, rhizo, or cannazym currently, that’s what’s making me feel even more suspicious about all of this. It’s CalMag and A+B, and then PH down in the end until it’s around 5.8 - Really just the basics this time, as I don’t want to f this up again.
And yes, I think I will just let them dry out this time to see what happens. I remember last time when I had problems in Coco, I was recommended to let them dry out. I did that, and the big plant recovered all of a sudden. Later on it died though, so I’m a bit hopeless as you may understand. I wish there’d just be a hotline to call Dr. Ganja to my house to see whats wrong
I will only reiterate what has already been said… I wouldn’t water them daily, seedlings need to establish their roots before being fed daily. I would give them a few days between waterings at this young stage, let the coco dry for 2-4 days before re-watering. Watch for a few coco strands to actually look dry on the surface so that you know the coco has had a chance to dry out a bit before watering again. @HolyAngel 's method of bottom watering would help to ensure there is a moisture gradient in the coco and would better allow the roots to find an acceptable area of the correct moisture to grow into. Best of luck,I think you’ll do fine once these babies get better established
When I see seedlings in coco with weird deficiencies right out of the gate, the bag of coco was wack. You can test it by putting some coco in a pot of grow bag or whatever, and water it with RO. Then check the runoff EC. If it comes in crazy with something like 500 or higher, the coco is borked, toss the bag. Maybe send a nastygram to the manufacturer with your test results (and a pic of the EC pen measuring the runoff).
Just to add to the other great information everyone has given…
With small seedlings like that; I will just cover with a clear cup. I might spray the underside of the cup daily, but not the medium. The medium will get a squirt or two every 2-3 days.
While it’s trying to develop roots, humidity is key. Without roots, most of its water needs to be absorbed by the air.
The EC of the Canna substrate came out at 0.19 or ~190, which seems fine or?
The smallest of the plants just looks worse and worse, both leaves just seem to burn around all the edges, but not a dark brown burn, more a really light almost white brown burn. Also drooping.
I decided to check how the roots look on the bottom (It’s in a plastic pot and the substrate came out in one piece), and I wanna ask - Are they rotting? I know it’s stupid to disturb a stressed seedling, but I need to learn a bit more, and considering that it’s not moving one bit, I really wanna find out what’s going on.
As I said, 3 plants, same seeds, one is absolutely healthy for whatever reason, but the other 2 are dying, yet they all get literally the same treatment / substrate / nutrients
Ive been having similar issues to you mate on my last couple of grows keep getting lime or yellow leaves after being a nice dark green.
So with my latest bunch they are cuttings I have just planted them in coco 70 / 30 perlite.
I didn’t even water them for the first hour and they were praying!!
I then watered them. had a bit of droop but you know… when you have new cuttings in 3 gallon pots you want the whole medium to be moist so i watered 3 times over the last 5 days to ensure of this!! well it was probably a mistake because they are a tad droopy now and they are yellowing… that damm yellowing and thinning of new leafs ( shrivelled kind of look ) came back its so annoying!! my PH was 6.0
EC total with my tap water was 0.9 maybe its a bit week for these 2 week old clones?
what do you think!?
Tap water is EC 0.6
I add Canna A then B accordingly until i reached 0.9
Then added Rhizotonic as per instructions which kept the EC stable at 0.9 still.
could it be the 21c at night time that is not helping the efficiency in which the plants are feeding? do they need more heat? less watering a bit more of a fine tune?
what do you all think theey started a beautiufl dark green on the leaves but they were from a friend
@Shneex45@Budmeister The EC is too low. Let the media dry out before feeding again. The roots are nowhere near established enough for daily feeding. Roots need oxygen.
Your smallest plant probably looks worse because it has the least developed root system. When the roots aren’t getting enough oxygen it can stunt the plants too and they’ll stop growing or grow much slower, making the issue worse because it makes it take even longer for the media to dry down.
Here’s a quick pic of some seeds I just started. They’re getting 3.0 EC right out the gate. I’m not necessarily saying you need to go as high as me but more to show you that you don’t need to be so scared about raising the EC.
