YAMracer754 work in progress GLOG

Definitely holds way more moisture than I'd like even though I added tons of perlite, I guess some of the organic matter maybe just inherently holds it.. Plus I'm indoor and my indoor has like very little ventilation/air exchange coming in from outdoors, even for the humans so a fast draining medium is a must right now. I'm just really really fearful and thinkin so many different things that could be wrong I'm losing my mind! But really really really hope it isn't root aphids or something to that degree.. Sucks because something seems to be affecting all of them in some varying degree and they're all at different life stages as I gradually kept adding more seedlings to my tray and potting up.. I do have that azamax I could hit the leaves with but unless they're invisible something is going on below either moisture/ph/nutrient/pest related SOMETHING!! Hanging my head down low :'(

Regards,
-Tristan

If you adjusted the PH to a normal level then look at your new growth and see if it is looking healthy. Your leaves that are damaged may continue to grow but wont be as healthy looking as those new leaves shooting out.

You could also repot your established bigger plants with coco coir for now and see if that helps but if the PH has been adjusted you should be good to go.

Sent from my Galaxy S8 using Tapatalk

I just found your glog and am concerned, as you are as to what's going on.
 
First off, what are they in soil wise now?
 
If you have fungus gnats, or think you do, and it seems you do...from what I've read..get some mosquito dunks and let them soak in the water you use before watering. The BT in the product will kill the larvae and end the cycle.
Wait until the pots "get light" in weight, and only bottom water. Do this in such a manner that it doesn't wick up to the top of the soil and make it visibly wet. End of the gnats.
 
Another thing. Potting soil from the big box stores that they keep outside is prone to having the fungus gnats. I buy it when on sale, off season, picking through the bags for the lighter ones (not wet). I let them set for months before use. I have no gnat issues doing things this way
 
I may have missed something here...I can't believe the water or soil? is @ 3 Ph. Most ph meters come with a test solution, so verify it's accuracy. Then test your water, clean the device and retest it with the calibrating solution. You can test soil Ph with a tester, I've done it and it came out really close to what a professional soil test showed. I started with water that was neutral (7.0) added soil so that I had about 1/4 to 1/2" above the soil when the sample settled after a good shake (or stir). When it was semi clear, not cloudy I took the reading.
 
I prefer to start my plants in 3.5" pots. 2/3 full of cheapo potting soil like Miracle Grow. With a 1" deep mix of 5 parts coir, 1 part perlite, 1 part potting soil on top as a seed starting medium. I soak those pots in trays using rain water in the trays until the top is wet, plant and don't have to water for like 3-4 weeks after they hook, before the pots get light. Then I usually mix a 1/4 dose of Alaska fish ferts in rain water and bottom water only until they're ready for the #1 pots. And then my methods change, as far as nutes, etc.. Some here like coir as a growing medium. Remember if you're using it, it's a blank canvas, void of any nutrients. And I don't have the experience to comment on a nutrient regimen for it. Juanito has it down using coir!
 
So looking at the pics, I see one of two things. Overwatering or mites. I can't see the very new growth, if you have mites the new growth will have the distorted leaves with a sure sign of rust coloration. At least that's been my experience in the past. If the new growth is "clean", let them dry out some and bottom water with, an example: 1" deep for 3.5" pots, not letting them soak to long. Learn to gauge the weight of the pots.
 
Of course this book is my way of doing things that work for me. And I'm sure others may disagree. I hope this info helps,
 
Scott
 
 

Devv said:

I just found your glog and am concerned, as you are as to what's going on.
 
First off, what are they in soil wise now?
 
If you have fungus gnats, or think you do, and it seems you do...from what I've read..get some mosquito dunks and let them soak in the water you use before watering. The BT in the product will kill the larvae and end the cycle.
Wait until the pots "get light" in weight, and only bottom water. Do this in such a manner that it doesn't wick up to the top of the soil and make it visibly wet. End of the gnats.
 
Another thing. Potting soil from the big box stores that they keep outside is prone to having the fungus gnats. I buy it when on sale, off season, picking through the bags for the lighter ones (not wet). I let them set for months before use. I have no gnat issues doing things this way
 
I may have missed something here...I can't believe the water or soil? is @ 3 Ph. Most ph meters come with a test solution, so verify it's accuracy. Then test your water, clean the device and retest it with the calibrating solution. You can test soil Ph with a tester, I've done it and it came out really close to what a professional soil test showed. I started with water that was neutral (7.0) added soil so that I had about 1/4 to 1/2" above the soil when the sample settled after a good shake (or stir). When it was semi clear, not cloudy I took the reading.
 
I prefer to start my plants in 3.5" pots. 2/3 full of cheapo potting soil like Miracle Grow. With a 1" deep mix of 5 parts coir, 1 part perlite, 1 part potting soil on top as a seed starting medium. I soak those pots in trays using rain water in the trays until the top is wet, plant and don't have to water for like 3-4 weeks after they hook, before the pots get light. Then I usually mix a 1/4 dose of Alaska fish ferts in rain water and bottom water only until they're ready for the #1 pots. And then my methods change, as far as nutes, etc.. Some here like coir as a growing medium. Remember if you're using it, it's a blank canvas, void of any nutrients. And I don't have the experience to comment on a nutrient regimen for it. Juanito has it down using coir!
 
So looking at the pics, I see one of two things. Overwatering or mites. I can't see the very new growth, if you have mites the new growth will have the distorted leaves with a sure sign of rust coloration. At least that's been my experience in the past. If the new growth is "clean", let them dry out some and bottom water with, an example: 1" deep for 3.5" pots, not letting them soak to long. Learn to gauge the weight of the pots.
 
Of course this book is my way of doing things that work for me. And I'm sure others may disagree. I hope this info helps,
 
Scott
 
 

Click to expand...

Thanks for the detailed reply/response! So first things first:
1)Right now they are in fox farms ocean forest cut with perlite about 30% extra. Ph meter was losing its mind and got a new digital water tester and used the method outlined: 6.7ph.

2) as to the gnats, I still see an adult flying out of plants when I go to water rarely here and there, so no swarms or anything but they're still lurking and I dread their larvae are lurking as well. I think I may have made the problem worse with foliar and soil drenches of azamax, as they really started looking like s*it at that point I just wasn't connecting the dots that the azadiractin or whatever is in the azamax. Wish I had went the bti route! Been hitting this azamax since the 15th, as directed Now all plants are looking like crap and new growth is miscolored, deformed, and the leaves don't even get completed growing. Did a tds test yesterday and they were showing 1200+ppm so I gave them an emergency flush, as I had just given them another full dose soil drench of that poison azamax on 4/1. As well as a foliar application. I rinsed the leaves off of it best I could yesterday with mister and the wind being high outside so I took them outside for a wash n rinse.
Best I could get runoff down to was 5-600 ppm after running 3x the container size amount of water through them. Took a lot to even make a dent. I'm quite confident the azamax caused much more problems for my young plants than the occasional gnat here or there, especially since I had gotten my watering game on track. Especially the foliar application of it several times.
I am done using azamax, far too toxic for my plants as well as me just through skin contact etc I feel terrible. Most are ready/overgrown in 3.5" as well as 4.5" deep square, and are ready for uppot I. E. #1 or equivalent.

3)I have a few different soil products: I bought a 5 kilo brick of buffered coco coir and hydrated it with 1tsp/gal GH calmag (should have waited until I had a solid plan/framework down, was thinking Hydro type nute gig like juanitos, Chilidude, others, etc.),
-worm castings, bunch of perlite, and have the
-GH flora trio nutes but not so sure now after all the headache.
-3.8 cuft bale of promix BX which unfortunately has some vermiculite in it (10% I believe-should have waited as I'm familiar with hp and loved it but was out of stock at the time and now they got even better stuff, the berger bm6)
-Little bit of ocean forest left.

4)new growth: looking Terrible to be honest, heartbroken. Deformed, misshapen, brown spots, holes here and there where tissue went necrotic, leaf curling like crazy up top. I got my watering game on track about 3 weeks ago going by weight and appearance of soil and plant wilt, but with all this poison for the pest idea and the emergency flushing yesterday I'm sure they will look better before they look worse.
If they look better at all-maybe I should just scrap em, I don't know I'm just bummed out and at my wits end and don't want to spend any more money on it I don't have unless I can get back on track. Need to get rid of some as I have 60 plants in a 4x3.5x7' area too and no room to uppot. Serious population control problems and leaves running bumping into each other etc. Thankfully, I have some seedlings going well but not the basic strains I had planned on. Tomatoes thrive no matter what it seems... :'( here are some pics:


Edit: some happy-no azamax seedlings pic at the end. Also I have had fans on all night to dry them quicker after that flushing to not give them wet feet and they look better than they did yesterday, lot of em still have this olive drab not happy green color though that may take a while to fix. That azamax was coated on the leaves and got so much off by spraying and same thing with the soil-was milky white runoff like the product itself along with ferts in the ocean forest purplish color. At my wits end with plant problems for the moment! Thanks for the views and thoughtful comments and help!

Regards,
-Tristan

You really went to town with that perlite, i would not be really surprised if is was your main cause of your issues.

Also if any of you coco growers want to chime in its totally welcome as I have this nice hydrated, desalinated coco with calmag charge and the coco reading at 190ppm on tds meter and 6.5-6.6 ph. Was told worm castings and perlite are good amendments. I know some fresh medium would HAVE to help some of these guys that I can afford the space to uppot and need it right now-yesterday lol!

Regards,
-Tristan

Chilidude said:

You really went to town with that perlite, i would not be really surprised if is was your main cause of your issues.

Click to expand...

Yeah I did.. I know its closer to ph neutral. But needed to afford myself some drainage in my growing conditions at the time, could have definitely went less, but have never had a problem before with other plants at even 50% perlite.. Many even grow in straight perlite with nutes so with a hot soil like ffof I wouldn't see how it'd be a problem unless you would like to explain your reasoning. Robbing nutes perhaps?

Some of the ones I went heaviest on look the worst, as they were young and made the jump from promix to ocean forest. But really it's all over the map. Has to be a combination of things I will in the future know better from this process but yeah unfortunately mistakes were made. Main thing is to improve and analyze what happened and how to go forward.

Regards,
-Tristan

I certainly wouldn't trash the plants. I think you hit it on the head with the Azamax applications. And using that should rule out mites as the reason you're seeing the new growth distorted.
 
They're in good potting soil, so they shouldn't at this stage be starving for nutrients.
 
Me I would let them dry out, and the next time I water I would use 1/4 tablespoon of Alaska Fish Ferts to a gallon of water, using the method I outlined above.
 
I feel they will straighten out.
 
One thing we all tend to do is love them too much, and they hate us for it

Devv said:

I certainly wouldn't trash the plants. I think you hit it on the head with the Azamax applications. And using that should rule out mites as the reason you're seeing the new growth distorted.
 
They're in good potting soil, so they shouldn't at this stage be starving for nutrients.
 
Me I would let them dry out, and the next time I water I would use 1/4 tablespoon of Alaska Fish Ferts to a gallon of water, using the method I outlined above.
 
I feel they will straighten out.
 
One thing we all tend to do is love them too much, and they hate us for it

Click to expand...

Yea yes yes! Thanks for the calming advice. I will take it! Yeah azamax= azadeath to my plants at this stage, is my conclusion because everything was going so fine until... I tried to love them too much! Live and learn...
How long can the smaller plants that are Chineses mostly stay in those 3.5" nursery pots? They're shallow which I don't like for peppers as I know they demand a large root system. Here's some pics of the reapers which are like 9-10 weeks old from Seed give or take a week.. Then the jalapeño that I know needs to be moved, and last one is of the deeper 4.5" container jalapeños. Size comparisons included (tigerella tomato needs to go bigger-the roots are growing on top the soil!almost 10-12"tall plant!) The jalapeños got more a bit more time I think as they're in the deep 4.5" shuttle pots and the roots are starting to form into outside the pot. I think they could all greatly benefit from bigger containers! Just need to get another light and make another space if I can afford it. I have until May before I can start hardening them off to go outside full time. Comments and suggestions appreciated, I am and have taken in a lot from here and other sites!

Regards,
-Tristan

Hi Tristan,
 
In my book it's time for larger pots
 
And when you repot the tomatoes, trim the lower leaves and set them at the bottom of the next size pots. I use #1 pots for the next stage.
 
Here's an example:
 
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/63309-devv-2017-having-a-good-time-in-the-dirt/page-10#entry1426172
 

Devv said:

Hi Tristan,
 
In my book it's time for larger pots
 
And when you repot the tomatoes, trim the lower leaves and set them at the bottom of the next size pots. I use #1 pots for the next stage.
 
Here's an example:
 
http://thehotpepper.com/topic/63309-devv-2017-having-a-good-time-in-the-dirt/page-10#entry1426172
 

Click to expand...

Thank you so much Devv! Would call your real name but don't know it! But yes I agree, time for uppots! Which comes the headache of where to find square #1 locally, and mediums, and the headache begins again! Main thing being space and moving some out of the main grow chamber..

I have all this stuff like the hydrated coir, the promix bx (not high porosity, gen purpose-and unfortunately can't return it-settled on it because they were out of stock and found a better garden store that has Berger custom blend products they use for their greenhouse :-/), castings, Cal mag, gh nutes, etc. Just wanna know how to go about this coir/sexy root mass gig properly and would like a base amount of nutrition just in case a deficiency wants to rear its head as I have no experience with hydro/soil/coco 3 part nutes-perhaps I can buy a coco specific mix if it comes down to necessary. Don't know! But I know with the giant bag of perlite I could amend that 3.8cuft bale of promix to drain fair enough if peat is the name of the K.I.S.S. game Haha!

Regards,
-Tristan

Can't help with the coir use other than how I mentioned previously.
 
I switched to Tomato Tone as a fertilizer in the container plants last year. It's a really good all around organic product. They have a pdf spec sheet available for downloading on their site. I went with 10% below their amounts for safety.

What was the coco coir you bought, is it pre-washed stuff?

YAMracer754 said:

Yeah I did.. I know its closer to ph neutral. But needed to afford myself some drainage in my growing conditions at the time, could have definitely went less, but have never had a problem before with other plants at even 50% perlite.. Many even grow in straight perlite with nutes so with a hot soil like ffof I wouldn't see how it'd be a problem unless you would like to explain your reasoning. Robbing nutes perhaps?

Click to expand...

 
Just my observations based how adding too much perlite in coco coir makes the growing medium store moisture for too long before drying out, it is actually not that good of a feature when the plants are still so small.
 

My observation as of lately is that the coir doesn't hold moisture that well at all. I'm using a 4 2 1 ratio of coir, perlite and worm castings. My temps have been in the mid to high 70s though so maybe thats why.. I'm not too impressed with that though because my temps are only going to get hotter so having to water every other day right now is going to turn into twice a day soon which I don't like.. That's way too much time to spend on watering when I currently have around 2,000 plants in the stuff. Just gotta stick with it though cuz I'm already commited to the grow.

Edmick said:

My observation as of lately is that the coir doesn't hold moisture that well at all. I'm using a 4 2 1 ratio of coir, perlite and worm castings. My temps have been in the mid to high 70s though so maybe thats why.. I'm not too impressed with that though because my temps are only going to get hotter so having to water every other day right now is going to turn into twice a day soon which I don't like.. That's way too much time to spend on watering when I currently have around 2,000 plants in the stuff. Just gotta stick with it though cuz I'm already commited to the grow.

Click to expand...

 
That is a good thing about coco coir when it dry up so fast, you can keep adding more hydroponic fertilizer in there like constantly and they keep growing like weeds because of it. Maybe you should set up a some kind of drip system to water them?

Chilidude said:

 
That is a good thing about coco coir when it dry up so fast, you can keep adding more hydroponic fertilizer in there like constantly and they keep growing like weeds because of it. Maybe you should set up a some kind of drip system to water them?

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That would be great but I have way too many plants. All my plants that are in the coco mix are eventually going into the ground but rhe ones I'm growing for my business are ataying in 4 inch nursery pots til I sell them. I have about 75 personal though. I'm still going to do a few in pots in straight coco and hydro nutes for fun to see how they do. I'm doing a lot of experimenting this year

Edmick said:

That would be great but I have way too many plants. All my plants that are in the coco mix are eventually going into the ground but rhe ones I'm growing for my business are ataying in 4 inch nursery pots til I sell them. I have about 75 personal though. I'm still going to do a few in pots in straight coco and hydro nutes for fun to see how they do. I'm doing a lot of experimenting this year

Click to expand...

 
Just buy few bigger airpots and put a tray or bucket under them, any fertilizer water coming out of the bottom will be sucked back up by the roots growing in the tray. It is like a passive circulation system without any extra work involved.

Chilidude said:

 
Just buy few bigger airpots and put a tray or bucket under them, any fertilizer water coming out of the bottom will be sucked back up by the roots growing in the tray. It is like a passive circulation system without any extra work involved.

Click to expand...

Yea I plan to do something along thoae lines with a few plants. All of my seedlings for my business are being grown in straigt coir with hydro nutes right now.

Chilidude said:

What was the coco coir you bought, is it pre-washed stuff?

Click to expand...

Yea it's prewashed and buffered (Fibredust coco off of Amazon)

Regards,
-Tristan