Hi all, This is my first post so please bear with my if there is any important info I've missed.
I'm a novice grower attempting a pretty tricky micro grow in order to maintain stealth. This is my third grow but hopefully my first to actually make it to harvest.
I took these this morning, it's day 18 since the seed popped. She's a Northern Lights Auto from dope-seeds, popped in less than 24 hours which suggest pretty good genetics IMO.
The main symptoms are yellowing of the lower leaves from the middle and tip of the leave inwards. It started on the cotyledons and today the single finger fan leaves are showing it on the tips. The veins of the leaves are noticeably more yellow than other parts. I'd usually put this down to nitrogen deficiency however if you look closely there's a tiny bit of nute burn on the tips, which is the source of my confusion. I could understand if the soil is a little hot (see below) but am not sure why this is causing symptoms of a deficiency. To make things more confusing the leaves are now pointing down at the tips, yesterday the entire leaves were pointing straight up which I assume was in response to increased airflow and better temperature.
I got off to a shaky start as I've been away from the hobby for a while but thought I had sorted all my problems sorted until about 2 days ago. I initially had some problems with airflow and high temperature (same cause, not enough airflow) and my temps were between 28C to 33C. Just before I fixed the airflow problem it peaked at 37C, we had some hot weather and I took some powertools to the side of my enclosure. I believe this is why she's so small for day 18, however due to my tiny grow space I'm not too fussed about that and am still going to try and save her.
I'm growing in soil, it's a generic soil for growing vegetables. It's about one 5th perlite and maybe a 10th vermiculute. I think the soil was initially enriched with some sort of nutrients (possibly peat moss) which is what caused my last plant to die of nute burn, I've since flushed the crap out of it and judging by the PH indicator it's between 6 and 7. Digital PH meter is on my shopping list. Pot size is 2L, planted straight in the soil and it's where she'll remain all the way into flower. I'm actually hoping this will keep her small as I have about a foot of vertical height. Maybe I'll have root bound problems down the road but I'll cross that bridge when I get to it! I have the Biobizz veg and bloom lined up, however I haven't added any yet since If there's one thing I've learned from my past 2 plants it's that doing nothing is better than hastily trying to fix a problem just for the sake of doing something.
My temps are now stable around 26.5C. The range is less than 25 to 28 since improving my airflow. Humidity has been around 45%, however that was at higher temps and it's now about 50%. I know this isn't perfect but it's not dangerously low so right now it's the least of my concerns. And finally, lighting. I have 2x 24w 6500k CFLs about 4 or 5 inches above the top leaves. This is also the same height as my temperature probe.
As I've mentioned I flushed the soil before planting so it was really soaking. 2L is pretty big for a seedling and that water lasted until yesterday, when I gave her her first drink. Since it's been more than 2 weeks I believe this would be the time to start with the nutes however I didn't do so out of fear that I'd make my problems worse. Instead I sort of gave her a second flush, basically using about 2Litres of of water over the bath which was when the water stopped coming out yellow.
As you can probably tell I'm a bit lost here so really any advice is appreciated. I know it's a little confusing as I've changed the environment a few times and I have considered this might just be stress from the sudden changes in temperature and co2 levels, however each time I check on her the yellowing seems to be creeping upwards and getting worse. I don't really care about my yields at this point, I just don't want to lose another plant.
Thanks for any help,
Love and peace!
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