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Alright here's my story. I grew pot for the first time last year. 2 plants, vegged them under tube flourescents and flowered under 250 w hps. My grow space is really small and towards the end of the cycle the plants got stressed and burned but the bud was still amazing. Fast forward to now, I have a clone of one of the old ones plus two seedlings. I also bought a big bag of soil at the end of the summer (a brand I'd never used before). My clone and seedlings are all dying. First off, I've never ever seen stretch so bad and I've used flouros before. Their stems are soo thin and weak and nodes are so spaced out it's ridiculous, especially since they have a good fan on em. The leaves are all turning black and there are little flies around the room that don't look harmful but I dunno. This whole thing just went to shit. I have a feeling the soil has a lot to do with it.
Anyways, I took a cutting from a friends grow and am trying to root it (my cuttings usually take a month to root, I know, I fail, but this time I have it in a humidity tent I'm hoping that will speed the process). I have seeds but they're sativa and I dry in the same room that I flower in so I want to finish them all at the same time. Basically I was thinking of taking cuttings from the plants I have now, cleaning out the whole room disinfecting everything in case of insects, and getting new soil. But since it's winter it's hard for me to get soil. Can anyone suggest a brand for me to use I don't want to fuck this up? I thought maybe they were deficient so I added dilute veg nutes and it basically nuked them. I'd like to do something soiless but I just know I will mess it up on my first time. I can't flower in the middle of summer cause my room gets too hot so I'm in a bit of a rush to get the ball rolling. Any advice would be appreciated. I'm usually very good with plants, I'm so frustrated.
I hate dirty soil. I personally like the fox farm soils. I have used Ocean Forest and HappyFrog to great effect. For soilless I would check out ProMix (I can't remember which one I used but I liked it.)
Make sure to clean every speck from your grow room; Insects can be very difficult to manage once they get established. Even the best soil will get infested if there are flys in the room.
He's right. It may also be a not so good brand of soil, may not have been sterilized.
If it's any contalation, I have always used miracle grow potting soil and have'nt had much of a problem with it. It's not the lamps your using, though I could be wrong but never heard of that happening before using flouros. You changed your soil so I would look at that.
I dunno if I could manage soil less properly my first time. And yeah it wasn't sterile at all it's like outdoor garden soil. But I used outdoor soil last time and everything was fine, just a different brand. Cleaning won't be difficult, the flies are small almost like fruit flies and there's no visible damage on the plants but they seem to live in the soil, perhaps they eat at the roots. The plants have looked sick from the start though, even before there were insects. I guess I'll go look for some fox farm soil.
Don't want to sound one sided, but if you cant find the soil your looking for, just head to lowes or home depot and pick up a bag or 2 of miracle grow potting mix. It's formulated from forest products compost and Canadian sphagnum peat moss, perlite, a wetting agent and fertilizer. Each bag has 3.2 lbs. It's certified Premium Potting soil by the Mulch and Soil Council. The highest mark.
No need to add any fertilizer for the first 6 weeks. They say for 3 months, but I'm a bit anal when it comes to feeding my babies lol.
I normally buy the large compact bags of pro mix. It's good to go out of the bag. I like to add more perlite so its about 50% perlite to the soil mixture, I find it a great mix for growing so far. Otherwise miracle grow works just fine and dandy.