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Seedling with nitrogen deficiency?

Sertürner

Bluelight Crew
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So I am a first time grower. Just seeing if I could grow a single plant for the hell of it. I had two but a thunderstorm wiped one of them out so now I'm down to one. I'm growing exclusively outdoors in a 1.75 gallon pot. The plant is about 2 weeks old, maybe 2 and a half weeks. The top leaves are vivid green but the bottom two leaves ( the ones that grew first after the cotyledons) are starting to turn yellow. They aren't withering but maybe slightly drooping as well. Any ideas on how to get the vibrant green back to the whole plant? Is this indeed a nitro deficiency? I want to use fertilizer but don't know how to get it near the roots without damaging they whole root system.
 
you need to host your picture on an external site and just link to it here...

that being said, lower leaves turning yellow first is often a sign on N deficiency. what kind of soil did you use? did you add compost or anything to amend it?
 
Thank you I will upload a pic when I'm off work. I used miracle grow...i didn't realize not to use that until it was too late. But it has been doing great up until now fortunately.
 
Is miracle grow a fertilizer? If so, slow release or quickly available?
 
Its a potting mix designed for 6 month use. Slow release. I also had miracle grow fertilizer so I used some of that to up the N content. Taking a photo so you can have a better idea right now.
 
Here is an image.

https://imgur.com/a/d37jFpP

The bottom 2 leaves are yellowing and drooping while the very top is green and vibrant. The upper middle leaves are also starting to droop very slightly and I have a feeling they will be next very soon if I don't stop this.
 
Those bottom leaves aren't leaves bud, and they're meant to die. They do on all plants. They're not true leaves.
 
Oh so the cotyledons and the first 2 leaves are supposed to die?
Like I said, I'm a first time grower and just doing this to experiment. How does it look so far your opinion? It's 2 and a half weeks old.
 
no, the cots just do die, they're not necessarily "supposed to" but it does on every single plant species that has them. the first true leaves do not look like they're dead or nearly dead to me
 
The cots are not actual leaves, they contain enough nutrients for the plant to establish a good root system and leaves to support photosynthesis in quantities sufficient to be self sufficient. That's why they turn yellow and shrivel up.
 
well if you used fertilzed potting soil, nitrogen should be abundant. the upper growth looks good though, I would let it be for now and just see if it gets worse.

you might wanna check the ph of your water though, if it's not in the right range and your soil doesn't buffer the ph enough, there might be a problem.

ps the yellowing leaves are actually the first true leaves of the plant, not the cots. the cots are those small, dry flaps underneath them.

pps topping such a small plant might stunt it. i would wait until it is a bit stronger and taller.
 
That's what I thought bagseed. The first leaves after the cotyledons are true leaves i assumed. And was concerned when they started to yellow. And I read up on topping the plants but I think I should wait another two weeks for it to get taller and grow a bit before doing that. I feel like topping it right now might put its growth in jeopardy. Thank you guys for the quick responses by the way. This little guy needs some help and you guys came in quick to offer advice and I appreciate it.
 
Ok so I had to leave for a family event for about 2 days. My plant has nobody to water it so I filled a 750ml glass liquor bottle about 1/4 of the way up with water and inserted it into the soil about 3-4in down (sort of like those glass ball and stems used for plant watering). Any thoughts on this? I'm worried about it draining out too fast and drowning the plant, or it getting clogged and not watering it at all. I also wetter the top of the soil with fertilize water before I left.
 
I think it only works if the bottle outlet is like less than a centimeter, pretty damn small. It'll probably just flood it.
 
Dammit. I just did it and then left. Hopefully it's still alive when I come back home in two days. I read some articles about how bottles like liquor bottles work but I guess I'll have to wait and see. If not I guess I'll restart the whole process with new seeds. Where I live it's ridiculously hot this time of year (102-105F average) so maybe a little overwatering won't be fatal for the plant as so much water evaporates. Right now my state is covered in "African dust" blown in from the Sahara desert and has made the climate very dry, hot, and arid.
 
You have nutrient lockout. Miracle grow was probably already too 'hot' for seedlings, and then you added more fertilizer. Too much nutrient build up in the grow medium can make the nutrients inaccessible to your plant. It isn't a nitrogen deficiency, if it was then you should expect to see the new growth losing colour before the old growth. Yellowing on the lower leaves strongly suggests nutrient lockout to me, especially since you have added fertilizer to soil which already has nutrients in it.

Take 6 gallons of plain water, use this to water your plant in a single watering so that most of the water runs off. This is known as 'flushing'. I think using almost four times as much plain water as the volume of your grow medium should be sufficient to get rid of the nutrients in your soil. Go to a store which sells gardening products, this could be a nursery, certain hardware stores, or a hydro store. Buy some nutrients which are designed for use in the vegetative stage of plant growth - when you check the NPK ratio there should be considerably more nitrogen than phosphorus or potassium. I would be looking for an NPK ratio along the lines of 3,1,1 or maybe 3,1,2. Use liquid nutrients, not slow release pellets. The label will tell you how much to use - don't use as much as the label says - on the first feed you should use 1/3 of the recommended dose, if that goes well then on the second feed you might up the dose to 1/2 or 2/3 of the recommended dose, by the third or fourth feeding you should be using the recommended dose. When you hit the recommended dose, just stay there unless you start to see symptoms of nutrient deficiency (again, this will be on the new growth at the top of the plant), in which case you should increase the dose. I expect that you wont presently need to water your plant much more often than once per week, unless you live in a fairly hot/sunny area - by the time a few weeks pass your plant should be able to handle the recommended dose. If you need to water your plant much more frequently than I have assumed then you might want to increase the nutrient dose more slowly than I have suggested. (The word 'need' is important, I expect you are watering your plant more frequently than once per week, but I doubt that you should be given the age of your plant and the relatively large pot it is in.)

Don't top your plant now. You will just stress it out. I highly recommend that you look into topping and training your plant down the track. But, while you are trying to solve problems on a seedling the last thing you want to do is add additional stress. Even if your plant had no issues whatsoever, I think that it is a bit too young and underdeveloped to top.

The yellowing single bladed leaves in your photo are 'true' leaves. They should die long before you harvest your plant, but it is not normal for them to be yellowing already. Follow my advice and I am quite confident that you will be able to rehabilitate your plant and get it healthy. Given that you only have one plant, I hope that you have used feminized seeds, because you are going to be super upset come flower if it turns out to be a male.

The plant should be perfectly fine for two days without water. As a beginner grower, you are much more likely to over water your plant than to under water it. I guarantee that if you saturate an almost two gallon pot this will be all that a two week old plant needs for 5-7 days easily. It is unfortunate that you gave the plant more nutrients, because your problem is too many nutrients, not a lack of them. Flush the plant and then give it conservative doses of a nitrogen heavy nutrient solution.
 
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Best advice I have gotten yet drug_mentor!! If my plant hasn't died by the time I have come back I will definitely follow your advice to the T. If it has then I have about 16 extra seeds to try again with. Once again thank you so much buddy. I will update as soon as I get home tomorrow night.
 
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