Dealing With Plant Problems

In having an indoor garden it is almost inevitable that sooner or later you will experience problems with plant growth. When this happens you have two choices on where to find the answers, you can look up the problem in a book at the library or information on the internet. This is a good source of information if you have a reasonable knowledge of plants and indoor gardening. The other way is to seek out help from a professional. The best place to find someone who can help you with your problems is at your local hydroponics store. These people deal with problems like yours every day and should be able to sort out your troubles.

There is a standard list of questions that they will ask you about your indoor garden and it will help speed up the process if you have the answers. The following questions will help you to determine what area your problems exist in and save everyone time in rectifying them.

  • What size is your growroom.
  • How many lights and what type are they.
  • What type of system are you using.
  • What type of medium is being used.
  • What is the day and night time temperature.
  • What is the temperature of your nutrient solution (recirculating systems)
  • What is the pH value of the nutrient solution and the medium.
  • What is the strength of the nutrient (TDS) and what type.
Specific Problems
  1. What is happening in your garden (a general description)?
  2. When did the problem first occur?
  3. What stage of growth are the plants in. (vegetative or flowering)?
  4. Did the problem start on one plant and spread or where all plants affected at the same time?
  5. What do the leaves look like (curled, dry, burnt, ect.)?
  6. Are only certain areas of the plant effected. (top leaves, bottom leaves, flowers, roots)?
  7. Have you seen any bugs on the bottom or top of leaves or in the medium?
  8. Have you done anything different.(changed nutriant, ph, tds strength?
  9. Have you sprayed the plants with anything recently.(foiliar spray, insecticide, fungicide)?

By having answers to these questions ready when you seek out help you will greatly reduce the time it will take to solve your indoor gardening problems.