15 plant coco grow, recurring Nutrient/Magnesium deficiency problem

[Tokesome]

Hey cskis, thanks very much for dropping in. I find what you say very interesting and there are certainly some similarities in what you`ve experienced and what is happening here. I feel that a lot of what you say makes a great deal of sense, the bit that doesn`t make sense here is that my other 2 plant grow is doing fine on the same clones, water/nute regime, as are a friends?? That puzzles the hell out of me. Maybe I just have to forget what the others are doing elsewhere and concentrate purely on this as an individual case. I guess my direct potting to 3 gal pots could be making the problem worse if its down to the wetness, taking longer to collonate the pot properly, if able to at all.

Yeah stupid of me not to step pot sizes up, and I can understand that the plant is likely to suffer more if the medium has areas that are not filled with roots, and if the major concentration of roots is around the bottom of a wet pot. I`ve noticed one or two of my plants that have been runts of the litter, have had a poor root mass and as a result been wetter than the others when on the same timed feedings.

I was toying with the idea of removing them from their 3 gall pots and repotting in 1gall pots, but I think after rooting up in the 3 gall pots for over a week or so that I`d do more harm than good, but I`ll be carefull to get the feeding individually correct for each plant. . . . once I`ve established what the best way to feed actually is.

I have some hefty salt deposits on equipment after a grow and I suspect this may be to do with excess calcium, but not totally sure as if they`re locking out nutes I would expect more salt residues, maybe? I`m feeding some of them with bottled water and will get my RO filter this week, if it is excess calcium in the tap water that`s causing the imbalance and problems it should soon show a difference, but I cant say I`m convinced, again because of what I and others have going in these parts. The bottled mineral water I`m using at present does have cal, mg and other ellements in it but only has an EC reading of 1. One strange thing with this bottled water is that it states on the bottle PH6.4 at source, and every time I adjust the ph down, (it takes very little acid to bring it tumbling down) to around 5.9-6.1, it increases over night back to 6.3 or 6.4. The first use of this water, the nutes brought the PH down to 5.9 with no need to add acid, the next day its sitting at 6.3 without being disturbed or fed to the plants, add acid to bring it down to 6.0, next day its back at 6.3. I`ve only used tap water before so have no experience with bottled water etc., so what goes on there then ??

I dont quite understand the lack of sheen to my leaves nor the pale limey colour to them, but its defo a sign of problems to come down the road if I dont get them looking healthy again and something to do with what`s going on here, just dont know if its oxygen starvation or some nute def or just generally stuggling. What is responsible for the sheen on the leaves, is it silicon??

I dont know what to make of your nutrient situ, I know my plants feed well and produce well with the same nutes elsewhere. I believe that both B`cuzz coco nutes and Canna coco nutes are both designed to go with hard water. I`m not sure if RO water alone will leave the mix light of some ellements like cal, but will hopefully soon be able to establish this and either add the macros needed or mix RO water with tap water.

I just took some pics albeit on my phone, but I dont have the lead here to upload them. I`ll try and add them tonight or tmro at the latest.

I`m still very confused and quite worried that I`ll have another poor harvest to come if I dont get on top of this fairly sharpley, but I`m hoping that I`m on the right track this time.

I`m worried about the rising of nutrient salts and falling ph values with the wet dry cycling, but maybe I`ll learn something new from it, I just find it hard to do, it going against my thoughts and beliefs about growing in coco.

So far I cant honestly say I can see any difference yet between those pots kept fairly moist with those that are being allowed to dry out more.

Sorry I just seem to be rambling. . . . honey oil`s to blame me thinks!

Toke

 

[Tokesome]

Hey ET, missed you popping in there.

Yeah I haven`t responded to your question of coco grind, I`m using canna pro, it looks fairly fine to me. However I`m using the same in my two plant grow, (I`ll try and add some pics of these if I can take some later) and they appear to be doing fine, as are other people around here. . . . feel like I`m harping on now, but I doubt it can be down to this due to the other evidence around here. There`s still a massive difference in fine coco and soil though, if you think of the weight of a bucket of dry soil and a bucket of dry coco, you can tell that the coco is mostly filled with a light airy mixture, compared to the heavy bucket of dry soil. Still doesnt mean it doesn`t get water logged though and can see your point about coarser grind and drainage, I just dont see that as being the underlying factor due again to the evidence around me. Of course I accept that it could still be a contributing factor.

I`m using B`cuzz nutes now ET, but will probably switch back to Canna when I get more nutes (prob 2/3 through this grow) as I only switched to B`cuzz to eliminate the nutrients as being the problem.

Thanks to all you guys for putting effort in here, its much appreciated and thought provoking.

Toke

Yeay I think this is my 200th post

 

[Tokesome]

Hey guys, do you think my plants would stand being down sized in pots?? ie. take them out of their pots, trying not to snap too many roots, dump them back in 1gall pots for a week and then pot them back up to 3 gall pots in a week or so, when the roots are a bit more established. Or have I really been smoking too much today??

I did notice thinking about it that some of my plants seemed quite loose in the top half of the coco when it came to the chop and roots in the top half of the pots were sparse. I just put that down to the plants not being very strong generally and therefore hadn`t filled there pots well. I still have the pots with the roots in from the last harvest so I`ll try and take a few photos of them for you to see. They`ll look a bit crap now as they`ve just been stood in pots slowly drying off, but the density etc should be evident.

Toke

 

[Tokesome]

The second stage, using 1gal pots, added an average of 0.5oz to each plant when I tested it against a set of plants that were transplanted straight from beer cups to 3gal pots. When I examined the root balls of the plants that had skipped the middle stage there was far less root formation in the middle areas of the pot. It seems when using the middle stage there is a much larger root system in place available to take up water much more quickly when I transfer them to 3 gal pots. I consider this a crucial stage now as I have read (and seen for myself) that roots propagate very quickly in coco, shooting out quickly in all directions, but not branching out to fill out inbetween space very much.

Well I examined my pots form the last crop and they bear the same evidence as you`ve stated here, almost devoid of roots in the middle, I looked at two typical plants from my last crop and chose one with the thickest stem. I dont know if this is related to the problem my plants have or whether again a symptom of poorly plants, but it rings exactly the same. again I`ll try and pu photos up tonight if I get chance otherwise tmro. Its seriously making me consider repotting in smaller pots for a week or so, as I can see I`m going to be wasting a gallon or two of the 3 gallons of coco per pot!

The only thing I can see that would perhaps make a difference to it this time is if the medium is allowed to dry out more and this then encourages the roots to spread further for food. An old trick in soil of course, but I`ve seen massive chocker roots in my coco before and believed that coco was more of a hydro type medium in comparison with soil.

Yet more into the mix of confusion or, another piece of the jigsaw solved??

Toke

 

[tip302327]

So the two plants shown are approx 1 week apart, late bloom. Besides the pots being different, these two plants set right next to each other in the vertical garden. The wire pot must be watered every other day while the plastic pot could go for 5 days no problem, Though I don't let it do that. Both are 1 gallon. The wire post is the younger of the two. I recently bumped the middle lamp from a 400 to a 1000. The added heat, and increase venting is causing my wire post to cycle even faster. Currently they are getting flooded (by hand in a 5 gal bucket) once every other morning. Again this am the wire pots were bone dry. I am sure within a few more hours the plants would have started to wilt. Non the less, they look perfect. There could be something to flood watering and only feeding once every 6 days. I have also noted that on the feed days, top watering in plastic by hand if I dont run ALOT of feed water volume thru the pot ,the numbers coming out will be low. Say in 1 gallon plastic pot, I put in 800 ppm till 20% runoff. My out PPM will be down around 300. If I feed again the same it will jump up to near the same as input.
Don't know.

 

[Tokesome]

Pics etc

Pics etc

Ok, here are some pics,first the honey oil I made last night, ;-)

these were taken just before lights on so look a little more droopy than when lights on.

I took these when lights on, sorry, but it shows the plants are holding their leaves up and seem to be looking a bit better.

You can see the tops arched over where I`ve lst tied em down, not to be confused with droopiness. This next one is of on of the 2 I potted up a few days later, not yet lst`d

One of my 2 plant grow during week 2 of flower

Right here is where its getting interesting to me, here are some shots of the root mass of 2 plants from my last grow. On first appearance from the outside, it looks reasonable enough

If you remember I took the pebble layer out of the bottom of the pots and sat them back on a fresh layer of coco, hardly any root matter had impregnated this area.

Then I looked into the middle and its mainly coco with no roots to speak of. No wonder my last crop couldn`t produce much weight, and under the circumstances probably did me proud, its lovely meds,

These were in 7ltr pots, not 3 gallon.

I think I`m going to seriously contemplate re potting into smaller pots, maybe 7ltr pots, 2/3`s full, give them a week to establish and then move back into 3 gall pots, Its got to make sense looking at the above pics, I`ll also treat with Rhizotonic and Cannazym to try and promote good root growth. It`ll be easier to apply feed accurately as there wont be so much volume of empty coco to hold all the moisture.

I think my lazyness in potting up has had a bearing on my problems, by compounding the affect of a soggy wet mass, does that make sense to you??

Toke

 

[Tokesome]

There could be something to flood watering and only feeding once every 6 days. I have also noted that on the feed days, top watering in plastic by hand if I dont run ALOT of feed water volume thru the pot ,the numbers coming out will be low. Say in 1 gallon plastic pot, I put in 800 ppm till 20% runoff. My out PPM will be down around 300. If I feed again the same it will jump up to near the same as input.
Don't know.

This probably means that they could stand higher concentrate of nutrients, no? I mean if the initial figure is low they`ve gobbled it up, once you`ve fed the balance is restored so that if you feed again the ppm`s remain the same as goes in from above. It also may mean that the pots are still holding a reasonable amount of moisture when you feed after 6 days?

T

 

[cskis11]

Hi Toke, is your other grow location identical in terms of atmosphere as this one (temp, humidity, etc.)??? Also, I'm not sure if I would bother re-potting at this point, just maybe let them dry a bit more to encourage root growth, but your call.

Looking at your pictures it does seem that your plants are missing a lot of available potential root zone in the middle areas. In coir the roots generally shoot to the sides of the pot quickly and form a dense layer. By using 3 stages there will be another one of these dense layers right in the middle of the pot, as well as at the top (from the cup) and at the bottom. Anyways, the extra bud is enough justification for me.

As far as I know dropping pH levels and salt build up only occurs after a certain threshold of dryness is reached. Until that point the pH of the medium should actually rise (and the EC drop) as the plant draws nutes out of the water. This is because coco absorbs water well but doesn't actually take in the nutes. Essentially this means that the water that seeps out of the coco to replace what the plant drinks has no nutes in it. The nute count will steadily fall, but the water level will stay constant (as far as the roots are concerned).

It's only when this reserve water from the coco runs out that the roots begin to dry out and salts accumulate. I have acutally measured a rise of about 0.4 in pH between waterings. Though most of this is speculation based on notes I took a couple years ago, it matches well with what I see over the course of the week as the plants seem to slowly recover from any Mg def they might initially show (if it is actually low pH causing Mg lockout).

I think this is why coco is considered a hydro-like medium since the roots take all of the nutes from the water and not the material. The water level at the roots remains constant even though the coco itself is drying out (up to a point obviously). It's also why it can be rinsed and reused since it doesn't actually absorb nutes. As far as I can tell from your pics I'm using an identical grind of coco to you: I don't add anything, just straight coco rinsed and used repeatedly.

Maybe this has nothing to do with what's causing your problems, but hopefully it helps. Good luck!!

 

[Tokesome]

Hi cskis, Yeah very similar atmospheres, maybe a little colder at night on these girls this time of year. I`m going to have a go at repotting one or two today and see what they`re like in the root zone. I figure I can trim the roots up a bit if necessary and encourage new growth. I think its got to be a good idea, though a bit of a mess about.

I didn`t feed any plants yesterday, even the one or two that were quite light were still holding moisture. I`ll see what they`re like a little later today, and should be able to determine whether the drying out is sending the roots into the drying coco when I look at repotting a couple later this evening. An added benefit to re-potting is that I can drill shit loads of holes in my 3 gallon pots, and I mean shitloads


My two plant grow cetrainly hasn`t seemed to suffer from drying out twice over 3 days, and I mean they were proper feather light. I cant pull one of these to look at the roots as they`re in a scrog screen, but if I stick my finger into the top of the pots, I really have to fight through a lot of roots to get my finger in. The only difference I see in these grows is the two plant grow had an intermediate potting stage and they`ve dried out totally a couple of times.

"a certain threshold of dryness is reached." . . . . . Mmm, no exact way of measuring that I guess.

I`d assume that even if not my problem, having too wet a mix when the plants and root system are so young and small cannot be helping matters here. This along with better quality water and plenty of Cannazym to keep the roots as healthy as possible.

My plants do all seem to have improved again, as they did for a while at this stage in my last grow, maybe looking after the root zone better will help avoid the problems coming back.

Thanks for the good luck vibes.

Toke ;-)

All my coco is used once only, though I may start re using some now I`ve seen how little its used in the middle of the pots. Do you sterilise the old coco somehow

 

[Tokesome]

Just sterilising a few pots, and then gonna try re-potting a couple and see how it goes. I can see from my last grows remnants, just how big a mistake its been to pot this lot up direct from beer cups to 3 gall buckets.

Just wondering how much you guys sterilise you`re used coco and equipment etc.?

T

 

[tip302327]

I have resued coco with good results in the past. Currently I do not simply because H&G does not recommend it if you use their shooting powder. I am not sold on that though as it would seem if proper flush on in ppm = out ppm it should be fine. When I did reuse it I was running Dutch Masters gold line. Then after a good flush I would soak the coco in an h2o2 solution for a time and reflush with ph'ed calmag and go.

 

[Tokesome]

Thanks mate. I`m gonna re use the coco that`s in the 3 gall containers as it only be a week or two in use and reused with the same plants. Not sure how to treat it really (??), it has some fine roots in it after sifting through it, I`m wondering if a good zym product like Cannazym will be enough to breakdown these fine roots that have broken off, as opposed to going down the root of H202. Can anyone here tell me if that`d be cool or not?? The coco will be stood for a week as these root up in their smaller pots.

I re-potted a couple of plants today, all went reasonably well and doesn`t seem like too much work to consider doing the rest. In fact I`m just sterilising more pots and maybe do them all. Not worth comparing any as it seems obvious that this will do them good.

The 2 I did ealier look well enough a few hours on, despite lossing some roots in the process. I assume this will be a plus in their favour if anything, most of the major roots survived intact so it`ll be like a bit of a root trim for them. . . . hopefully.

It may seem a bit over the top, but I`m taking seriously anything I can reasonably do to enhance their all round health, and this seems such an obvious one when looking at the state of the last lot`s root mass as roots mean fruit, or bud in this case. bIt sems a bit pointless having 3 gall pots if the plants are just rooting up around the edges. I`m getting the impression that if they`re kept too wet they colonise the outer of the pot because it dries out enough for them, but I`ll be keeping a closer eye on feeding and try to make sure I get the balance right.

The roots all look white and healthy and spreading well, it still puzzles me why the plants go into lock out or deficiency stress at this potting up stage, and then again later into flowering.

I think I`ve overwatered the 2 I potted up already, I gave the 7 liter pots a pint and a half of nutes and they feel quite heavy, doh! They`re bibber now though so may use it all up quickly enough if they get going well, if not it may make things worse for them, we`ll see. I`ll be more carefull with the other`s.

Here`s a couple of pic` of the two that I took out of the 3 gallon pots
number 1

and 2

The RO filter comes tmro, 125GPD, that should meet all my needs easily, so hopefully it`ll be easy enough to fit into my plumbing somewhere.

Toke

 

[Tokesome]

I hope I`m doing the right thing here and not going to make things worse for myself. The 2 that I potted earlier are looking a little droopy now 10 hours on, I guess that`s to be expected though, they`ve been properly disturbed.

You can see two of them look a little droopy, though they`re being trained quite severely to stay low for the scrog screen. Its going to be a job to keep them short and well trained until they go back into their 3 gall pots in about a weeks time as I cant actually build the screen table until the trays are all in their final position and plants in their 3 gall pots. Its going to be a 2x3meter screen table, too big to have lying around waiting to go in place. It wont take much knocking together with the lengths of 2x1 inch timber I have for the job.

The 3rd one, I just potted up and lost a bit more of the roots than I`d like. I`ve been trying to move them fairly dry, then water in a bit, thinking the coco would fall away without snapping as many roots as heavy wet coco would. Think I`ll try a wetter one next tho and see how it goes. This 3rd one has not put any roots out from the side of the original beer cup plug that was put into the 3 gall pot, they all came out of the bottom to populate the bigger pot, even though there is plenty of root showing around the side of the beer cup plug of coco.

One thing to note though, is that 4 days after a good feeding, not quite to run off, I`d say the coco has exactly the same moisture content as when you open a fresh bag of Canna coco, and its consistent throughout the pot. Suggesting that more controlled feeding would avoid the water logged perched area of the pot. Obviously when they get into flowering they should drink it quicker, but for now 3 to 4 days between feeds seems appropriate to me then. Of course the smaller pot size that I hope to get them all into by the end of tmro will probably dry out a good deal quicker.

Its strange though, I`ve had some really good crops from some strains in coco that`s watered to well past run off 3 or 4 time a day, but its becoming clear that this cheese strain dont like it so wet. I`m not so sure this is my main problem here but it could be, and its certainly something I need to understand more.

I`ve always figured that the more you can get the plants to drink up the better the plant is going to do and produce, this belief may just have been my downfall and led me to always tend to be on the overwatering side of things, which this strain doesn`t like. (?? You`ve heard crazier things right??)

Hope I`m not boring you all with this now.

T

 

[cskis11]

Hi, about 5-6 days after watering I start to notice a small build up of salt residue on the top layer of the coco (that I assume is from evaporation). This usually means at this point the plants will have about 2 days max before they will need to be watered again.

Though it seems counter intuitive coco can become ridiculously dry before the plants start to wilt, at least in my experience. Sometimes my 3gal pots feel almost empty when I move them to be watered. I get the odd plant that does start wilt a bit, but they seem to recover very quickly once they're watered.

The only thing I use to rinse my coco is hot water, once I remove the root ball and most of the larger roots I rinse what is left with 4gal of hot water and then set the coco out to dry for a few days. I've never found it necessary to remove all of the root matter (way too much work!), it seems to decay naturally without any side effects that I can tell.

I don't wash or even rinse my pots when they're done, I just make sure there are no big root clumps stuck to the bottom. I've never noticed any mould, bacteria, or anything else develop on my coco (wet or dry). My next batch goes directly into these "dirty" pots. As far as I can tell coco is about as inert as styrofoam.

The only thing I wash and sterilize is my cloner, which I spend hours on sometimes. I also make sure I rinse the f--k out of it when I'm done: soap and clones don't mix.

 

[Tokesome]

I`m getting the feeling that rather than letting my coco dry out to the point of it feeling like its empty (I know the the feel of a pot when its like that, incredibly light!), it`d probably be best to let them get to the same moisture content of a bag of fresh ready to use coco. When I was re-potting the plants yesterday, as I said that was the consistency of my pots after 4 days without a feed and it seemed perfect, fluffy and airy. I`m sure the complete drying out of coco can`t be a good thing, must cause salt build up etc. Are you sure you`re getting the balance right and getting the best from your plants cskis11? Or are you experimenting with different feeding to get rid of a problem?

Once you`ve rinsed the coco with hot water, do you then rinse through with a ph`d nutrient solution, or add any calmag.

I guess that not sterilising equip should be ok if you dont have problems creep in. I`ve hed the dreaded pythium in hydro and root rot once in coco, so I take no chances nowadays. I`m using a recirculating system though so more chance of spreading the shit about if it does come. I scrub as much of the salts off as possible and shower off the dirt, and then soak in baby sterilising fluid solution, then thoroughly rinse everything off.

Going to get the RO filter now, then come back and pot down some more plants. The three I did yesterday have all picked up and looking less droopy.

T

 

[Tokesome]

The tray of pots that have been kept the most moist have significantly less root mass or spread even though the plants themselves look as good or a little better above the coco, I`m definitely going to be letting them dry out a bit more as I`m certain that more roots=more nutrient uptake possibilities=more plant=more bud.

I`ve also noticed that as the new leaves grow they start out light and limey, then as they start to mature the green is getting incredibly dark, starting from the tip and working back through the leaf towards the stem. I dont know if this is a sign of any nutrient def/tox. Its like the opposite of the interveinal yellowing, going darker between the veins.

I``m adding Rhizotonic to the nutes I`m feeding as I repot them, along with some Atazyme, Atami/B`cuzz version of Cannazym, to help keep the root zone in good order.

T

 

[Tokesome]

Well I`m glad I went to the trouble of re-potting down to 7 litre pots, there are roots showing at the bottoms of most of the pots already, in a week they`ll be back in the 3 gall tubs with a good enhanced root system.

They wont need feeding for a couple of days, with the exception of maybe a couple that feel quite light already. I want them to go quite dry to get those roots searching for food and moisture.

Room humidity is around 48% at the mo, temps around 78f. The temps will increase once I get the 3rd 600w light switched on on.

The plants still dont have the full colour and vibrance I`d like to see, but they`re doing ok, no more yellowing, but still quite limey. I`m thinking of giving them a half strength foliar feed every couple of days for a while to try and give them a boost.

I`m being very strict with my lst training/plant bondage, by the time they hit the screen all the main branches will be reaching it along with plenty of strong offshoots. I want the screen to fill out as quickly as possible, so if I get everything there and pretty even by the time they really start growing they`ll fill it out in no time. All the yellowed leaves will be under the screen and then removed and with a different feeding regime and RO water and shit to keep the roots healthy I`m really hoping that I dont see any yellowing after that stage.

Toke

 

[Tokesome]

Mmm, getting slight nute burn on the tips of newish leaves, so I guess thats probably a sign of the nutes getting too strong in the pots due to the wet to dry cycle they`re having. Also EC15 is probably a bit on the strong side at this stage anyway.

I`m still waiting for the pots to dry out a bit more before wetting them again, to make those roots spread as much, and as quickly as possible. The pots could do with a good flush though so when they`re ready I`ll give them all a good flush with plenty of run off, of ph`d water, top them off with a lighter feed then they should only probably need feeding again once prior to transplanting back into the 3 gall pots in a few days time.

I`m looking into what material I can use for a wick, as I`m going to insert a wick 2-3 inches intp the bottom of each pot, to rid them of that excessive moisture build up and hopefully keep the moisture content of the coco a bit more consistent throughout. May leave it till they`re in the 3 gall pots though as the roots will be through it in no time which would break when I re-pot.

All the plants are holding their leaves up well and starting tom look a bit darker in colour, so I`m hoping I`m on the right track to a solution, I`ll feel a bit more confident when I`m half to 3/4`s way through flower though ;-)

Toke

 

[bonecarver_OG]

Looking at your pictures it does seem that your plants are missing a lot of available potential root zone in the middle areas. In coir the roots generally shoot to the sides of the pot quickly and form a dense layer. By using 3 stages there will be another one of these dense layers right in the middle of the pot, as well as at the top (from the cup) and at the bottom. Anyways, the extra bud is enough justification for me.

As far as I know dropping pH levels and salt build up only occurs after a certain threshold of dryness is reached. Until that point the pH of the medium should actually rise (and the EC drop) as the plant draws nutes out of the water. This is because coco absorbs water well but doesn't actually take in the nutes. Essentially this means that the water that seeps out of the coco to replace what the plant drinks has no nutes in it. The nute count will steadily fall, but the water level will stay constant (as far as the roots are concerned).

It's only when this reserve water from the coco runs out that the roots begin to dry out and salts accumulate. I have acutally measured a rise of about 0.4 in pH between waterings. Though most of this is speculation based on notes I took a couple years ago, it matches well with what I see over the course of the week as the plants seem to slowly recover from any Mg def they might initially show (if it is actually low pH causing Mg lockout).

I think this is why coco is considered a hydro-like medium since the roots take all of the nutes from the water and not the material. The water level at the roots remains constant even though the coco itself is drying out (up to a point obviously).

lots of good points there mate

 

[Tokesome]

Hey thanks for dropping in BC.

Mmm. . . . didn`t have enough bottled water to flush em through properly so I`ve fed at EC10+Rhizotonic+Atazime at ph6.0 til very slight run off. Hopefully I`ll get my RO filter fitted within a couple of days and can flush at will then.

I hope to only feed them once more before potting up and fitting the screen.

One or two of my plants are showing some rust marks on some of the upper older leaves, mainly along the main central vein, a few others have gone kind of brown along the same vein too. Along with this, many of the larger (but not so old are developing quite purpley red stems.

Any ideas what this might be down to? They should be getting all the nutes they require, could it be down to me getting them too wet and then letting them get too dry?

Sorry the pics are off my phone, still no camera replacement yet

Toke