any help appreciated

[Dirty]

howdy guys,

I'm having a problem with my flowering girls, they're on day 18 12/12, the leaves, it's mostly affecting the fan leaves, are getting brown spots on them, some plants are worse than others.

at the moment i DO have a spidermite problem in the grow rooms, though not so much in the flower room because the plants have been getting hit with neem oil every other day for about two weeks.

it looks like a calcium problem, but i DO have garden lime, garden gypsum and espoma plant tone in my soil mix (using promix hp).

I'm using Earthjuice ferts.

I guess i'm just looking for someone to confirm whether they believe it's a Ca deficiency or not, and if so, it's probably due to a ph lockout.

So if anyone knows about using EJ's ferts then please give me some input as to what to expect as far as ph fluctuations in my resevoir tubs.

pics





I appreciate any help guys.

 

[MTF-Sandman]

Are you washing off the neem after using it? Looks like burn from it sitting on the leaves to me...

If you haven't killed the mites by now, it's not working or you're not spraying them thoroughly enough. Might wanna look into something a little stronger and nuke the borg before it wrecks your harvest.

 

[Guest]

Too much mite damage to begin diagnosing anything else.

I've used EJ but at 1 20th strength in Aquaponics and I always bubble it 24 hours first as a high injection of organics into a hydro system will strip the oxygen if not done gradually and pre-bubbled.

Never add organic nutes via the tops of your plants. I have a drip hole into one container, alternately lift a plant then add it, keep it off the air roots too much work for the fungi living there. I've not used it for months only because I'm using 0 nutes now relying totally on the systems wastes to fert my plants.

EJ also has a shelf life, as stated by a EJ company rep. I love the stuff, but some folks have definately had problems with it it swings pH, can be too 'old', strips oxygen if not pre-prepared etc.

I have a massive buffer in my system (3 year old bio-filtration. I could throw a turd in there and not swing the pH.) Virgin systems may not have what it takes to do bio justice and EJ products only really shine when used in conjunction with bacteria. (bought or established the home made way)

Hope that helped or a least made a little bit of sense....

 

[Rhino]

If your looking for a nuclear option, I would look into avid.
http://www.syngentaprofessionalproducts.com/to/prod/avid/index.asp?nav=MOA

Just don't use it in the last 2-3 weeks of flowering.

 

[MTF-Sandman]

Avid with SM90 works great, but I wouldn't use it if there's pistils showing since it remains on the plant for up to 28 days. There's also floramite, pyrethrin bug bombs, no pest strips and a host of other ways to get rid of em.

Keeping the temps lower and the humidity a little higher than normal will help slow down their reproduction so that the removal method will have better results (plus you might end up with purple buds from the temps )

The only time I had mites I used the avid/SM90 with a couple of NPS hanging and they were gone in a couple of days...followed up with another spray of Avid/SM90 6 days later just to be safe.

When treating mites, it's imperative that you COMPLETELY saturate all of the plant (tops and bottoms of the leaves and stems) and it's not a bad idea to spray the medium and pots to make sure that any stragglers get hit with it. You can also rub a thin bead of vaseline around the lip of the pot to make sure that they don't crawl from pot to pot...

 

[Dirty]

thanks guys

thanks guys

thanks guys, i've been using a neem oil spray, hopefully the mites are gone, i'll check tomorrow and make sure.

i really think the problem could be the ph though, i'm thinking of trying to look to other ferts other than earthjuice, like THSeek said it really does mess with your ph. I cant even seem to get a handle on my ph now, i thought EJ would lower the ph, i add EJ, check ph, it's 8.0, when the water it came from was only 7.0.

I dunno though, there's ALOT that needs to be done with this room, and i suppose it just takes a while to get everything zero'd in. If anyone knows of a good fert that works for them, keeping in mind i'm using an organic peat based mix, then by all means, let me know.

I promise i'll start giving more detailed posts of what all's going on with the room, just seems like i'm always so stressed on time. =(

once again, thanks everyone for the responses,
and stay safe,
Dirty

 

[aeric]

I have the same problem and have narrowed it down to a few things...it isn't pH....clones of the same plant in 3 different mediums all have it to varying degrees, pH in various ranges...all the same spotting.

 

[Dirty]

well i just don't know if it's not the ph and not overfert, what in the world could it be? my girls look like they've almost stopped growing the past 3 days.

I dunno, i'm just frustrated with the problems i'm having. tomorrow i'll give the girls a good flush and see if that helps anything.

 

[jolee]

Certainly looks like overfert to me

A flush is a good idea

J

 

[Blackmelo]

hey there Dirty,
i had a very similar problem a while back, thought it was a calcium deficiency and turns out it was but not because I had too little calcium but because it was beeing locked out.
Now the two main causes for calcium to get locked out are a too strong concentration of Nitrogen or a wrong ph.

How can you rule out either? In my opinion you are most likely burning your plants with too much Nitrogen.

 

[Dirty]

aye, i gave the girls plain water lastnight, next waterings will also be plain, until i can really figure out what it is. but, to be honost, overferting sounds like something I'd do... loving something too much and wanting it to grow too fast can be a bad thing, ya know? =)

p.s. i updated my grow diary thread if anyone want to take a look, things are slowly coming along.


and I'm loving all the feed back guys, REALLY appreciate it, I'm hoping everyone is enjoying their weekend and is safe,
Dirty