socialgrow
New member
Hello everyone! I'm a new ish grower, on my 4th or 5th organic auto run. Before we get into it, my girls are mostly doing fine and I'm kinda overreacting, but I'm shooting for perfect and I wanna learn whatever some more experienced folks can teach me. Feel free to dump lots of info on me, books(!!!), whole websites, massive forum posts, etc. Thanks in advance for the help!
I moved right before this run, so I just threw together the ingredients i had on hand to make a new batch of soil instead of using my old soil that had sat dry and unused for a few months. Not sure why I thought i was mixing a lighter mix, but i added 1.5Cups (24Tbsp) each of Dr. Earth 4-4-4 (recommended .5C/5gal) AND Rainbow Mix Bloom 2-14-2 (recommended 1-4Tbsp/gal) into my 10 gallon mix. I assume my thinking was that because I had 2 plants in the same pot, i should double the nutes, so by only adding 1.5x that would be a lighter, autos suitable mix. Lol... The genetics are one ILGM Jack Herer that have been a massive pain in my ass in 4 diff grows now and one North Atlantic Seed Co freebie Green Crack (2+ years old, can't find the breeder, unfortunate bc the wide variance among what people call Green Crack). The base is an eyeballed ~1:1:1 coir (lazily buffered: a few rinses then a strong calmag drench), perl, compost (CoM Lobster) mix, with a few handfuls of castings, and innoculated with ~8 red wigglers. I water with a lite dose of Ful Power most waterings, occasionally work in Neptunes Harvest seaweed extract or fish & seaweed usually not at full dose, and some various run of the mill microbe products. I top dressed small amounts of castings, malted barley and oats, and just a touch of bloom.
Fast forward to now, ~86 days from germ and well into flower, I've been dealing with some ongoing leaf tip burn, spots, accelerated leaf drop (in my unprofessional assessment), chlorosis on a few upper leaves, narrow leaves (though both are sativa dominant so not really sure that's an issue), possibly delayed onset of flower (Herer has had issues initiating flower every. single. time. that I've ran it [shoutout Mephisto for breeding real, quality autos, not this ILGM garbage]), and occasional wilting independent of water. Pics show some symptoms over the past few weeks. Based on this ever so common chart, I'm thinking Phos is the main culprit, but there's so much cross interference/lockout it's hard to tell. A few symptoms seem to indicate calcium and potassium issues, but that's all gotta be downstream of the phos excess. I was wondering if something was proportionally deficient, but after flushing and checking runoff, a 3.0+ EC (albeit w a 2 year old $10 uncalibrated TDS pen) tells me it can only be an excess. The symptoms aren't that severe and the Herer genetics have been very finicky in my experience, but that sky high EC reading is what's prompting this post/my urgency to fix it.
Regardless of trying to pin down the particular excess, what's the solution? I shop vac'd up much of the top dress layer. I tossed some BAS cover crop seed, but those won't make any impact for a minute. I should def calibrate or but a better TDS pen, but my grow budget is hovering right around $0 at the moment. I think empty biochar would leech up some excess nutrients, but only near that top layer, plus i'm fresh out. I've got some Ful Humix, which I understand is a good buffer, but not really sure if it makes sense to use here. I have an extra mini bloom ion board i could add to kick metabolism into high gear, but one of my girls is kinda wrapping up flower and should be dialing back DLI, not increasing. I'm not sure if I should continue watering with Ful Power, or if thats contributing to the burn. I'm not sure if i should try to focus on microbial populations (adding recharge, great white, homemade castings, etc) bc i don't know if that will increase nutrient cycling and burn further, or provide a microbial buffer and alleviate burn...
Is there anything to do other than ride it out?
(Pics are from oldest to newest, Herer is the taller one on the left, Green Crack shorter earlier to flower on the right)
I moved right before this run, so I just threw together the ingredients i had on hand to make a new batch of soil instead of using my old soil that had sat dry and unused for a few months. Not sure why I thought i was mixing a lighter mix, but i added 1.5Cups (24Tbsp) each of Dr. Earth 4-4-4 (recommended .5C/5gal) AND Rainbow Mix Bloom 2-14-2 (recommended 1-4Tbsp/gal) into my 10 gallon mix. I assume my thinking was that because I had 2 plants in the same pot, i should double the nutes, so by only adding 1.5x that would be a lighter, autos suitable mix. Lol... The genetics are one ILGM Jack Herer that have been a massive pain in my ass in 4 diff grows now and one North Atlantic Seed Co freebie Green Crack (2+ years old, can't find the breeder, unfortunate bc the wide variance among what people call Green Crack). The base is an eyeballed ~1:1:1 coir (lazily buffered: a few rinses then a strong calmag drench), perl, compost (CoM Lobster) mix, with a few handfuls of castings, and innoculated with ~8 red wigglers. I water with a lite dose of Ful Power most waterings, occasionally work in Neptunes Harvest seaweed extract or fish & seaweed usually not at full dose, and some various run of the mill microbe products. I top dressed small amounts of castings, malted barley and oats, and just a touch of bloom.
Fast forward to now, ~86 days from germ and well into flower, I've been dealing with some ongoing leaf tip burn, spots, accelerated leaf drop (in my unprofessional assessment), chlorosis on a few upper leaves, narrow leaves (though both are sativa dominant so not really sure that's an issue), possibly delayed onset of flower (Herer has had issues initiating flower every. single. time. that I've ran it [shoutout Mephisto for breeding real, quality autos, not this ILGM garbage]), and occasional wilting independent of water. Pics show some symptoms over the past few weeks. Based on this ever so common chart, I'm thinking Phos is the main culprit, but there's so much cross interference/lockout it's hard to tell. A few symptoms seem to indicate calcium and potassium issues, but that's all gotta be downstream of the phos excess. I was wondering if something was proportionally deficient, but after flushing and checking runoff, a 3.0+ EC (albeit w a 2 year old $10 uncalibrated TDS pen) tells me it can only be an excess. The symptoms aren't that severe and the Herer genetics have been very finicky in my experience, but that sky high EC reading is what's prompting this post/my urgency to fix it.
Regardless of trying to pin down the particular excess, what's the solution? I shop vac'd up much of the top dress layer. I tossed some BAS cover crop seed, but those won't make any impact for a minute. I should def calibrate or but a better TDS pen, but my grow budget is hovering right around $0 at the moment. I think empty biochar would leech up some excess nutrients, but only near that top layer, plus i'm fresh out. I've got some Ful Humix, which I understand is a good buffer, but not really sure if it makes sense to use here. I have an extra mini bloom ion board i could add to kick metabolism into high gear, but one of my girls is kinda wrapping up flower and should be dialing back DLI, not increasing. I'm not sure if I should continue watering with Ful Power, or if thats contributing to the burn. I'm not sure if i should try to focus on microbial populations (adding recharge, great white, homemade castings, etc) bc i don't know if that will increase nutrient cycling and burn further, or provide a microbial buffer and alleviate burn...
Is there anything to do other than ride it out?
(Pics are from oldest to newest, Herer is the taller one on the left, Green Crack shorter earlier to flower on the right)
