I give up, what is this deficiency?

[roflio]

As I know most will immideately jump to the images first: I am well aware that growing many plants in such close proximity to each other within a single large pot is suboptimal (just trying this out for the hell of it). This is not the root cause of this partciular issue as this has been going on in almost ALL my grows for FOUR YEARS, which normally means 1 plant per pot (of various sizes).

If some of my choices regarding pots or something else seems weird, I am still using this mini-grow: https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=317867

The problem starts manifesting itself roughly 2 weeks into the grow stage, which is basically the moment you are supposed to start adding nutrients to water instead of relying on the nutrients present in the soil alone. However the fact that I start feeding does not stop this from problem from progressing further. Leaves start drooping a bit and start yellowing from bottom to top. New growth appears fine. The problem completely stops progressing immideately as soon I switch over to flowering lights/nutrients. Things I've tried so far:

3 different types of soil
3 different pot sizes
2 different types of grow nutrients (previously Biobizz, currently Bio Nova Veganics)
4 hours of darkness per day / lights on 24/7 (current pick)
More/less grow nutrients
More/less watering
Adding some calmag/adding quite a bit of calmag

Literally none of the above seems to have an impact on this problem and it just continues escalating precisely up until the point where I switch over to flowering, which is when it stops progressing pretty much immideately. I still get reasonable harvests as the plants usually get to the right size/shape for my micro-grow before I eliminate the problem by switching over to flowering before this issue completely ravages the plants, but I can't help feeling that something is still obviously very wrong and that my end results could be significantly better if I could figure out what the hell my actual problem is.

 

[f-e]

Does your switch to bloom coincide with a switch to bloom feed with considerably more P than your veg feed?

 

[Hammerhead]

I don't see any mention of your PH ?. If growing in soilless medium Nutrient PH should be 6.5.. If your in coco ph should be 5.8. It takes time for PH issues to resolve. Make sure you cal your meter before you use it. The fastest way would be to flush. You could check the ph of your runoff. There shouldn't be a huge difference between whats going in. I never use cal/mag ever!. I think this is better used for coco growers. I use promix hp for my medium. PPM 450, PH 6.5.

 

[roflio]

Does your switch to bloom coincide with a switch to bloom feed with considerably more P than your veg feed?

https://www.growbarato.net/en/bio-nova-fertilizers/4061-veganics-grow.html# this is what I am using for grow
https://www.growbarato.net/en/bio-nova-fertilizers/4062-veganics-bloom.html this is what I am using for bloom

I've considered that something provided by the blooming fertilizer is severely lacking in the grow one despite potentially being needed, so I've also tried adding small amounts of bloom fertilizer during the grow phase but that doesn't seem to have made much (if any) impact. Though to be fair, when I tried that I started adding it at the end of week 3-4.

Am I making a mistake by ignoring all "supplemental" fertilizers provided by BioBizz and Bionova, things like TopMax, Alg-a-Mic (tried once, no effect on the problem) and the like?

 

[roflio]

I don't see any mention of your PH ?. If growing in soilless medium Nutrient PH should be 6.5.. If your in coco ph should be 5.8. It takes time for PH issues to resolve. Make sure you cal your meter before you use it. The fastest way would be to flush. You could check the ph of your runoff. There shouldn't be a huge difference between whats going in. I never use cal/mag ever!. I think this is better used for coco growers. I use promix hp for my medium. PPM 450, PH 6.5.

I thought the photos and the text made it pretty plain that I am using soil.

 

[BlackBart]

That's a mag def if I ever saw one

 

[roflio]

That's a mag def if I ever saw one

This would make little sense as my fertilizer is:

grow: Magnesium (Mg) 1.1%
flower: Magnesium (Mg) 0.5%

So how would having less mag resolve the issue?

 

[Hammerhead]

I thought the photos and the text made it pretty plain that I am using soil.

Its not. I can see what looks like rock wool as well.

I looked up biobizz 3-0-8. It says its natural and organic based feed. It says no PH adjustments need which is odd to me?. Using bloom nutrients is not recommended in veg.

I use Pure Blend Pro grow which is also Natural and organic based.. It uses a NPK value of 3-2-4. The only other additive I use is seagreen 1x for ea plant. If I didn't check my PH it would have devastating effects. After mixing my PH is about 4.5. I have to adjust up to 6.5 before I use it.

I would recommend you check your feed ph. if its good like they say you can rule out that as a issue. IMO PH is super important.

 

[roflio]

Sorry, the edit button isn't available to me as I am under 50 posts.

Theoretically it could be that even the 1.1% provided by grow fertiliser is not enough during the grow phase and I need more, but I have tried upping the amount of grow fertiliser provided and it inevitable resulted in Nitrogen overdosing, without solving the original problem.

 

[roflio]

Pretty much everything I've read says that PH issues are concern when you use mediums other than soil. Is this untrue? Yes, I do have rock wool but its just the 4cm cubes I germinate the seeds in and then place in the pot. The rest is all soil (of which I tried 3 different varieties as mentioned in the OP).

 

[Hammerhead]

I think using biobizz is fine. Remember plants cant uptake the nutrients needed if not in the proper PH range. Don't over think it. Eliminate ea probable cause 1 by 1.


Absolutely not. The Nutrients you use effects PH. No matter what medium you use plants cant use the nutrients given if the PH is bad. Some soilless mediums come with PH buffers. This doesn't last the whole grow.

 

[f-e]

That's a mag def if I ever saw one

Slaps you in the face doesn't it. I'm not sure it's the cause though, it might be just a symptom. I think they look drenched which causes the N problems showing to. The bloom feed halves the Mg but entirely drops the Ca making the Mg actually more prevalent until we start seeing the calmag on the list.

I'm going to await a pH sample from within the substrate. There are whispers go around about soil not needing any sort of pH testing. Apparently Elvis still lives to.

 

[Hammerhead]

Ive been growing in soil forever. Everyone I know checks there Nutrient PH regardless of medium used. If your a experienced grower you could do it knowing your base Nutrients well. If your feeding outside the proper PH range your not gonna grow well. I have 135 different strain albums that prove this .

 

[Lyfespan]

too many variables here and nothing to follow. reduce the variables, and document the changes made, making changes one at a time to track the new variations. control your scale.

 

[BlackBart]

I would use Ph corrected water and do a flush and start over . Sometimes organic nutes don't uptake as easy as salt ferts

 

[vulcanofilo]

Tienes un virus, bacterias o hongos en tu entorno.

No le des más vueltas,

Infórmate bien

 

[f-e]

The feeds don't look extremely different, except the bloom not listing calcium. The K rises a fair bit which strengthens plant frame. Often when plants are happier in flower it's that they didn't like the dli received in veg. A flowering plant gets a good few hours rest and recovery each day, which just as with us, can be life or death

 

[Tynehead Tom]

when the OP says he's growing in "soil" ..... what soil? is it something like fox farms or a similar organic based soil or is it a "soilless mix" like promix HP or sunshine mix ?

I use sunshine mix #4 , since 1989 when i was first taught to grow. I did take a little under 10 years off in that 32 year span, but always had a hand in someone's garden during that time off.

anyhow, it's important to know if it's real soil or soilless mix.
A flush is in order.
-Take one plant and flush it with a solution PH'd at 6.8
-catch that runoff and measure it for both PH and EC/PPM
then let us know what those values are.

I run sunshine 4
lucas method with General Hydro Flora series (micro and bloom only)
In soil the feed ratio for veg is 5ml micro/10ml bloom + 2.5ml granulated gypsum OR 150ppm of soluable gypsum per gallon PH to 6.8
2 weeks before bloom that ratio is bumped to 8ml micro, 16ml bloom + 150ppm gypsum PH 6.8
that is not my complete feeding regimen but I don't know anyone who I have taught this method too over the years that has met with failure or unhealthy plants.
I rarely need to flush.... ever..... and if hungry plants are encountered that my feed regimen doesn't adress..... I apply 1/4 strength foilar feeds

anyhow..... Can't adress the problem without knowing PH and EC/PPM values of your "soil" and what soil is it.

 

[FletchF.Fletch]

When you sprout in Rockwool cubes, do you feed them before transplanting to soil?

Also, do you use ph corrected water while they're in the cubes?

Pay attention to the post above, and those by Hammerhead.

Ph is important to monitor in soil. When it is off balance, nutrients become unavailable to the plants which Shows Up as nutrient deficiencies.

 

[CrustyCruz]

Those leaves buckling down are your biggest clue. They are buckled, not drooping, which rules out most over the net diagnosis. The flesh is outgrowing the skeleton,essentially.

I had this problem with low available calcium. I had bought some promix and added lime. The lime wasn't solublized and raised the ph higher than expected. Does that mean ph was the problem or a tool to help me solve the problem?

Normally microbes produce the acids to make calcium carbonate available. There's no microbes in promix. I didn't add any acid to my feeds. LEDs make the problem worse, I lost tons of seedlings under LEDs. But hey, now I've got led-proof, low rh proof, high ph proof genetics. I did it on purpose I promise! Got a strain called Newb Dream, straight 2022 future terps! Everybody buy multiple packs for 4/20 stocking stuffers!

Ph doesn't mean anything by itself. You can 'properly' ph RO water all day, doesn't mean you've changed squat. The question is how much acid do I need in my medium. Ph'ing your water is only about the calcium in the water. Lots of crappy organic soils would be better off Ph'ing the water much lower to make up for their lack of microbial metabolites. In all my years I've never even seen growers discuss what microbes produce. Well if you've ever bought citric acid from a store, it was definitely produced by aspergillus niger (black mold).