Is this nutrient deficiency?

[coo_kie]

Hi there, first of all forgive me for any "bad english" I will use from this moment on.
I'm raising some "girls" outdoors and I ran into a problem. In a nutshell, older leaves are yellowing with some brown spots on their tips and some on the sides of leaves.
I'm guessing it's nitrogen deficiency by looking how chlorosis is happening, although I'm not sure about this so I'm asking you any advice to let them be healthy again.
I'm using BioBizz All Mix as substrate, BioBizz BioGrow and BioBloom as fertilizers and BioBizz TopMax as stimulator. The all time I was sticking to what they were saying in their feeding chart. Also, I know producers are generally overestimating the amount of nutrients a plant needs, so I used about 75% of what recommended. Given that all of the three are organic fertilizers and newer leaves are just fine, I wouldn't say it's a nutrient burn, am I right?
In the first 50 days I didn't use anything at all.
For about 20 days I gave them 5ml-8ml of Biogrow alternating with plain water
In the past two weeks I've been feeding them 10 to 15ml of BioBizz + 5 to 7ml of TopMax + 5 to 7ml in 10L of water, measuring Ph with the solution inside and getting 6.1 as result. In the last feedings I added just a little bit of BioBizz CalMag (2ml/10L)
Didn't measure EC and PH of runoff, though.
I'm worried because yellowing started about 2 weeks ago and is slow but not stopping, and it's not happening in the same way on all of them. Out of 7, just 2/3 have been more affected which are the biggest and the smallest.
So I'm planning to increase the amount of nutrient in these plants and see what happens. Last time I feeded the two of them with an extra BioGrow dose giving 2,5ml/L but I didn't see any significant changes.
Thanks for any help!
P.S.: photos are from a few days ago and aren't that clear as I had to take the shots really quickly, so I apologize for that.

 

[Creeperpark]

No problem friend, you will lose a few bottom leaves growing outdoors. Its most likely from the heat. The leaf that is bronzed looks like it could be from using hard water. You may want to add a layer of mulch on top of the soil to help keep the roots from drying out. You can wrap cotton clothe around the container to buffer the heat.

 

[xet]

Not enough hours of direct light and applying too much water.

 

[blondie]

The small white spots on your leaves... is it dust or easily wipe off? If not my vote is mites/aphids/thrips. Some type of bug damage. Look at the underside of the leaves for something slowly crawling along.

 

[coo_kie]

Hey guys, thank you for answering. I actually replied a couple days ago but somehow my post disappeared, so I'm starting over.

No problem friend, you will lose a few bottom leaves growing outdoors. Its most likely from the heat. The leaf that is bronzed looks like it could be from using hard water. You may want to add a layer of mulch on top of the soil to help keep the roots from drying out. You can wrap cotton clothe around the container to buffer the heat.

You're actually right, cause I was using pretty high ppm water, now I changed source and went down from 1500-1600ppm to 850ppm which is the optimal range, at least from what I read. I'm gonna try cooling them down since humidity is also at about 20% which is only good in late flowering. Also temperature's is quite high: 25°C at night and 35-40°C in some mornings.

Not enough hours of direct light and applying too much water.

I use other plants and the three they're staying nearby as "camouflage", so it could be possibile since they stretched during veg. How much water would you apply?

The small white spots on your leaves... is it dust or easily wipe off? If not my vote is mites/aphids/thrips. Some type of bug damage. Look at the underside of the leaves for something slowly crawling along.

I'm not sure, I believe it's from the three almost above them. Only some leaves are "affected" and I noticed that long time ago but it's not progressing in any kind of form. Since it seems it's kinda dust coming from somewhere, I'm not that worried.


I'm uploading some detailed photos about these white leaves and what I think might be K deficiency. I'm just guessing, I'm far from being expert, but I didn't go over 1ml/L of biobloom and they're beginning flowering.
Haven't got any chance to measure runoff :'(
I'm still dealing with 2 or 3 of them. There's a slight yellowing that occurs in the others as well, but it's not continous, it just happens sometimes then it kinda stops.

 

[coo_kie]

Update: I measured runoff pH and ppm of the most severly affected plant and the output was 5.0 pH and an insanely high 7200ppm. Input is about 6.2 Ph and 850ppm. I don't actually know how this happened, but let's say I need to flush. Maybe some comparisons with other plants runoff would make things clearer, so in the next days I'm gonna try with the most healthy.

 

[Three Berries]

That's what my FF Ocean Forest was like the first time I watered to run off. Good luck.

 

[coo_kie]

Update: not dead yet, but still dealing with some issues. I'm flushing all the plants since measurements showed high ppm values in those as well (in the range of 5000-6000ppm). In the next days I hope I can see some recovery. I also think flowering is a bit delayed due to these problems and that's not good news. Some older leaves are yellowing because of the messy soil.
My guessing is that what's been happening is due to nutrient lockout and some heavily unbalanced values of Ph overall. I was thinking the opposite a coulpe of weeks ago before these measurements, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm going down this path (plain water and pushing Ph upwards) with other little ones indoors that are showing higher than normal values and some yellowing tips and, for now, they like it and look very healthy.
I also want to buy another Ph Meter or re-calibrate the one that I've already got in the future, just to be sure I'm reading true values.

That's what my FF Ocean Forest was like the first time I watered to run off. Good luck.

How did it end eventually? Did you manage to restore normal values?


If you guys have any experience about this, please tell me if I should be aware of something in particular.

 

[Three Berries]

Update: not dead yet, but still dealing with some issues. I'm flushing all the plants since measurements showed high ppm values in those as well (in the range of 5000-6000ppm). In the next days I hope I can see some recovery. I also think flowering is a bit delayed due to these problems and that's not good news. Some older leaves are yellowing because of the messy soil.
My guessing is that what's been happening is due to nutrient lockout and some heavily unbalanced values of Ph overall. I was thinking the opposite a coulpe of weeks ago before these measurements, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm going down this path (plain water and pushing Ph upwards) with other little ones indoors that are showing higher than normal values and some yellowing tips and, for now, they like it and look very healthy.
I also want to buy another Ph Meter or re-calibrate the one that I've already got in the future, just to be sure I'm reading true values.


How did it end eventually? Did you manage to restore normal values?


If you guys have any experience about this, please tell me if I should be aware of something in particular.

No, it's always been high ppm run off. It's suffering from potassium deficiency now though.

One thing I just found out is my TDS meter was junk. I had a $10 one from eBay and it finally quit. Bought three more off ebay similar. None would agree with each other and when trying to measure a more concentrated mix than rainwater they all were quite well apart from each other and none near correct. Brand new.

So I got an Apera TDS 20 last week. It quite the eye opener as I have been making a CaCl2 1450 ppm mix for direct application. That mix turned out to be almost twice as high at ~3500.

So all my past ppm measurements mean nothing.

 

[blondie]

Try using happy frog instead of ocean forest. I’ve read but no experience that OF is hot compared to happy frog.

 

[mountainfarmer1]

you have bugs. 100%. Like someone else already suggested, look on underside of leaves. Your feeding plants that aren't eating.

Update: not dead yet, but still dealing with some issues. I'm flushing all the plants since measurements showed high ppm values in those as well (in the range of 5000-6000ppm). In the next days I hope I can see some recovery. I also think flowering is a bit delayed due to these problems and that's not good news. Some older leaves are yellowing because of the messy soil.
My guessing is that what's been happening is due to nutrient lockout and some heavily unbalanced values of Ph overall. I was thinking the opposite a coulpe of weeks ago before these measurements, but please correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm going down this path (plain water and pushing Ph upwards) with other little ones indoors that are showing higher than normal values and some yellowing tips and, for now, they like it and look very healthy.
I also want to buy another Ph Meter or re-calibrate the one that I've already got in the future, just to be sure I'm reading true values.


How did it end eventually? Did you manage to restore normal values?


If you guys have any experience about this, please tell me if I should be aware of something in particular.

Do better.

 

[mountainfarmer1]

1. spray plants, in the shade, with neem oil at 1 tbl sp/gal. once every 5 days 2-3 times or till buds start showing.
2. Flush plants with 1/4 strength nutes with 3x whatever container size you are using. ex. if using 5 gallon container flush with 15 gallons of 1/4 strength nutrient feed. don't worry about the ph if you don't have a meter. if you DO have a meter and can PH to 6.5-7.0 do it.
3. After flush leave plants alone and in as much sun as possible. Lift the pots to feel how much water is in soil and allow to dry out some. Not bone dry but the plants need to recooperate after this ordeal.

 

[coo_kie]

No, it's always been high ppm run off. It's suffering from potassium deficiency now though.

One thing I just found out is my TDS meter was junk. I had a $10 one from eBay and it finally quit. Bought three more off ebay similar. None would agree with each other and when trying to measure a more concentrated mix than rainwater they all were quite well apart from each other and none near correct. Brand new.

So I got an Apera TDS 20 last week. It quite the eye opener as I have been making a CaCl2 1450 ppm mix for direct application. That mix turned out to be almost twice as high at ~3500.

So all my past ppm measurements mean nothing.

I hope they bounce back. I have the same fear: TDS and Ph Meter were cheap enough so I'm worried they can lead me wrong. I'll remember that Apera TDS for the future.

you have bugs. 100%. Like someone else already suggested, look on underside of leaves. Your feeding plants that aren't eating.

Do better.

I'm trying to have a closer look but maybe I'm missing something. I took some photos, and I will do better research on bugs since I purposely avoided to do it (thinking that my plants wouldn't have been affected and also because I put my energies elsewhere).

1. spray plants, in the shade, with neem oil at 1 tbl sp/gal. once every 5 days 2-3 times or till buds start showing.
2. Flush plants with 1/4 strength nutes with 3x whatever container size you are using. ex. if using 5 gallon container flush with 15 gallons of 1/4 strength nutrient feed. don't worry about the ph if you don't have a meter. if you DO have a meter and can PH to 6.5-7.0 do it.
3. After flush leave plants alone and in as much sun as possible. Lift the pots to feel how much water is in soil and allow to dry out some. Not bone dry but the plants need to recooperate after this ordeal.

I'll buy some neem oil and spray them as you said. They're slowed down but preflowers already developed, am I still in time?
Did some flushing two days ago (Input: 100ppm plain water with 8.0 Ph) and after 7 gallons of water for each plant I managed to get runoff of 5.1-5.2 Ph and 1000ppm for all of them. It's not the final result, I'll try to raise Ph using lime/baking soda.

I'm still trying to figure out if higher Ph water is good in these scenarios.

Also, what do you mean by saying 1/4 strength nutes? Is it 1/4 of what I gave them or 1/4 of what recommended by producer? Anyways I'll have to wait and see if they recover after this flush. Last time it took 5 days for pots to dry.

P.S.: Little ones are just fine

 

[mountainfarmer1]

They are starting to look better. 1/4 of recommended amount.

 

[coo_kie]

Update: it's been a while and I'm still dealing with some issues. I'm not really happy about my first experience outdoors but I learned a few things that might be helpful for the future. They're currently in late flowering, but aren't healthy as I wanted them to be, not only because I messed up with nutes, but also due to pretty damn high temperatures and lack of light that made them stretch too much. Flowers look tinier than they should be but I gave up trying to fix everything, so my goal is to save what is possible.
Meanwhile, I might open one more thread to focus on the other ones indoors.

P.S.: for those who might be wondering, I eventually restored normal values of PH and PPM.

No, it's always been high ppm run off. It's suffering from potassium deficiency now though.

One thing I just found out is my TDS meter was junk. I had a $10 one from eBay and it finally quit. Bought three more off ebay similar. None would agree with each other and when trying to measure a more concentrated mix than rainwater they all were quite well apart from each other and none near correct. Brand new.

So I got an Apera TDS 20 last week. It quite the eye opener as I have been making a CaCl2 1450 ppm mix for direct application. That mix turned out to be almost twice as high at ~3500.

So all my past ppm measurements mean nothing.

Also, I got both Apera EC20 and Apera PH20. They're not showing massive differences like in your case (around 0.3 gap in PH and 0.1 gap in EC).

Anyway, thank you for your help guys, I really appreciate it.

 

[Three Berries]

I sent the Apera EC20 back as it is too limited in top value at 1000ppm. It was very accurate reading under that though.

My massive swings were due to the probes I was using being inaccurate. My well water would measure out at 440ppm on the cheap pen, 490ppm on the one I use now and Inkbird model.

 

[exploziv]

1000 ppm is a lot and may be enaugh for most growers.

 

[Three Berries]

1000 ppm is a lot and may be enaugh for most growers.

Yes it is. The first run off of Ocean Forest with nothing but rain water was over 4k ppm. I make my own CalMag mixes too and start with concentrated mixes around 3k-4k ppm. Then cut them to 1400 ppm or so for actual use.