My older/lower leaves are Yellowing to browning and then dying

[DragonPassiflora]

Hello Everyone.

Firstly thank you to everyone on this site who provides help and resources it is greatly appreciated.

Next I want to mention that I am having an issue with my plants. I am new to growing and I have started to develop some issues with older leaves yellowing, browning, and then dying. I thought this was a Nitrogen issue, but after adding more in to feedings I don't really see any change, and more are yellowing and dying, although it is relatively few overall compared to the plant(s) total leaf count, it is still a concern. I have 2 plants that are exhibiting similar issues, but I think the second one might have had nitrogen deficiency, but this other one I'm not too sure.


I have attached a number of photos to show off the plants. I also have attached a photo of a Basil plant that shows some signs of Light stress and possibly heat stress as the leaves are fairly light, but it is in the middle of both of the light fixtures so that might be the issues. I'm not sure if heat/light stress is causing issues with the other plants. I figured I would add the comment about it, and show the basil photo, just to make sure. I also have a Tomato plant on the other side of the grow bag, which shows no real signs of any issues, except for maybe a little bit of light stress as the top leaves that constantly are growing tall are getting a little close o the light sometimes, to which I end up raising it. Other than a little bleaching/yellowing of those leaves everything looks great and the tomato plant is flowering heavily now. I find it odd that the canna plants are showing issues, but the Tomato plant isn't....

A buddy of mine said that the tips look burnt on the new growth of the plants, which is something I notice all the time and it seems to green out and be fine once it grows out more, and only the "new growth" has this. He was a little concerned about the leaves corned downwards and the burnt tips on the older leaves of the second plant though, as that usually isn't the case with the bigger plant. I might have given it too much nutrients/N during the last feeding. My buddy also mentioned that the top of this plant looks like i stunted it's growth?

I notice that the leaves look "burnt" on the big plant and it's a weird bumpy like texture and I describe it like there was acid or something poured into the leaves and it got all burnt, which i thought might be nutrient burnt. My buddy said that maybe the foliar feeding is causing it, but I would think more leaves would have issues.

We also aren't sure if this is a PH Issues, so I will try some of the old strips I have for the fish tank and see. I also have a TDS Meter, so I could test my nutrients/water with that. One thing about PH I would think is that it should affect the Tomato plant too, right?

I just find it odd that this first started happening with the light adjustments.

One thing to also note is that the bigger plant's stem started turning more and more DARK purple in places, but there is a ton of green. I read the strain, Dutch Treat, can have purple stems genetically, so I'm unsure if it's that. The second plant still has a green main stem so Idk.

Some info on my grow setup

SOIL:




How long has this problem been going on?

Probably a few weeks or so now. I noticed the issue first start when I lowered my light and added the left panel into the center so I could have more light coverage. With more growth I noticed the yellowing which I thought was Nitrogen issues as I figured the plants were getting more light and needed more nutrients in response. I've changed the lighting up a bit, and since I started another grow bag on the left side, I moved the light panel back to the left side, from the center, which lowered the light amount by quite a bit. The yellowing is still occuring, but it's only been 2-3 days since I switched panels,s o I'm not sure if it's a lighting issue.

What STRAIN are you growing?
I received seeds from a buddy labeled "Dutch Treat" Feminized

What was the establishing technique? (seed or clone?)

Seeds

What is the age of your plants?

The big plant is about 60 days and the smaller one is 40 or so, it was stunted because as a new grower I was experimenting and I nutrient burned the plants... But I also now believe that I also was overwatering them.

How long have they been in the soil mixture they are in now?
The soil is the same throughout.

Were they in the same mixture when they were seedlings/smaller plant? If not, what mixture were they in before?
Yes

How Tall are the plants?
Bigger plant is 24" or so, smaller one is probably 8"

What PHASE (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in?
Vegetative

What Technique are you using? (SOG, SCROG etc)

I am using some light training methods on the plants just bending them. I was looking to SCROG, but didn't have to yet.
What size pots are you using? (Include how many subjects to pot)
65 Gallon Smart Pot, 2 canna plants in this one, plus a small basil and a medium sized tomato plant.

What substrate/medium are you using? What brand of soil mixture are you using?(percentage of perlite, vermiculite...etc?)
The first bag is a mixture of outdoor sandy soil, 2 cubic feet of peat moss, .6 or so cubic feet of pumice, probably half a cubic foot or less of biochar, some rock dusts, half a cubic foot of small lava rock, and 1.5 cubic feet or so of worm castings. Initially my soil was way too dense with the outdoor sandy soil, so I had to get the peat moss which helped out a lot. I'm not sure if I might have overwatering/drainage issues though.

What brand Nutrient's are you using?
I follow the "JADAM" way of nutrients so I made my own set of fermented nutrients. I have Fermented Fish, Food Waste, Fermented Orange Juice for potassium, Fermented Urine and Humanure, a simmered bone/leftovers from meat which is fermenting, fermented milk, honey water, and some others I'm looking to make such as a kelp, ash, and rock dust liquid fertilizer.

How much of each nutrient are you using with how much water? *Knowing the brand is very helpful*
I was feeding about 5ml of each initially with 1/2 gal of water, trying to stay within the dilution rates that JADAM calls for, being 100-500x, but after seeing these issues I ramped up to 15ml or so, which was about 150x Dilution I believe.

How often are you feeding?
I have been varied in my feedings. Once the plants were established and transplanted I tried to go about a week as that is what I read at first. A buddy of mine siad that was too much so I tried once every 3 days and I'm not sure how well that was, and I only did it 1-2x in the last few weeks. Then I saw some videos saying to just watch the plants, so the last time i watered was a little over a week and then I saw some droop and then I watered. The issues on the smaller plant started persisting also, which is also why I fed again, and maybe a little over a week was too long.

I also have been doing foliar feeding with all of the nutrients, and I had been trying to do it daily, but haven't been that on top of it the last couple of weeks.

I usually feed with every watering.

What order are you mixing your nutrients? (example: veg nutes 1st, bloom 2nd ect)
I don't really have an order, but I tend to do the food waste as the base fertilizer, then I add humanure, urine, and fish amino acids as the nitrogen source, then I will add some fermented milk, some honey water, coconut powder, aloe powder, and then I'm usually done. I've also been adding the simmered bones for the phosphorus for the tomato plant ,but the Fish Amino acids should have plenty of that also. I also started adding the bones for the silica content.

What is the TDS/EC/PPM of your nutrients used?
I don't take those readings.

What is the pH of the "RUN-OFF"?
I don't feed to run off, and I don't have a tray under my bags, I have mesh/wire shelves under the bags to allow for airflow, so I cannot overwater.

What size bulb are you using?
I have 2 HLG 350R Customs that output 360W each.

How old is your bulbs?
5 months or so.

What is the distance to the canopy?
it Varies but I think it's 14-15" at 50% or so power.

What is your RH Factor? (Relative Humidity)
48.7% but it can vary

What is the canopy temperature?
The room temp is 83*F, but when the fan blows air over it, it usually is less, but since I've had the temp sensor higher, it doesn't get as much air.

What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include fluctuation range)
Usually my room temp is 79-85F or so during the day, and drops into the mid to late 70's at night.

What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.)
I have an ACInfinity 4" which i believe pulls 210CFM, it's currently on max, door to closet is also open at this time.
Tell us about your ventilation, intake exhaust and when its running and not running ?
Small AC Infinity fan is blowing AC air into room tocool it off, looking ot upgrade to box fan and atach the AC Infinity fan onto the racking unit.
Is the fan blowing directly at plants?
Yes but it's far away.
Is the grow substrate constantly wet or moist?
The top dries out quickly, but the under layers usually are moist.

Is your water HARD or SOFT?
VERY HARD

What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water?
I run my tap water through a BIG BERKEY Water Filter.


Has plant been recently pruned, cloned or pinched?

No

Have any pest chemicals been used? If so what and when?
Chemical-Free Farming

Are plant's infected with pest's?
Not to my knowledge



Any help with this issue is appreciated... Thank you everyone!

 

[NEED 4 SEED]

Let me tell you, the soil looks like shit and that's why your plants look like shit, lol. Sorry for making a joke but what kind of soil is this? Get yourself a nice fresh bag of garden soil. It should look black and have lots of fine humus. When it's good for vegetables like tomatoes and cucumber it's usually good for weed too. With fresh soil young plants don't need to be fertilized. It's righteous nonsense to fertilize plants that are just a few days old. The bag is also too big for the small plant. It's difficult for a beginner to keep a plant-friendly moisture content when the plant can't use it up in a relatively short time. So it's probably a combination of wrong technique, material and level of care (overwatering, underwatering, overfertilizing, cutting down on service hours). You also seem to have some bugs or at least a very dusty environment. Get a clue what this white residue on the leaves is made of.
Cheers

 

[TanzanianMagic]

to stay within the dilution rates that JADAM calls for, being 100-500x, but after seeing these issues I ramped up to 15ml or so, which was about 150x Dilution I believe.

How often are you feeding?
I have been varied in my feedings. Once the plants were established and transplanted I tried to go about a week as that is what I read at first. A buddy of mine siad that was too much so I tried once every 3 days and I'm not sure how well that was, and I only did it 1-2x in the last few weeks. Then I saw some videos saying to just watch the plants, so the last time i watered was a little over a week and then I saw some droop and then I watered. The issues on the smaller plant started persisting also, which is also why I fed again, and maybe a little over a week was too long.

I also have been doing foliar feeding with all of the nutrients, and I had been tr

- Those are some odd growbags and ropes

I would check under those growbags for any signs of mold.

- I presume there is no problem with ventilation or offgassing

SOIL

That's the most important question.

JADAM is great, and I use fermented nutrients for a lot of things, however they are an intermediary between the plant and the nutrients in the soil. In other words - they work well with organically fertilized soil. Compost, Supersoil, etc. They don't have a lot of NPK nutrients in them.

Watering

I would start watering slowly and thoroughly, and then not water again until the top of the soil is dry after the lights go on in the morning. That's a catch-all method that compensates for differences in relative humidity, medium, container size, plant size, recent transplanting, etc.

 

[Creeperpark]

You need to feed your plants with a complete fertilizer.

 

[DragonPassiflora]

- Those are some odd growbags and ropes

I would check under those growbags for any signs of mold.

- I presume there is no problem with ventilation or offgassing

SOIL

That's the most important question.

JADAM is great, and I use fermented nutrients for a lot of things, however they are an intermediary between the plant and the nutrients in the soil. In other words - they work well with organically fertilized soil. Compost, Supersoil, etc. They don't have a lot of NPK nutrients in them.

Watering

I would start watering slowly and thoroughly, and then not water again until the top of the soil is dry after the lights go on in the morning. That's a catch-all method that compensates for differences in relative humidity, medium, container size, plant size, recent transplanting, etc.

I use Smartpots, I've seen them used a few times by people here and they seem to be a big name in fabric grow bags.

The "ropes" are just the seams of the bags, i don't have any ropes for training as of now, but was looking into hemp rope. I'll take a pic of the whole plant to show the plant better. I do do some light training.

I can check under the bags possibly, but they are huge. The bags are sitting on shelving units that are wired(i.e., there is plenty of air space on the bottom and nothing is touching the floor), so it should have plenty of proper airflow.

I am a bit confused about your JADAM nutrient comments, as to my understanding JADAM and KNF are complete systems that is supposed to replace any need for commercial fertilizer products and such. Manures, wastes, etc that are sometimes used in traditional farming (my local farm uses horse manure on his trees). JADAM mentions how you use certain items such as weeds and grasses because they are vegetative plants thus high in nitrogen, and then use fruits for potassium since the fruits needed potassium to grow, and provide potassium when eaten, so as a fertilizer it should be the same. This makes sense to me. I've also seen videos using wild grass fertilizers and even things such as urine fertilizers which people tout as having very high nitrogen levels. So when you say they don't have a lot of NPK nutrients in them, it confuses me.

Am I missing something? From what you're saying it's more of a supplement than a complete set of fertilizers? I have a number of inputs. From what I see the point of the JADAM Fertilizers are to fertilizer the soil microbes which will then convert into usable form for the plant? Is this the issue you were referring to?

I will say that I do have earthworm castings, and I do have lava rock and a few other rock dusts such as silica, and bentonite/montimorillite clays), kelp, and a few other amendments that were added to the soil initially, but otherwise my fertilization comes from the JADAM Inputs.


I also am wondering if maybe the leaf issues are because of too much nutrients from foliar spraying and I'm burning the leaves. It's odd because only a small number of leaves are showing this, but they do look burnt. Any thoughts on why the leaves look the way they do?

How often should I apply JADAM Nutrients? I usually apply them every watering, but I've only been watering once per week about as the soil stays moist/wet for awhile. I have been trying to foliar daily(but have not been keeping up with that the last week or so) as I've read people on here having great results with it, but maybe I need to lessen the amount when I foliar?

Any advice on all of this is appreciated.

As for watering I've heard a lot follow the 5-10% rule, so for my 65 gallon grow bags(s) would be 3.25-6.5 gallons per, and since I only have 3 plants in the 1 bag, I would feed about 1.5-2 gallons or so and try to just get those areas wet and I don't want to soak them too much. I think I might have given a little too much to the smaller plant as it's showing a bit of burn and it's clawing down which I believe I read is overwatering so maybe I gave it a little too much.

Thank you for your help thus far, i hope to hear more.

Also to note, the white spots I believe come from my hard water, and the plants are starting to get coating it in sometimes, and the small basil plant has it on it too (will take a pic to show it). It's odd they are dots though, and I noticed the tomato plant has them all over too, but I've been checking for pests for awhile now and haven't seen anything resembling a pest, or see the white dots moving.

You need to feed your plants with a complete fertilizer.

Thank you. From my understanding what I was doing was a complete system, and that these inputs would provide enough nutrients.

Does the damage to that one leaf picture look to be nutrient deficiency? I thought maybe foliar spraying too much might have caused the leaves to "burn" a bit, especially if the LEDS are causing some burn.

I think the second plant did have some nutrient issues and i think I waited a little bit to feed it when i should have fed it sooner, so I think that might have needed more N, but I'm not sure.

Any thoughts?

Thank you for your help.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you to everyone for your help.

More pics. NOTE: I did remove most of the affected leaves on the big plant.

White spots/dusting on sprout leaves on small basil seedling/plant.

Picture of spacing between bag and floor and shelf it's on.

 

[Redrum92]

Agree that soil is bad. Needs to be way lighter/more air. Also, guessing nutrients are off by the look.

Do the best you can with this run, but start from scratch with completely new soil next run

 

[TanzanianMagic]

I use Smartpots, I've seen them used a few times by people here and they seem to be a big name in fabric grow bags.

First of all I have to say - this is a great setup. I love the fact that it's all organic, and in one huge bag that fills the room. Almost like having outdoor conditions, yet with indoor control.

The "ropes" are just the seams of the bags, i don't have any ropes for training as of now, but was looking into hemp rope. I'll take a pic of the whole plant to show the plant better. I do do some light training.

I can check under the bags possibly, but they are huge. The bags are sitting on shelving units that are wired(i.e., there is plenty of air space on the bottom and nothing is touching the floor), so it should have plenty of proper airflow.

If they can still be moved, there is no issue. See below.

I am a bit confused about your JADAM nutrient comments, as to my understanding JADAM and KNF are complete systems that is supposed to replace any need for commercial fertilizer products and such. Manures, wastes, etc that are sometimes used in traditional farming (my local farm uses horse manure on his trees). JADAM mentions how you use certain items such as weeds and grasses because they are vegetative plants thus high in nitrogen, and then use fruits for potassium since the fruits needed potassium to grow, and provide potassium when eaten, so as a fertilizer it should be the same. This makes sense to me. I've also seen videos using wild grass fertilizers and even things such as urine fertilizers which people tout as having very high nitrogen levels. So when you say they don't have a lot of NPK nutrients in them, it confuses me.

JADAM and fermenation do liberate nutrients from the products and feed better than/as well as bottled nutrients, however their strong point is that they contain lots of microbes and sugars, which keep working by decomposing natural ingredients long after application. And feed mycorrhizal fungi which do the same, fed by the plant's own sugars.

They also contain substances that aren't in bottled nutrients. And they're alive.

They work great with Supersoil, compost or outdoor soils (which contain nutrient rich clay, silt, humus, even rock and sand).

However that's easy, you can always add finished compost to this setup.

Am I missing something? From what you're saying it's more of a supplement than a complete set of fertilizers? I have a number of inputs. From what I see the point of the JADAM Fertilizers are to fertilizer the soil microbes which will then convert into usable form for the plant? Is this the issue you were referring to?

I will say that I do have earthworm castings, and I do have lava rock and a few other rock dusts such as silica, and bentonite/montimorillite clays), kelp, and a few other amendments that were added to the soil initially, but otherwise my fertilization comes from the JADAM Inputs.


I also am wondering if maybe the leaf issues are because of too much nutrients from foliar spraying and I'm burning the leaves. It's odd because only a small number of leaves are showing this, but they do look burnt. Any thoughts on why the leaves look the way they do?

How often should I apply JADAM Nutrients? I usually apply them every watering, but I've only been watering once per week about as the soil stays moist/wet for awhile.

Once a week sounds about right for a huge growbag like that.

Because basically we're watering the medium, not the plants.

I would slowly and thoroughly saturate the entire medium, and then basically not water again for a week - or more.

A big part of the plants' water comes from evaporation from the soil. It cools and reduces their own evaporation.

I have been trying to foliar daily(but have not been keeping up with that the last week or so) as I've read people on here having great results with it, but maybe I need to lessen the amount when I foliar?

Any advice on all of this is appreciated.

As for watering I've heard a lot follow the 5-10% rule, so for my 65 gallon grow bags(s) would be 3.25-6.5 gallons per, and since I only have 3 plants in the 1 bag, I would feed about 1.5-2 gallons or so and try to just get those areas wet and I don't want to soak them too much. I think I might have given a little too much to the smaller plant as it's showing a bit of burn and it's clawing down which I believe I read is overwatering so maybe I gave it a little too much.

Thank you for your help thus far, i hope to hear more.

Also to note, the white spots I believe come from my hard water, and the plants are starting to get coating it in sometimes, and the small basil plant has it on it too (will take a pic to show it). It's odd they are dots though, and I noticed the tomato plant has them all over too, but I've been checking for pests for awhile now and haven't seen anything resembling a pest, or see the white dots moving.





Thank you. From my understanding what I was doing was a complete system, and that these inputs would provide enough nutrients.

Does the damage to that one leaf picture look to be nutrient deficiency? I thought maybe foliar spraying too much might have caused the leaves to "burn" a bit, especially if the LEDS are causing some burn.

I think the second plant did have some nutrient issues and i think I waited a little bit to feed it when i should have fed it sooner, so I think that might have needed more N, but I'm not sure.

Any thoughts?

Thank you for your help.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thank you to everyone for your help.

More pics. NOTE: I did remove most of the affected leaves on the big plan View attachment 18824649

I really hate to bring you this news. There is a problem - a big one.

View attachment 18824651

The carpet.

It is a magnet for molds and spores, and if inevitably some moisture makes it to it, it's a hearth of infection, mildew, etc.

The walls look great though.

For indoor grows, the wall should be covered with mylar or painted with antiseptic caulk or some plastic based paint. What should be avoided at all times is fabrics - carpets, wallpaper, curtains, rope, bamboo as opposed to plastic stakes, etc.

 

[St. Phatty]

Try putting a new plant from the same batch under a Metal Halide in early flowering.

The problem is probably a crappy light spectrum from the LED. The plant's needs change when you move them into flowering.

You will continue killing plants until you get your light situation fixed.