Need help identifying issues

[bearsfan87]

Hey there,

I have an indoor organic soil grow using fabric pots and a fairly heavy amended soil which we purchase from the Paonia Soil Company. The pictures below are from the Veg room where we have 6 630 Watt LEC lights (which I think are potentially too bright for younger veg plants?)

The plants only receive a simple tea (casting/compost/molasses), an organic water soluble nitrogen supplement, and earth juice grow, CA MG +, & thrive alive Green. These three are fed seperatley and with RO water in between.

The four pictures that look similar are from Tangerine Haze.

The picture of Pineapple Trainwreck has the leaves cuppin up looking like heat stress IMO, bu the lights are more that 4 feet away and the room is always right around 80 degrees, with 40-50 RH.

The last photo is of bubblegum possibly, CA deficiency.

We PH our RO water to 6.3-6.6, our water comes from a well.

 

[truck]

is your soil hard and crusty? you may actually have too much Mg which is locking out Ca. also could be the Ca to N ratio. I've experienced this before. did you get a print out of what the soil contains and its %'s. This would help a lot too. If you are a colorado person and have the chance come check out The Herbal Alternative in Cortez, CO. theherbalalternative.net I'm truck just ask for me if you stop by M-F and check out what we have going on. All TLO here, livin by the good word of the rev. I can see your MITS tags and you are obviously in the industry and wanted to offer a helping hand. It could be hot soil; soil that wasn't fully composted before being sold to you or wasn't fully mix properly. how long has the plant been in this soil? Did you check the temp right at the canopy, sometimes it can be 5-15F hotter than what a wall thermostat will read? what did you last feed them and how close to the transplant. What P.H. are your feeds? what is the P.H. of the Soil? P.H. of the Run off after a feed or Water? If this is heavily amended soil, only use water for the first 3-4 week before feeding again. I'd suggest switching to dry amendments like happy frog or Down to earth. Most liquids kill or poison the micro-herd and can cause nutrient problems as well. I'd toss the earth juice grow, as i quit running earth juice as well. Read up on TLO, layering your buckets and getting off the liquids. Once you learn how to trust the living nature of the soil you'll never go back to things that kill it and leave you dependent on the bottles chasing problem after problem.

 

[truck]

P.S. its also a huge waste of money to buy amended soil then dump liquid nutrients on it that only lock up the available nutrients in the soil. If you insist on using bottles go soil-less and save some money and just go 50-50 coco/perlite or just buy sunshine #4.

Also what is the PPM'S of your feeds? PPM's of your run off after Watering?

 

[Scrappy-doo]

Not liking how the top of that plant in pic 3 looks. I'd be looking for bugs if I saw that.

 

[bearsfan87]

Thanks for the response. I know I have some thrips in the garden, not bad, but thrip damage isn't what these plants are dealing with.

Truck- I do believe the soil is a bit hot as we buy it from The Paonia Soil Company, and I also attribute the thrips to this. I'm new to this Rec grow company and am in the process of getting the grow away from purchased amended soil and moving towards sunshine #4 with our own recipe for a living soil using dry amendments. This is how I have personally farmed for the last few years. Too many unknowns when you purchase soil by the cubic yard from a company, IMO. I have enjoyed Earth Juice for the last little while but I will consider moving away from that. I don't feed anything but Thrive alive for some B1, for the first few weeks once roots kick out from the cuts. You caught me with the Blue tags, ha, I'm over in Durango so maybe I will ride Phils world and come say high and check your grow out Truck, I really appreciate the offer. The canopy isn't too hot as far as I'm concerned as I have several thermometers all over the room; top of soil, wall in shade, wall in light, on top of a stake right at the plants canopy. I do think the soil PH is a little low, in the mid 5 range.

If water/nutrients are at 6.5 PH when I water, what do I want the run off to be ? and what do you look for in soil PH ? 6.5 is what I always thought but I never had all these fancy tools when I was doing it for myself in the garage.

My healthiest Veg plants are in plain Sunshine #4 so I have a good argument for switching soils to something I'm more familiar with. I don't turn to liquid fertilizer to fix problems as it usually makes it worse. I recently raised humidity a little to 50 or so, cut my 630 Watt LEC in half by removing a bulb from each hood to give the girls a break. I also cut out CO2 in Veg as I thought too much CO2 at night may be causing some chlorosis ?? thoughts on CO2 at night ?

These plants have been in the heavy soil mix for 1-2 months, they don't really deteriorate more over time they are just kind of suspended in this half ugly/half healthy state but continue to grow pretty darn well all things considered.

 

[truck]

For living organics 6.5-7.5 is great going in and coming out. I ride as high as 8.5 early on in veg and flower because i go heavy on Ca in my Soil so i can get away with some heavy top dressings and prevent P.h from tanking too low late in life. As Ca is what the micro heard is using heavily to convert these nutrients and feed them back to the plants. I also use 8-8.5 water or how ever it comes out of the tap after being ran through two Carbon KDF filters. Chlorine and Chloromines are death to living organics. It took a while to get my soil to this place so i don't actually recommend people using water higher than 7.5 or lower than 6.5 unless it has proven to work for them. I've been composting and recycling my soil for 3 years now. I started with Sunshine #4 as my base soil like you are doing to make my own custom soil mixes, layering and spikes. Fortunately the key to hot soil or bad soil getting good is time. So I'd just wait a bit longer and transplant into better soil. You definitely wanna cut CO2 at night. They don't use it a whole lot at night. My guess the majority of your issues is just the plant being shocked by the hot soil and the excessive organic material in the soil is what is sustaining the thrips. You may try a top dress of worm castings and some oyster-shell or using a Calcium only supplement which will help bring up the P.H. of your soil. I always like to add the worm castings with a Ca supplement just to help boost the microbe activity. Over all i think you are smart taking control over your soil mix and doing things in the way you know works. I really think that is the key to getting started right. Then over time you can make tweaks and do small experiments to keep pushing the limits of your knowledge and seeking to find perfection in your own system of getting things done and the quality of your smoke. But in the short term i think getting your soil P.H. to rise to at least 6.5-7 would be your answer, For a liquid Ca supplement I suggest the Age Old brand. Definitely hit me up if you are in the neighborhood.

 

[Dankwolf]

I have a bunch of charts to help in my photo album. That should clear up tge issues.