plants all jacked up!!!!

[built2last]

SOIL:

How long has this problem been going on? 1 week
What STRAIN are you growing? ak-47
What was the establishing technique? (seed or clone?) seed
What is the age of your plants? 4 wks
How long have they been in the soil mixture they are in now? 2 wks
How Tall are the plants? about 12 in
What PHASE (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in? veg
What Technique are you using? (SOG, SCROG etc)
What size pots are you using? (Include how many subjects to pot) 3 qts
What substrate/medium are you using? What brand of soil mixture are you using?(percentage of perlite, vermiculite...etc?)ff mix with perlite
What Nutrient's are you using? none
How much of each nutrient are you using with how much water? *Knowing the brand is very helpful*
How often are you feeding?
If flowering, when did you switch over to using Bloom nutrients?
What order are you mixing your nutrients? (example: veg nutes 1st, bloom 2nd ect)
What is the TDS/EC/PPM of your nutrients used?
What is the pH of the "RUN-OFF"? 6.5
What method of pH test was administered? Using Strips? pH pen?
How often are you watering? 2 week
When was your last feeding and how often are you feeding?
What size bulb are you using? 400w
What is the distance to the canopy?12 in
What is your RH Factor? (Relative Humidity)????
What is the canopy temperature?75
What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include fluctuation range)
What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.)passive
Tell us about your ventilation, intake exhaust and when its running and not running ?passive intake 4in fan with scrubber
Is the fan blowing directly at plants?no
Is the grow substrate constantly wet or moist? no
Is your water HARD or SOFT?
What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water?was using distilled now tap
Are you using water from a water softener?
Has plant been recently pruned, cloned or pinched?topped once
Have any pest chemicals been used? If so what and when?organicide 1 week ago
Are plant's infected with pest's?no



Plants were doing fine until i noticed problems with the leaves last Sat. after looking through the plant guide the pictures of plants suffering from mites resembled what my leaves looked like. I never actually saw any mites. I purchased some organicide and gave them a spray that day and the top of the soil. The next day plants looked worse. I then watered on Sunday and figured i'd see if there would be some improvement. There wasn't. I purchased a soil tester and realized the ph in the soil was in the low to mid 5's. I tested the distilled water i was using and the ph was around 6. I realized that i did not agitate the water properly when applying the organicide which in combination with the waterings so far probably brought my ph down to the acidic level. Leaves started crimping and turning very bad. Gave them a good watering on thursdays with tap water left out over night and they are begining to look better. I think because the ph was out of wack it was not able to use the nutrients.

Ph in the soil is now in the mid 6's. Plants looking better. Should i remove the damaged leaves? From the pics what does everyone think? I am going to let the soil completely dry out, give another good watering and transplant. Good idea? Using the ff 3 bag mix.





Any help would be appreciated. Thanks
Hoping i can recover

 

[built2last]

anyone???

 

[built2last]

not even one person...

 

[Citizen024]

I'll get back to you . .

 

[built2last]

Thanks

 

[ibjamming]

Go back to distilled water and don't water it too much...try once a week unless you see it actually wilt a bit at day 6...then water it a day before, at day 5...let it dry out a bit. It could be your tap water...do you let the water sit in a bucket over night to flush out the chlorine? Try that and see what happens...recovery takes a little bit of time... And don't over water! It's the biggest problem most people have.

 

[etinarcadiaego]

One thing I know, leave the leaves to fall on their own. The plant will suck the last bits of goodness from them to use for new growth. Don't take away the leaves yet.

 

[built2last]

i think the distilled is what started the problem by lowering the ph. yes i let the water sit out at least one day and have noticed that since switching to tap a big improvement. The ph in the soil is out of the 5 range and is now in the 6's. plants are looking better. should i remove those bad fan leaves? Whats the rule of thumb regarding that? I removed some of the small dried up ones that were above the soil. Do you think I should flush when I transplant? I just want to get this worked out and move on.

Thanks for your reply

 

[built2last]

thanks for the advice etinarcadiaego. Thats what i thought. I removed small dried up ones that were right above the soil.

 

[Weedman Herb]

Distilled water (depending on who bottles it) is usually close to neutral (7) ... I can't see this as being the problem ... this is Organicides label http://www.lawnrite.com/resources/organocide_label.pdf ... It doesn't say to spray it on your soil and it Does say to test it on a small spot of foliage as some plants are sensitive ...

 

[built2last]

for mixing i added the recommmended dose, shook aggressively and let sit overnight. What would you recommend to do to get back on track? I was thinking that since i did not bubble the mix maybe that caused the ph to drop. And also because i sprayed the top of the soil. Cant remember where i saw to spray the top of soil. Think a transplant will help? I think its time anyway. Should i flush?

Thanks for the advice weedman

 

[csharper]

built2last, you are correct that distilled water is your problem. From your pictures, you have already fixed the problem. However, you have some of the same misguided ideas that I had at one point, so I will shortcut the process of getting you (and maybe others) to the next level of understanding.

FYI, air bubbles will never change ph in the permanent stable way you want, total waste of time. They do not aerate the solution more than a .5 ppm at the most.

you should read this sticky from the hydro forum: http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=23357

using distilled water with a peat moss medium = bad, period

Remember ph is logarithmic, not linear so 6.1->6.0 is a bigger jump than 6.2->6.1. 7.0 is the weakest point, kind of a 0 point. If something has a ph of 7.0, it basically means no ph, if that makes sense. So adding a drop of acid to 7.0 will make a much bigger difference than if you add a drop to 7.1 or 6.9. The amount of a compound used to get to a ph makes a difference on future ph changes; this is what is meant by "buffering capacity" of a compound.

Peat moss is in the 3s; your premixed medium relies on lime (ca, maybe mg) to keep the ph buffered. But depending on inbag settling, prewetting, your watering frequency, runoff amount, and ec of water going in, you could wash out the limestone buffer. But if you use tap water, it is already buffered on its own, plus it will suck up less of the buffering elements in the medium. However, do not use any ph down at all: if you actually use enough to get around the tap water buffers, you will end up in even worse shape than tap water within two weeks.

People will tell you that ph doesn't matter for soil - that is mostly correct, but what you have is not really soil. Handwatered peat moss is basically hydroponic - you just have an extra buffer + nutrients in the medium.

However, you have mixed in perlite, altering the composition and buffering capacity, engineered by foxfarm. Meaning are even more into the realm of hydroponics, sooner.

I am not sure that you ever had pests, as I find it highly unlikely that you exterminated all traces of them in one spraying. Your newest growth is showing no signs of damage. Drop the organicide for now.

Looking at the stage and state of your plants, I would advise the following:
a) use tap water
b) after a week, assuming growth continues, I suggest you start feeding floranova bloom 2 ml/gal every watering. DO NOT PH ADJUST. That will keep your medium buffered proper ph and the plants fed. you might need to go as high as 4ml a gallon if you get yellowing in early flower. Back down to 2ml in the the last month using only tap water the last week. FNB is the simplest solution that I know will work, complicate at your own risk.
c) your existing water schedule is great, but you will need to double it for the first half of flower.

If you do these things, you will never need to concern with ph. I'm sure I have created questions in your mind, feel free to ask. I will note that I have only a non-formal, but working knowledge of ph, and primarily as it applies to plants.

Finally to close on a high note, you were going to lose that growth to low light anyway, so your mistake is not catastrophic. It will simply slow the establishment of the next level of vegatation (that you do want to keep). You still have a chance at a very sweet harvest.

 

[built2last]

csharper your the man!!! Thanks for the reply really appreciate the indepth answer. I believe that because of such a low ph level that the vital nutes from the soil were getting locked out. I gave a good watering the last time which was on thurs night and haven't watered since. My thinking was because of the nute lockout their was a buildup that needed to be flushed. Am i wrong in thinking this? I gave each three qt pot roughly over a gallon of water hoping to not completely get rid of the nutes in the soil but to rid the roots of the buildup of salts. I was thinking of repotting into 3 gallon bags using the same mix next time they are ready for a drink, good idea or should I give a thourogh flush and then repot?

I agree with you that I don't believe I ever had any pests but was experiencing ph problems and I misdiagnosed.

The leaves that are shrivaled are turning green again but are disformed and hard. Leave them alone? Can't really trim them because the whole leaf has suffered but is getting green again. How bout the ones with holes???

 

[built2last]

Also, thanks for the thread great read.

 

[csharper]

Definitely don't ever pull any leaves - the plant knows best and will drop them when the resource cost outweighs the benefit of keeping it, but not before sucking out any usable reserves.

No salt buildup possible if you have only used foxfarm organic soils with no feeding.

I need you to elaborate on "Using the ff 3 bag mix. " + perlite (how much perlite, how much soil) before I can answer what you should transplant to.

That begs the question of should you be transplanting at all if you went with the floranova feeding route in my last post, in which case you want to keep the container/environment smaller hence more controllable.

But on the other hand, you could just keep it really simple and transplant to ocean forest (no mix or perlite) 3 gallons and use tap water only (no feed) for the rest of the grow since you only have four plants and can probably do that with just one bag of OF. I don't imagine you would lose much yield from a 400 watt with 2 females. Actually, that is the idiot proof, no ph, no salt, simple way that matches with your 400 watt light capacity. Only problem is if you are already height limited, it is not going to help you to transplant your plants higher. BTW, make sure you do the transplant work indoors.

With a 400 watt light and already 12" veg, you really should be thinking about flowering soon - like this weekend at the latest.

 

[built2last]

I am trying to keep things as simple as I can. I am using a bag each of the OF, Planting Mix, and LW with 10 qts of big and chunky perlite. I am growing in the new 3x3 hydrohut. Think I should flower? Was thinking of getting things in control, but height maybe an issue.

So as long as I am not feeding and using only the soil no buildup is possible? I thought so but wasnt sure. I figured I would err on the side of caution.

For flowering just adding some peace of mind to the mix.

 

[csharper]

Buildup is not an organic concern - no salts, no buildup.

Yah you need to transplant today or tomorrow and flower on the weekend. I would recommend just straight ocean forest with nothing else. Not even the peace of mind to start.

 

[built2last]

So really no need to ever flush in regards to nutes if all organic?

Thats what I'll do. Transplant today and flower on the weekend. This way they can have a few days in the new container before they start.

Exactly what I was thinking regarding the peace of mind. I will wait a couple of weeks before adding to the top of the pots.

If they are 12in now they will most likely double if not more am i correct? Just trying to get a good gage on approximate height. I was originally thinking of transplanting to 3 gal and then 5 gal for flower but your right I prob won't have enough room.

Thanks for all your help csharper appreciate it...

 

[Citizen024]

Ummm- yeah, your not going to have build up per say from the organics in the soil right out the bag, but they are not going to take you very far in flowering. Just as an aside, you can have organic water in fert build up, and you can over amend with dry amendments and burn them. I never count just on what is already in the soil from the manufacture, it really isn't that much and will get eaten up quickly as they boost into flowering. As the soil tapers down you still get growth, but its less then optimum.

Your also going to have to wait for the roots to reach them, and microlife to break it down for the plants to benefit. Not exactly a quick start, which will mean a reduced finish.

Since your basically not using any fert, I would add a small amount of something very available in a water soluable fert to help them on their way. Something balanced well.

 

[built2last]

citizen- you don't think the peace of mind would be enough?