Rapid yellowing @ 29 days flower

[SquallRealm]

I'm going to start watering every other day actually.


The pots are 1 gallon, I water each plant with 4cups and they usually give about 10-15% runoff.

 

[MynameStitch]

I don't see how this is overfeeding jiggy, there is no signs of it, not to mention there is NO nitrogen in his food and around this time of the month you wil start to get some yellowing from common nitrogen deficiencies.


Calmag plus and tiger bloom have NO business being used in ocean forest. It is a broken recipe from the start.

That depends on what part, what strain and how long the plants were in the mixture, I have seen peeps use the soil and use heavier dosage with no ill effects, with burn you get twisting leaves spotting and low vigor that plants leaves are happy as can be, if there is a burn it's very very minor to a point where it's not causing this issue only small part of the leaf tips which happens nearly to everyones grows.

The twisted leaves shriveled leaves you see is what is left over after the plant has sucked every bit of nutrients from the leaf, this leaf the way it is is not showing something else wrong, this is very common look to those leaves when nitrogen is deficient from it's diet or due to mid flowering yellowing which is supposed to happen in the first place. This is a classic case of nitrogen issue, how is he over feeding if he is spacing his feedings so far apart? He has a watering in between every feeding. Now if he was feeding every watering it would be a whole another ballgame, but he is flushing out excess the plants don't use not to mention where is his plants getting nitrogen from? They are using stored nitrogen for 2 reasons, one because there is none in it's diet and 2 it's the plants cycle it is going through right now where it's supposed to be starting to somewhat yellow. So again I don't see how this is overfeeding cause there is no burns those leaves is just necrotic coloration that comes after the leaves have been sucked dry, they go from green, to yellow then to a tanish brownish yellow right before the plant drops the leaf. Tan necrotic tissue is tissue that was not damaged or burned, it was due to the plant removing stuff from it rather than environmental problems causing it like overfeeding or heat and so forth.

This was caused by the plant itself and small combination of not having nitrogen in it's diet.

Also if your going to use tap water with that high of ppm, hard water will cause problems as well so do not use cal mag anymore when you use tap water.

 

[tree&leaf]

I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions in this thread.

Firstly, when a deficiency occurs on the bottom leaves and works its way upwards it's a mobile element deficiency. The key here is in the term 'mobile', it means exactly that, that the plant can relocate mobile elements from one part of the plant to another. Immobile elements mean that as well - they're not mobile, ie they cannot be moved, that's why most immobile nutrient deficiencies occur on newest growth first - at the top of the plant, not the bottom.

The main mobile elements a plant uses are Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K) and Magnesium (Mg). The immobiles are Zinc (Zn), Manganese (Mn), Iron (Fe) and Sulphur (S).

That means the deficiency on that plant is either N, P, K or Mg. P deficiency doesn't look like any of the leaves on that plant so can be discounted right away. Likewise Potassium, those leaves always yellow and brown round the edges leaving the middle green. That leaves N or Mg.

N deficient leaves yellow all over before turning brown and crispy and dropping off. Mg leaves yellow at the tips and half way up the leaf and usually have dark brown rust spots on the yellow parts.

Over-fertilisation or 'burn' marks are dark brown/red and occur at leaf tips and on the leaves themselves, and can occur anywhere on the plant, but usually worst at the bottom. The reason they're called 'burn' marks is because they look like burn/scorch marks! I see no signs or evidence of any burn marks on those plants.

I see plenty of fully pale yellow, (given, some are partially on the way, but some ARE fully yellow) twisted crispy leaves on that plant! Meaning it's deficient in N.

You now need to figure out why it's N deficient (under-feeding, wrong nutrient NPK values, ph, lock out, high substrate salinity, high salt ppm of irrigation water etc) and what the corrective action should be.

Good luck with that.

 

[firsttimegrower]

just wondering you water with full nutes how many times a week if i do more than 1 full nute dose a week with tiger ive fried plants twice that size just my experience and it was with widow but not nirvanas if you are going to give nutes every water every other day i promise you that you wont make it to harvest i hope im wrong though

 

[merkaba]

I hate Ocean Forest for this exact reason. Although, I have many a friend that swears by it.

 

[MynameStitch]

Good post Tree, I could not have explained it like that m8! I sometimes have a hard time explaining things, but you could not have explained it any more in blunt terms than what you did.

Merkaba, reason why is all strains are different and I have seen 95% of seedlings get fried to a crisp when put into this mixture before they even have 2 sets of leaves, and then the small 5% can be put in there and have NO ill effects whatso ever, so it really depends on growing conditions and one of the biggest ones is the strain and what nutes are being used if any. So there is a lot of factors that play a role in why some people swear by it and others hate it. Just like Lucas formula, I have seen plenty grows with some killer buds and then other grows have deficiencies, lucas is not for every strain. Another example, you ever heard of a KFB/KBF grow? Krusty bucket or killer bucket grow is what they call it, you grow trees with this system and takes a whole lot of light and lots of room, with a good strain like hashplant you can get around 2-4 lbs of bud on one plant if you know how to grow in this system. Not all strains can be grown in this system and get the same yield, it depends on the strain and how well you know your plants.

So again the moral of the story is what works for others may not work for you, so it's important to get as much info as possible before switching over to something new.

 

[merkaba]

Like the old saying goes, 'There's 100 ways to skin a cat' . I don't like the 'built in nutrient' type soils. Though I have friends that love it and swear by them. I am a big fan of Pro-Mix/Sunshine Mix and Botanicare. However, with my outdoor gardens I like to create more of a living soil. I don't know, it seems like almost ALL FoxFarm products tend to run a little hot.

 

[otherwhitemeat]

I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions in this thread.

Firstly, when a deficiency occurs on the bottom leaves and works its way upwards it's a mobile element deficiency. The key here is in the term 'mobile', it means exactly that, that the plant can relocate mobile elements from one part of the plant to another. Immobile elements mean that as well - they're not mobile, ie they cannot be moved, that's why most immobile nutrient deficiencies occur on newest growth first - at the top of the plant, not the bottom.

The main mobile elements a plant uses are Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), Potassium (K) and Magnesium (Mg). The immobiles are Zinc (Zn), Manganese (Mn), Iron (Fe) and Sulphur (S).

That means the deficiency on that plant is either N, P, K or Mg. P deficiency doesn't look like any of the leaves on that plant so can be discounted right away. Likewise Potassium, those leaves always yellow and brown round the edges leaving the middle green. That leaves N or Mg.

N deficient leaves yellow all over before turning brown and crispy and dropping off. Mg leaves yellow at the tips and half way up the leaf and usually have dark brown rust spots on the yellow parts.

Over-fertilisation or 'burn' marks are dark brown/red and occur at leaf tips and on the leaves themselves, and can occur anywhere on the plant, but usually worst at the bottom. The reason they're called 'burn' marks is because they look like burn/scorch marks! I see no signs or evidence of any burn marks on those plants.

I see plenty of fully pale yellow, (given, some are partially on the way, but some ARE fully yellow) twisted crispy leaves on that plant! Meaning it's deficient in N.

You now need to figure out why it's N deficient (under-feeding, wrong nutrient NPK values, ph, lock out, high substrate salinity, high salt ppm of irrigation water etc) and what the corrective action should be.

Good luck with that.

Tree,
I have to read a thousand posts on this site to see one as useful, well worded, and to the point. You deserve much rep for this information. This helps advance my knowledge quite a bit!

Thanks!

 

[stinkyattic]

Go into your growroom with a power drill that is fitted with a 1/2" spade bit, and a pair of tin snips or vise grips.
Get medieval on those built-in catch trays under your pots... they need to come off. When you get them off, take a whiff, and stick your finger up the hole into the bottom of the pot... wet? Smelly? Fishy? Oh wait... lol
Then drill a few holes in teh sides of those pots.

You've got a fert/salt buildup issue.
Your pH is falling.
It's very likely given the known poor drainage of that type of container that you have just facilitated the reaction of peat-derived acids with lime from the soil that happens faster in super moist soils... Either way, those pots REALLY block oxygenation of the root zone and will need to be modified for use on a fast-growing annual cropped indoors.
I bet you dollars to donuts that if you get more drain holes in the bottom and sides of those pots, flush your soil back up to 6.7, do a light feeding with your base fert, allow to dry out rather well before the next feeding... you will start to see improvement rapidly. A light foliar feed with a teaspoon of GH micro plus one drop dish soap as a spreader/sticker in a quart of water applied to the low leaves (you have a problem with mobile elements big time) will also help return some of the locked-out nutes to the plant.

 

[SquallRealm]

Go into your growroom with a power drill that is fitted with a 1/2" spade bit, and a pair of tin snips or vise grips.
Get medieval on those built-in catch trays under your pots... they need to come off. When you get them off, take a whiff, and stick your finger up the hole into the bottom of the pot... wet? Smelly? Fishy? Oh wait... lol
Then drill a few holes in teh sides of those pots.

You've got a fert/salt buildup issue.
Your pH is falling.
It's very likely given the known poor drainage of that type of container that you have just facilitated the reaction of peat-derived acids with lime from the soil that happens faster in super moist soils... Either way, those pots REALLY block oxygenation of the root zone and will need to be modified for use on a fast-growing annual cropped indoors.
I bet you dollars to donuts that if you get more drain holes in the bottom and sides of those pots, flush your soil back up to 6.7, do a light feeding with your base fert, allow to dry out rather well before the next feeding... you will start to see improvement rapidly. A light foliar feed with a teaspoon of GH micro plus one drop dish soap as a spreader/sticker in a quart of water applied to the low leaves (you have a problem with mobile elements big time) will also help return some of the locked-out nutes to the plant.

The catch trays aren't connected to the pot. You can snap them into the pot or have the pot raised on these nubs that are part of the catch tray like I do. Before I transplanted into these pots I drilled some extra holes in the bottoms. Right now there are 5 1/2" holes in the bottom of each pot. After I water I empty the catch tray a few times until there is no more runoff coming out then they go back into the cabinet. Before watering I've looked up through the drainage holes and the dirt is nice and dry and I can that the roots are white. I didn't notice any smell but I'll stick my finger in there tonight to make sure.

So if the runoff is 100-200ppm over the water that goes in that's considered a salt buildup? How much higher should the runoff be relative to the water that's going in?

 

[stinkyattic]

Awesome, good call doing that preemptively.
Yeah if you're getting more stuff coming out than you put in, you've got a fert buildup problem. I used to taste my runoff to check that, lol. Salty, yet metallic! Goes great with pizza! :bang head: I can't answer the 'how much higher' question. But I can tell you that I would prefer to see the runoff be the same. In an auto-drip or NFT system, you want to see the runoff coming out a hair lower, meaning the plants are taking something OUT, adn there isn't anything leaching into the water (=salt buildup dissolving) before it comes out. I wish I could explain it better, but when you are washing the car, you have a bucket with water and soap. Eventually a lot of the water and soap is on the car and the bucket has dirt in it. You have to dump out and refill the bucket with fresh water and soap or you're gonna end up putting dirt and grit back on the car, if that makes ANY sense as an analogy? I'm not good at analogies this late in the day. The coffee is wearing off... lol
Go find that flushing link I posted on this or the other thread for ya. It's stickied at the top of problems at that other place if you can't find it.

 

[mexilandrace]

dude you need to flush

flush flush flush, don't worry about how much water or this or that just pour a ton of water through those pots.

Then start fresh with a light dose of flower ferts when the soil dries out.

when you say you only pour 4 cups of water what that says to me is you have dry spots in your soil especially if you are getting run off, you need to saturate all of your soil with water and get some real run off and get all that extra junk out of there and start with a clean slate.

 

[SquallRealm]

Ok so once I flush and get my soil neutralized with the correct ph and a ppm that is close to that of the source water do I then water them with nutes right away? Or do I wait a couple days for the soil to dry out before adding nutes?

Also I'm in week 6 of flower so with my strain that means I have 3-4 weeks left. This doesn't have anything to do with my question but I'm just wondering if it makes a difference for you guys telling me to flush now. I was gonna do a 2 week flush at the end so is it really that important to flush right now?

 

[mexilandrace]

flush let the soil dry out then hit them with a very light dose of bloom ferts

I would top dress with some lime and stop worrying about your PH for the rest of the grow.

it will likely be your last dose if you are that close to harvest, do you have any red hairs?

 

[SquallRealm]

flush let the soil dry out then hit them with a very light dose of bloom ferts

I would top dress with some lime and stop worrying about your PH for the rest of the grow.

it will likely be your last dose if you are that close to harvest, do you have any red hairs?

Some hairs have turned orange but I don't really see any red ones.

 

[mexilandrace]

well orange or whatever is the same thing

lime=less stress with soil

I haven't ever tested my PH with my soil, not once.

you figure out how to use lime and you can cross a ton of potential problems off your list of worries.

do what I suggested and you will end up okay, but you are gonna lose some yield based on what has already happened.

just use plain old water for the rest of the grow after the last light ferting.

If you add lime don't worry about the PH anymore

 

[MynameStitch]

If that plant has salt build up then I would be hanging in my plant doc job

Salt build up shows spotting or necrotic spots on the leaves or burnt tips, how is everyone getting that this plant has a salt build up? Someone lpease explain why they think/know it's a buildup or overfert when there is no signs of a buildup at all?


The plant is just yellowing cause it's around that time of the month for it to yellow and because there is no nitrogen, how can a plant get nitrogen if it's not present in it's diet?

Squall, you should not always go by the hairs, it's the color of the trichcomes you want to worry about, get a microscope that has 20x and a light with it and put it on the leaves with trichcomes on them and check the color of the head, if they are mostly clear then it's not time to chop, if you have more cloudy then clear then it's time to chop or you can wait until you get some ambers, but that depends on the strain how many amber trichs it gets.

Sometimes the lower part of the plant will mature much slower and some people will harvest part of the plant and leave the rest to mature and then chop it when it's done.

 

[SquallRealm]

Ok so far I've flushed one plant with one gallon of water that was ph'ed to ~7.0. At first the runoff ppm was like 800! The ph was 6-6.2. After running a gallon throught it the ph of the runoff is up to 6.5 but the ppm is still 340. My source water had a ppm of 180 so thats a difference of 160 which is still no good right?

Should I run another gallon through it to get the ppm down lower?

 

[SquallRealm]

Alright so both plants were flushed with 3 gallons each. After the second gallon the ppm of the runoff stopped dropping so I'm pretty sure any salt buildup is gone. In the end both plants gave runoff with a pH of 6.5-6.6 and a ppm of 260-280, which is 100ppm over what I ran through them.

Now I just have to wait a bit for the soil to dry up so I can give them some nutes. I'm definitely going to give them full strength tiger bloom, can I give them some grow big as well? Say, half strength?

 

[stinkyattic]

For the record when I say salt buildup I am not talking about NaCl; I am talking about any salts left behind from the interaction of ionic fertilizer components. NaCl will exhibit a v-shaped, nasty looking scorch.

Squall, sounds good but the last step in a correct flush (did ya read the link?) is to do a light feeding that replaces the good stuff you washed out of the soil along with the bad.
Give a 1/2 strength bloom base fert feeding right away.

This late in life, you won't see re-greening of the leaves, and you don't WANT to- too much N in the plant at harvest makes for harsh bud. You just are trying to make certain that the problem isn't getting worse, and that the micronute lockout gets addressed.