what are my plants missing? (whiteberry and opium)

[mixin]

i have these 2 whiteberry and 1 opium plant vegging and they are growing great. nice growth from both although the opium is growing quicker and looking great except that i have been noticing that the leaves all the plants is yellowing towards the outer leaf. its hard to take a good pic under the bright mh light, but i did the best i could.

i know the plants are either missing something or getting locked out? they have been given minimal nutes so far. i am growing with a pro-mix mixture with wormcastings, humus, perlite. just upgraded to botanicare stuff so they have been giving light doses of everything. so far they have had some liquid karma, pbp grow, sweet, and hygrozyme. i don't think i have been overwatering. they are watered maybe every 2-3 days.

here are some pics. there is yellowing towards the edges

any help would be great.

 

[wygram]

did you add lime to the mix?

 

[mixin]

yes there was a good amount of powdered lime mixed in

 

[Weedninja]

It's kind of hard to tell from your pics, but to me, they look like mag(deficiency) stripes. Did the lime you used contain mag? What's your pH ?

 

[mixin]

i am not sure about ph, i have been only ph'ing my water with nutes. i thought it might be a calcium or mag problem too but i am a newbie really.. i did buy botanicare cal mag plus though so if that is the problem i got a instant fix for it

 

[Kinderfeld]

i am not sure about ph,

Dude come on you know better, even if you say you are a newb, not matter WHAT the problem is you need to rule PH out #1...because a lockout and deficiency are two TOTALLY different things...


Plant stage (as in how many weeks in veg)?
How big are pots?
How high are lights from top?

given ph isn't too low...I am guessing its mag def, lights too close or too small pots.

 

[mixin]

i did a quick soil probe test and it looks like the ph is around 7.5 (if its actually accurate to start with.

here is what they are in

 

[stinkyattic]

Pot size looks correct, if a bit on the tight side, but a re-pot will be needed fairly soon.
Soil mix sounds reasonable unless you added too MUCH lime.
I wonder if you are over-watering at all?
The leaf shape looks healthy but my take on it is that your magnesium is being locked out by a pH and/or over-watering issue. They often go hand in hand.
A light foliar feed with epsom salts at 1/2 teaspoon per quart, plus one drop dish soap, applied daily for the next few days, should halt the spread of the deficiency while you sort out its cause.

How dry do you let the soil get?
Is there a way to get your pH number for the runoff out the bottom of the pot? If so, you'll want to confirm your soil pH with a runoff test, and give the next watering at a pH closer to 6.0-6.5 to drop the runoff pH below 7.
Also, the soil pH probes are not necessarily accurate. Grab a $7 bottle of drop indicator to confirm.
Last, once you take care of the symptoms of the mag def, you should be looking for evidence of how hungry the plants are overall and re-assess the feeding dosage you are giving them. I suspect it's slightly low, but get your soil figured out first.

 

[mixin]

i really don't think i have been overwatering. i make sure i water with a ph of usually 5.5 to 6.

what should i do if i added too much lime?

 

[mixin]

Dude come on you know better, even if you say you are a newb, not matter WHAT the problem is you need to rule PH out #1...because a lockout and deficiency are two TOTALLY different things...

i am super attentive to my ph in my bubble cloner. although when i started indoor soil i have read that ph can be just fine up around 7.5. so i just mix my nutes, ph it to around 6 and water.

i am starting to wonder if i simply mixed in too much lime into my mix. exactly what would too much lime do to a plant? and will a simple flush help correct it?

update: i just found my powdered soil doctor lime mix and it says it has 17% magnesium

could this simply be a nitrogen deficiency then?

 

[Weedninja]

i really don't think i have been overwatering. i make sure i water with a ph of usually 5.5 to 6.

what should i do if i added too much lime?

Flush. If you take a pH reading of your tap water going in and then another reading of your runoff, that can help us establish if a flush is needed.

 

[mixin]

ok. i am going to flush tomorrow night. i just found my bag of soil doctor lime mix. it says it contains 17% magnesium in it so maybe its not a mag deficiency?

what would be the proper way for my to flush my plants tomorrow? i will be using ph'd tap water.

 

[wishbone420]

proper flush is 3x ro water the pot size. 1 gallon pot= 3 gallon flush

 

[Weedninja]

could this simply be a nitrogen deficiency then?

It doesn't look like an N deficiency.

 

[Weedninja]

I recommend a runoff test before you flush. Flushing will remove(partially) anything water soluble, whether it's good, bad or neutral. A runoff test will tell you what you need to do. For example: If you're pouring in pH 6 water and it's running off at, say; 7.5, that would tell you that your soil pH is too alkaline and that there is too much lime.

 

[mixin]

I recommend a runoff test before you flush. Flushing will remove(partially) anything water soluble, whether it's good, bad or neutral. A runoff test will tell you what you need to do. For example: If you're pouring in pH 6 water and it's running off at, say; 7.5, that would tell you that your soil pH is too alkaline and that there is too much lime.

then that is what i will do tomorrow night. so if it runs off around 7.5 should i just do a good flush with tap water ph'd around 6 to counter the higher ph ?

 

[Weedninja]

then that is what i will do tomorrow night. so if it runs off around 7.5 should i just do a good flush with tap water ph'd around 6 to counter the higher ph ?

It doesn't have to be that low. The idea of the flush is to get rid of the bad crap and get your soil back to normal. Personally, I'd shoot for 6.5-6.8

 

[spaceghost22]

this almost always solves my problems when they are not insect related, I hope it's as useful to you as it was for me!

 

[stinkyattic]

Yes definitely do the runoff test as the first part of your flush, checking the first bit of runoff, then adjusting the remaining flush liquid to compensate for the amount off it is.
To adjust pH when you are not concerned about soil salting/fert buildup, which I don't see evidence of in our plants, you just have to gently flush until the runoff reads correct. Then go back to a normal feeding with a complete grow fert right away, to replace everything you have flushed out of the soil, pHd to about 6.7.

But get on that foliar Epsom mist quick.

 

[mixin]

i did a good runoff test of the two whiteberry and the opium and well water was around 5.0 the runoff came out around 6.5 for two of them and around 6.0 for one of them. i did not flush them totally but the runoff on each one filled a good sized pot.

what do you think i should do? a full flush? or feed them some nutes?