1st timer, in need of gurus

Ok... First off let me say hey to everyone here, since I am a first time poster to this site. And also, to extend in advance a hearty thank you for taking the time to read my post.

Let me start with a brief history of my grow.

Being a complete newbie, and without knowledge of a decent gardening store, I started with a soil mix of Miracle-Gro potting mix (time release pre-fert 24-8-16) and what I thought was a decent top soil, in a ratio of 2 parts soil to 1 part potting mix (the thought was to "lighten" the top soil).

I then started with a feeding regimine of Miracle-Gro all purpose plant food (24-8-16) at 1/2 strength... I quickly switched to 1/4 strength once a week.

Everything seemed fine until I started noticing burnt tips some of the leaves, as well as rust colored spots appearing on the lower fan leaves. After a couple days, one of the fan leaves began curling and dark patches appeared towards the tips and outsides of the leaf.

After doing some research I also realized that the overall color was too dark green, and some leaves were exhibiting the claw like symptoms of N toxicity.

I decided I had chem/nute burn and backed off the feeding until the overall color of the plant seemed to be back to normal. It was then I decided to go organic and switched to a feeding regimine of Metanaturals (3-3-3) at 1/2 strength once per week. My thought was that the NPK ration of the Miracle-Gro was out of whack, and it was nasty stuff in every way.

It was also at this point that I purchased some PH solution and determined that my tap water (which I run through a PUR filter) was at a PH of 8.5 or higher! I began to balance the PH using PH down.

The plant seemed to be in better health and soon I was able to sex her. However, the rust spots and dark patches continue to appear on the lower fan leaves, and while new growth appears fairly normal, and overall health is good, the problem appears to be slowly working it's way from one set of fan leaves to the next. From the bottom of the plant up.

Here are some pictures which document the pregression of symptoms.

Here you can see how the problem begins.


Here is a more advanced progression


Here is the eventual outcome, with the leaf dropping shortly thereafter


And here is an overall shot of my girl



After reading these and other forums, I have also tested the runoff after watering (no nutes, balanced to PH 7).. The runoff tested 5.0-5.5!!

Now I am thinking that I have some serious PH problems. Hopefully this has not caused lockout and buildup.

Also, I am wondering if anyone thinks there is a problem with me watering from the tap filtered through my PUR? I haven't had my water tested for mineral content, But I know the PUR removes almost all Chlorine.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Do I need to flush? I know that the soil is crap, but it's what I have at the moment. Also Are there any suggestions as to what I should do about the PH of my soil? Should I simply worry about the PH of the feeding solution, or do I need to address this?

Sorry for such a long post. Hopefully I have given all the information needed to help me solve this problem.

 

good post, gives lots of info.

looks like a lockout issue, the second pic looks a bit like phospherous deficiency, and also looks like there is a calcium def goin on too. Both get locked out in soil that acidic. Dolomite lime or bone meal would prolly work well for you. Another thing to try is to use less ph down in the water you give them.

 

omg1 is there some sort of grow school or something? i have no clue how you find all this stuff out

 

mushroom - There is a grow school, there's lots of them. Cept the botony and horticulture schools won't teach you how to grow this herb specificly. We find it out by experience and research, and asking questions to other growers. You'll learn it all in time, one way or another if you grow it.

 

Thanks for responding so quickly.

Your diagnosis of phosphorus deficiency due to PH lockout is what I had suspected.

As far as the soil PH goes, I have heard that lime is a very slow acting solution to soil PH.. Seeing as I am only a couple months away from harvest, do I have the time to wait for lime to act?

Should I try to raise the PH of my soil by simply making sure the feeding solution is higher than 7? If so, what would you recommend for a safe PH level when feeding? If the soil is very acidic, am assuming that it is changing the PH of my feeding pretty much instantly.

How do I counter this? Should I simply adjust the PH of my water/solution until the runnoff tests in the proper PH range? Perhaps if I experimented with slightly raising PH of water/solution until the runoff measured properly, and then continued to monitor to ensure proper levels?

Maybe use a combination of lime and PH up? If I use lime, I assume I would mix it into the water/feeding solution?

I'm sorry for all the questions. As you can see, I don't yet know what I am doing. I'm learning as fast as I can, thank you for all the help.

 

Ok... I have purchased some liquid Dolomite lime (Aggrene natural liquid lime) from WW and I am considerng using it with my next feeding tonight. The bottle suggests using 3oz per gallon of water for potted plants, applied at 2pts/gallon of soil. This made the sales person cringe, saying that sounded excessive. She also stated that they never recommend adding lime to balance soil PH, and that they usually suggest handling PH problems through water management only.

On the bottle it states "This product is meant to be a supplement to a well balanced soil fertility program, and should not be used for PH adjustment of the soil profile during seedbed preparation"

Does that mean that I shouldn't use this to balance my soil PH? Or does that only apply to "seedbed preparation"?.

Someone please help.. She is starting to get some pretty flowers and I don't want to screw her up.

 

You've taken a lot of ph altering steps so far so it's probably difficult to do more modifications; You may have developed some sort of mix with a lot of different ingredients all of which are effecting each other. Perhaps consider a good heavy flush, maybe even with distilled water, get a lot of the crud out and see what ph your soil really wants to be. After that test your soil ph and your water ph to see where it is, and adjust the soil ph to where you want it, 5.5 or 6.0 depending.
Normally limestone is a long term proposition requiring months, I'm not familiar with liquid lime but it sounds like it can work a lot quicker... IF lowering the ph is what's called for. Test your soil in addition to the tap water; if you don't have a soil test kit they're about $15, but a lot of garden centers will do it free although they're goinna wonder what you're up to in October.

 

I'm not sure what PH altering steps you are referring to. So far, the only PH management I have done is add PH UP/Down to my water to adjust it to just under 7.0 for watering/feeding...

I have purchased some liquid lime that I was considering on adding but i have not yet done so. I went ahead and flushed a couple days ago while I was waiting for more info on how I should handle my soil PH problem. I figured the PH could have been lowered by nute buildup. After running over 10 gallons of water trough my soil, it still measured somewhere between 5.0-5.5. Is it possible that even after this flushing that there is still excess nutes? Wouldn't a second flushing possibly kill my girl?

Hopefully someone can help me solve my PH troubles since it appears to be the root of my problem.

 

You probably just used too much ph down or didnt ph after adding the nutes which could be very acidic. Adding the dolomite liquid shouldnt harm them but it wasn't necessary as all that was needed was one watering with your alkaline water.

Remember that this balance isnt necessary to be exact and in fact 5.5 isnt that bad since you are shooting for a range of 6-7 in the water run off. Watering with nutes or plain water to be exact should be ph'd to 6.1 so that as the day progresses. Assuming you water in the morning the ph rises during the day until it reaches 7.0 by the end of the day. Just remove the necrotic leaves. I dont call that rust but just dying leaf tissue that normally occurs on lower leaves when the plant is short on nitrogen. Plants need more strength in the nutes as they age. You fed them too much too early most probably. The ph was off a little but that probably didnt cause any huge lockout as your plants looks very nice. BOG

 

Thanks for the reply BOG.. So you are saying that the problems in the pictures look like N def?

Also, I did flush with my alkaline water and the runnoff still measured between 5-5.5. If the runoff is measuring 5.5, I should still measure the water/feeding PH at around 6.1 hoping the PH will rise over the day? Wouldn't the soil PH bring the feeding/water PH down because it would be lower than the PH of the water/solution? Should I be letting my water sit before application so that it can stabilize?

I guess, as long as you feel that everything seems fine, then I will stop worrying so much.

So do you think I should increase the feeding strength?

 

Ok... As a follow up...

After flushing failed to fix my runoff PH problem, I finally decided to try the liquid lime. I added per the directions on the bottle, and measured the runoff... Still no change... This was dis-heartening.

After about a week, I tested the runoff again.. And low and behold -- The PH tested around 6.5! The PH problem appears to be fixed, and the spotting/darkening of the lower leaves has stopped.

I now have a new problem. I am about 3-4 weeks into flowering and I am beginning to notice some pretty serious signs of N deficiency. I am currently using the Bio-Bizz feeding regimine.. I am in the 3ml/L Bio-Grow, 3ml/L Bio-Bloom, 1ml/L Top-Max, phase. I have been feeding with every watering (the guy from GHBB I called and spoke to said this was OK). Recently I bumbed the Bio-Grow from 3ml/L to 4ml/L due to the yellowing and it hasn't seemed to help.

Is this about the time in flowering that I should be expecting yellowing? It seems a bit early to me. Should I do something to increase the Nitrogen available?

 

Are you sure it's an N deficiency? At this stage the plant should have modest N requirements that the nutes should cover! Can you put up a photo?

 

Here are the pictures.

Someone on another forum suggested it was lockout from over feeding, and told me to flush.

 

Looks like she's doing great. Some plants start using their N reserves earlier than others. Don't worry, this is normal, just continue as you've been doing no need to try and correct this. great lookin plant by the way.

--Dash

 

Thanks.

Someone on another forum seemed to think I was feeding far too much. Do you have any experience with Bio-Bizz?? I was under the impression that the feeding amounts per liter were to be used every watering.. But now I am beginning to think that those are weekly values..

Should I be feeding 3ml/L-3ml/L-1ml/L every feeding? Or should this be a once per week thing?

If I have been over feeding, what should I do about it? Do I need to flush. or should I just wait awhile to feed again?

 

If you think you've been over feeding, wait a while to feed again. I don't have experience with bio-bizz, but there would be other signs if you were over feeding. If you've been feeding this same way for a while now, I'd say continue the way you've been doing.

 

Ok...

I contacted GHBB, and asked them about thier feeding schedule. The technician told me that I had indeed been over feeding but that he seriously doubts that this would damage my plants, and didn't recommend that I flush. He said that the available nutes are so small that it's very hard to cause lockout/burn with most organics. Said that organics require a healthy microbial environment in the soil, and it takes time for the nutes to break down in a way to be accessible to the plant.

I doubt the soil mix I used had a healthy microbial environment.

He seemed to think the problem may be that the immediately available nutrients aren't enough to support the plants needs and recommended I add a mineral based nute supplement at very diluted strenth 1/week to add available N.

Does this sound right to any of you?

 

ummm...did you tell the technician that this was a MJ plant that's about a month into flowering?

 

Of course not.. But he knew I was using the biobizz feeding schedule and was a month into the bloom period.

 

well, other plants act differently in bloom. This is a natural thing that the plant is doing, it is not something you've done wrong