Losing a lot of leaf but the buds are growin. The yellowing could just be from crowding, but I think it's more likely that my ph is quite high still and I'm basically battling it down with every feeding. My soil's runoff is consistently reading about 7.5 even though I'm putting in 5.4-5.8 through. I even did a double watering last time with a light dose just to bring the ph down, but ph was still coming out high on the tail end of that.
I read something someone posted about too much worm castings bringing ph up... seems like maybe I nailed that, because I did add extra worm castings in the mix at the bottom, trying to be smart and give myself the edge by having extra nitrogen waiting for it later in flowering... but of course, that was short-sighted, as the roots grow down there long before late in flowering... and as soon as the roots were occupying the hotter soil, I bet I started seeing a combination of nute burn and ph swinging out of control...
I've got a soil tester in the mail to check out the soil ph more directly, but this is the best lead I've come up with so far. I keep thinking i'm burning them, yet at the same time they're dropping leaves and yellowing out. I'm sure I'm way out of balance, overall. I've stopped feeding grow nutes entirely at this point, but it's too late, the damage is done between the grow nutes and the extra worm castings, I think.
I don't want to waste a lot of nutes flushing with nutriented water just to watch it go down the drain... what I'd like to do is just ph down with lemon juice then run that through until the ph shows lower in run-off... then put thru a normal watering's worth of nutrients after the ph'd water has mostly finished running through. Would that be effective? I know the roots are sensitive to sudden changes in the root environment, but I'd just be bringing the ph down to the same level it gets with any feeding anyway... then feeding at the end...
Considering that... or I'll just keep feeding without another flush and hope for the best before the end... might just keep feeding for now, see what hte soil ph tester says, then consider a heavier flush...