Early flower problems, all help welcome and appreciated

Hey RIU, I've been lurking for quite some time, and wanna start by saying thanks to all who participate.
The details: This tent/setup is one that I help out with (as a patient). Currently have 2 lemon haze that are 3-4 weeks into flowering and stunted. This is the second time I've had this happen in this setup. I run an almost exact duplicate for myself (same strain and equip.) and haven't had this issue. What has been throwing me off is this is the second round (from clone) of these at this location with no signs of this issue all through veg. Only seems to be happening in early flower and I've yet to be able to recover.
Light: 1Kwatt roughly 16 to 18 inches from top
medium: roots707
temps: 70-low 80's
humidity: 30-65%
water source: well
nutes: GO box

Attempts to solve:
1) I've top dressed with powdered lime before watering (thinking ph was an issue)
2) have been adding epsom salt (1 tsp/gal) as I thought this originally was a magnesium def.
3) added as many fans as possible to control humidity swings. The weather has been pretty crazy around here lately.
P.s. sorry for the first blurry picture...kinda a pain in the ass to guess how clear the pic will be with lights off and only using flash on the phone :bigjoint:

Again thank you in advance to all replies.


viewattachment1.jpg viewattachment2.jpg viewattachment3.jpg
 

Bugeye

Well-Known Member
You have to figure out what is different between the grows. Are they both using the same well water? Does that well water get run through a water softener? Do you know the ppm on the well water?
 
Thanks for the reply Bugeye. 1) They are different wells. 2) There is no water softener 3) ppm was 110-150 when i checked (2 months ago). ill check again tomorrow to see if there is a large seasonal difference or something. Ive been considering getting some sort of a single stage, under the tap, filter, but am thrown off again by the fact that these girls saw 2 months of veg with no sign of this.
 

Dr.Pecker

Well-Known Member
I tried lemon haze a few times It grew fine in veg freaked out in flower so I chopped it up into a million pieces. Yours grew fine before just not this time sooooo. Are you reusing your soil? If you are stop or at least wash it out real good and re amend before you use it.I just throw my old soil in the garden.
 

Apical Bud

Well-Known Member
Since it looks like a magnesium thing you should foliar spray at least. Since you added a base to the soil you should really check the pH if you want to rule out pH as the long term issue. I wonder if your initial problem was simply mag-def but in your effort to fix it you upset your soil pH to the point that the mag you did add wasn't able to be taken up? I've done that exact thing all because I looked at that damn leaf with the interveinal chlorosis. If you do have basic soil the good news is it's pretty easy to fix - you can flush the soil and rewater with a complete fert (they are hard to find, but if you have something like FloraMicro you can add it to miracle grow tomato food and be good to go).
If you have a way to test ph you should test your soil, but if you don't you'll have to make some cabbage juice. I'm serious. Buy some red cabbage, boil it in clean water in a clean pot, chuck the cabbage chunks and save the water as if it were tea. The color of this indicator at this time should be the color it is when it exists in a pH neutral-ish solution.
At this point you have a universal pH indicator that will change color with changing pH.
To the pot of indicator add as much liming agent as you added to your plant (try to estimate).
You should notice the color of the water in the pot change.
Now crush up a vitamin C pill and an aspirin and add them to a hopefully graduated container (like a beaker or graduated measuring cup) of hot but not boiling water.
Stir until everything is dissolved. Now add splashes of solution from this mug to the indicator-liming agent solution.
Add more and more until the solution returns to its original color. If you keep track of how much (by percent) of the water in the coffee mug you added to the pot you'll know what percent of a vitamin C pill + an aspirin you'll need to counter the amount of lime you added. I'd recommend applying this amount over the course of two waterings.
I hope this helps!
 
John & DR.Peck thanks for weighing in. This IS NOT reused soil and isnt even partially reused soil. I had this issue with the first run and would never reuse soil i had issues with...at least on my indoor garden.

Apical: That sounds like some crazy witch doctor stuff to me...i'd almost rather cave and buy a ph pen then add all of that extra stuff to my soil, when i'm already having issues with whats in it. Sorry if i seem skeptical but id wait for someone else to chime in on your suggestion before trying it. One thing I've learned here is read and read again.

Thoughts:
In my first cycle with the lemon I initially thought this to be a ph issue. So to solve the problem this time around I was thinking of:
1) taking the girls out of those bags and transplanting to either a 7 or 10 gal nursery pot w/ fresh soil
2) flushing with store bought water and 1/4 strength nutes
3) should i flush with a fungicide instead of 1/4 strength nutes? (i picked up some garden safe 3 in 1 for lack of neem meal in my area)
...opinions?
Thanks again to everyone. It's nice to be able to bounce ideas off one another instead of pulling your hair out.
 
Last edited:

Dr.Pecker

Well-Known Member
Its a bad idea to repot durring flowering in my expunless you have a root rot issue because the plant will start growing roots instead of bud. plus it tends to stunt growth for a couple weeks and you know thats not a good idea. over all the plant don't look really bad I would stick to organic top dressing dont use chems in soil because it kills off microlife and that is what feeds the plants in soil. ph pens are good but those soil ph test kits with the capsules that you shake up and test the color are what you should get for testing the soil.hop this helps.
 

Merlin34

Well-Known Member
Another thought for you. The lime will not effect the soil right away. It breaks down over time buffering to 7.0 pH. So you didn't drastically alter your soil pH instantly by adding it.

Sent from Northern Colorado.
 
Thanks all for the help.
Dr. P: I'd never use chems on an all organic setup like this. That fungicide is just neem oil to add to water and use as a root drench.

Ultimately I decided to take them out of the bag and moved them into 7 gal pots. I noticed the roots seemed to be retaining too much water in the bags. They were originally in 7 gal gabs with the top few inches folded over. After taking them out of the bags the root ball was about 6 gal of medium. Hopefully this small increase in volume shouldn't cause too much root growth/stim or shock in general.
 
Top