Guess the deficiency

What’s up all? I’m on day 51 of my seedsman white widow auto. I’m growing in ff of. From seed until a week into flowering (roughly 30 days) I gave both but cal mag and ph’d ro water. So, absolutely no nutes up until about 2 weeks ago. I started feeding very lightly with tiger bloom and big bloom. I only used 5 ml and 10 ml respectively. I suspect a nitrogen deficiency based on what I see. The plant is still a ways out from being ready to chop based off trichomes and pistils. Do you agree this looks like nitrogen deficiency? I think by not feeding at all I may have used up the soils nutes and now lacking. Thanks in advance.

If you’ve been giving Cal Mag throughout it probably isn’t N. Looks more like K deficiency.

Your probably seeing normal die-off of old leaves, but you should only use Calmag once at 4 weeks in soil.
Next time I would recommend a lite feeding once a week of a grow nute from start, and hold off on all that Calmag, it's not needed in soil.

Merlin1147 said:

If you’ve been giving Cal Mag throughout it probably isn’t N. Looks more like K deficiency.

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I looked closer at the chart with the sick leaves and I think you’re correct.

Jimdamick said:

Your probably seeing normal die-off of old leaves, but you should only use Calmag once at 4 weeks in soil.
Next time I would recommend a lite feeding once a week of a grow nute from start, and hold off on all that Calmag, it's not needed in soil.

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Thank you for your reply. I was told before if using RO water with ffof I had to use calmag. I definitely will quit using each feeding. How can I get the plant back in good shape. The yellowing is still progressing upward. Should I use extra grow big for one feeding? I don’t want to add extra tiger bloom and risk burning. I’m still a ways out before chopping based on the trichomes. Thanks again

Kenlv said:

Thank you for your reply. I was told before if using RO water with ffof I had to use calmag. I definitely will quit using each feeding. How can I get the plant back in good shape. The yellowing is still progressing upward. Should I use extra grow big for one feeding? I don’t want to add extra tiger bloom and risk burning. I’m still a ways out before chopping based on the trichomes. Thanks again

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I don’t use FFOF fert. But if it were me I’d go 2.5ml Tiger and 50ml Big Bloom. That will get you about 250 ppm with a 1:1 ratio of P : K and only 13 ppm N. The yellow leaves won’t recover but they should stop progressing

Merlin1147 said:

I don’t use FFOF fert. But if it were me I’d go 2.5ml Tiger and 50ml Big Bloom. That will get you about 250 ppm with a 1:1 ratio of P : K and only 13 ppm N. The yellow leaves won’t recover but they should stop progressing

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Thank you. I will do just that and follow up with the results.

Merlin1147 said:

I don’t use FFOF fert. But if it were me I’d go 2.5ml Tiger and 50ml Big Bloom. That will get you about 250 ppm with a 1:1 ratio of P : K and only 13 ppm N. The yellow leaves won’t recover but they should stop progressing

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I just mixed up a gallon of ro water with 2.5ml Tiger bloom and 50ml big bloom. My ppm start was 008. After the mix the ppm was 468. Ph was stable at 6.4 with no up or down. Shouldn’t my ppm of been 250?

I’d should be if my math is right. There may be other “stuff” in the fert kicking it up or the meter is off. Even the 468 should be not problem.

Tiger is 2-8-4. And Big Bloom is 0-.5-.7 right?
There are 3785ml in a gallon.
So just looking at the N in Tiger for example
(2.5ml/3785) *2% * 100000 = 13ppm N
If you do the same for the P and K and the big bloom and add them all up I get
13ppm N- 119ppm P - 119ppm K.

Merlin1147 said:

I’d should be if my math is right. There may be other “stuff” in the fert kicking it up or the meter is off. Even the 468 should be not problem.

Tiger is 2-8-4. And Big Bloom is 0-.5-.7 right?
There are 3785ml in a gallon.
So just looking at the N in Tiger for example
(2.5ml/3785) *2% * 100000 = 13ppm N
If you do the same for the P and K and the big bloom and add them all up I get
13ppm N- 119ppm P - 119ppm K.

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Your math makes perfect sense for N-P-K ppm. I read the ingredient and there are other viatmins in there as well. I’m guessing that’s why the difference. I’m going to try my first photo after this auto is done. I’ve only grown one photo and it was bag seed and a male. I’ve got some feminized photos from seedsman. I digress. The plant seems to have responded well to your advice. It’s only been a short but I saw buds swelling at the normal rate now. I’ll post pics in 5 days. Next feed should I do the same

Merlin1147 said:

I’d should be if my math is right. There may be other “stuff” in the fert kicking it up or the meter is off. Even the 468 should be not problem.

Tiger is 2-8-4. And Big Bloom is 0-.5-.7 right?
There are 3785ml in a gallon.
So just looking at the N in Tiger for example
(2.5ml/3785) *2% * 100000 = 13ppm N
If you do the same for the P and K and the big bloom and add them all up I get
13ppm N- 119ppm P - 119ppm K.

Click to expand...

Your P & K PPM values may require correction as the label likely listed them as % P2O5 and % K2O, also specific gravity needs to be taken into account unless you are adding by mass and not volume.

This is from the post I made in my signature:

Phosphorous and Potassium - Beasts of another nature

It should be noted that P & K are different animals depending on how they are put in the mix.

By convention in the U.S. the fertilizer label lists the percentage P2O5 instead of the percent P. Similarly, the labels lists the percentage K2O instead of the percent K. This means we have to take into account conversion factors to calculate the percent elemental P and K.

To convert P2O5 to P multiply by 0.4364
To convert P to P2O5 multiply by 2.2915
To convert K2O to K multiply by 0.8301
To convert K to K2O multiply by 1.2047

Liquid Nutrients and Specific Gravity - Volume Measurements

It gets more complicated when mixing by volume and not mass, liquid nutrients. In this case you must take density into account.

Since the specific gravity of a nutrient isn't commonly listed on the label we must weigh a volume of the nutrient and calculate it's specific gravity.

For example, I just put 100mL of GH Micro in a graduated cylinder and it weighed about 121.2 grams. So if I do some math on the GH micro, 1mL per gallon, the label says it has 5% calcium.

1 mL per gallon x 264.2 x .05 = 13.2 PPM of calcium

BUT when we take into account the extra mass in the mL we multiply that by a specific gravity of 1.212 (according to my most likely not accurate measurement) and then we get 16 PPM of calcium by adding 1 mL of Micro to a gallon of water.

1 mL per gallon x 264.2 x .05 x 1.212 = 16 PPM of calcium

I hope this helps explain PPM and I regret any errors in my math. Please contribute if you see anything important I missed or any unfortunate errors in my work. I didn't go into conversions of PPM from EC as thats really another subject and very simple. - Renfro

PPM is commonly measured by a grower using an electronic pen which measures the electrical conductivity of the water (EC). This is then converted to a PPM number with a conversion factor. Since different substances in the water will conduct electricity with varying degrees of resistance we must understand this number is only an estimate.

Thats also from my post. Basically the pen reading will rarely agree with the actual elemental PPM numbers.

Renfro said:

PPM is commonly measured by a grower using an electronic pen which measures the electrical conductivity of the water (EC). This is then converted to a PPM number with a conversion factor. Since different substances in the water will conduct electricity with varying degrees of resistance we must understand this number is only an estimate.

Thats also from my post. Basically the pen reading will rarely agree with the actual elemental PPM numbers.

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Thank you for so much information. Very well written too. The pen being an estimation makes complete sense. Thank you for your time addressing my issues.

Merlin1147 said:

I’d should be if my math is right. There may be other “stuff” in the fert kicking it up or the meter is off. Even the 468 should be not problem.

Tiger is 2-8-4. And Big Bloom is 0-.5-.7 right?
There are 3785ml in a gallon.
So just looking at the N in Tiger for example
(2.5ml/3785) *2% * 100000 = 13ppm N
If you do the same for the P and K and the big bloom and add them all up I get
13ppm N- 119ppm P - 119ppm K.

Click to expand...

Well, it looks like the bump up in nutes has helped with bud density. The yellowing of the leaves is still occurring but only on the big fan leaves. I believe a previous poster was correct that the plant is using up its stored nutrients as chop time nears. The trichomes on the leafs have changed to milky and amber but not on the bud themselves yet. I’m close to 60 days in so I’m going to feed one more time and flush. Thoughts? See photo please.

she looks great. Looks like only a few lost leaves. Hard to tell from this pic but from last weeks looks like you have a ways to go to harvest. Lots of long white pistils. Maybe a better pic to get a better idea how much longer. I never flush. Those fert levels could work right through. I would be tempted to bump them up if there are 3-4 week left maybe for a week, then bring them back down.

Merlin1147 said:

she looks great. Looks like only a few lost leaves. Hard to tell from this pic but from last weeks looks like you have a ways to go to harvest. Lots of long white pistils. Maybe a better pic to get a better idea how much longer. I never flush. Those fert levels could work right through. I would be tempted to bump them up if there are 3-4 week left maybe for a week, then bring them back down.

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Thank you brother! Your advice helped immensely. The harvest got me on the first grow I did. I waited for the trichomes to become milky and some amber but when I posted pictures, the advice was I harvested early. The bud taste good but lacked any strong punch unless I vaped/smoked/ate roughly twice what I buy in the store. I know I’m never going to grow professional dispensary class bud but it should’ve been stronger in my opinion. So, should I ignore the sugar leaves and only look on the buds themselves? Right now there is around half milky and half cloudy on the leaves. On the buds, almost no amber (only in packed darker areas) and almost all milky. I’m using a 40-60x jewelers loop. Thank you again and look at the new picture. You revived it.

Kenlv said:

I know I’m never going to grow professional dispensary class bud

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I think your selling yourself short. Dispensary weed IMO is a race to the bottom. Everyone in the supply chain is trying to maximize profits, over time that means reducing inputs and cutting corners. With experience, the right equipment and the patience to dry and cure properly you can blow dispensary weed away. Go with photoperiod plants as a start.

Lots of white pistils still on your plant and the calyx need to swell some more. Be patient.

Kenlv said:

What’s up all? I’m on day 51 of my seedsman white widow auto. I’m growing in ff of. From seed until a week into flowering (roughly 30 days) I gave both but cal mag and ph’d ro water. So, absolutely no nutes up until about 2 weeks ago. I started feeding very lightly with tiger bloom and big bloom. I only used 5 ml and 10 ml respectively. I suspect a nitrogen deficiency based on what I see. The plant is still a ways out from being ready to chop based off trichomes and pistils. Do you agree this looks like nitrogen deficiency? I think by not feeding at all I may have used up the soils nutes and now lacking. Thanks in advance.

Click to expand...

When you flipped to 12/12 Nitrogen/iron , were a little low in ratio to potassium levels ,very common, you really need around 1:1 when first flipping to 12/12 that is equal parts nitrogen to potassium, but you cant correct it now, and you should not add nitrogen after flipping to 12/12 ,, in fact its pretty common, the buds are pulling carbohydrates from the leaves, dont try change anything, just run with it, they will finish fine.

RangiSTaxi said:

When you flipped to 12/12 Nitrogen/iron , were a little low in ratio to potassium levels ,very common, you really need around 1:1 when first flipping to 12/12 that is equal parts nitrogen to potassium, but you cant correct it now, and you should not add nitrogen after flipping to 12/12 ,, in fact its pretty common, the buds are pulling carbohydrates from the leaves, dont try change anything, just run with it, they will finish fine.

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I never flipped this one. It’s an auto flower but useful information for my next grow; it will be a photo period. Why are the trichomes on the small sugar leafs changing color quicker than the rest of the bud itself?

Not a pro by far.. but I have witness this so much with this ffof soil... to me I feel like its a k deficiency...they use up so much during heavy flowering..seems like using pk boosters made it worse... not a burn but a deficiency....like you...with not many nutes used, the tips of my leaves began to brown and burn...I started using bembe 0n- 1p- 3k... on my next grows around weeks 4 - 8... things got a lot better... jm2c