Help!! New grower...week 5 of flower plants are sick

The more research I do...the less I think it's N toxicity, unless my soil us still "hot" from the veg nutes and some bat guano I used in early veg. My liquid bloom nutes are not very strong or high in N, and i don't think I over fed them. thinking it's a lockout due to ph or salt buildup. Growing is not easy; that's for sure. For every symptom...there's 10 possible causes. Im becoming a cannabis pathologist, a shitty one at that. Anyway to know if it's salt buildup? I've only used organic nutes. when I water I just water til the pots start to run off. Should I be giving them more water to cause more runoff? Sorry for all the questions; I'm just a few weeks away from my first legit harvest so im a ltitle anxious. I learned so much my first 2 grows but something Is wrong with my plants and I don't know what it is.

Considering doing a flush...but my middle pots are hard to reach (scrog) and I don't really want fill up my milk jug 200 times. 8 5 gal pots X 5 times capacity equals 200. But I know that at this stage it's paramount to have my girls healthy as can be. Are there any possible negatives to a flush at this point?

Water until you see 10-15% runoff, I wouldn't flush but it's your call

I started with organics and decided not to go back unless growing outdoors, it can be a pain with bugs, compost teas, messing with that stuff takes so much extra time. It's far easier to diagnose a plant problem if one is growing in a tried and true medium, feeding with one or two bottles of nutrients it slims the variables down to fewer possibilities...

Good info:
You state you feed every other watering. This is probably the best way to grow in my opinion and thats what I do. I'm currently on week five and feed 1100ppm during a feeding and 700ppm during a watering along with a pk booster, sweetener, and a sulfur additive.

My run off is 250ppm at any given time, the same as the ppm of my tap water before i mix my nutes. This is how I know I'm under feeding which is good. If you under feed you'll run into no serious problems. If you over feed you'll fry the leaves and your fucked. When I say no serious problems you might run into a deficiency here and there but its not anything that will hurt yields or plants if you use a good base.

If your ppm of your run off is above your tap water ppm then that means you should back off the feeding a tad by a couple hundred ppm.

Here I think these two videos are good for anyone who is trying to grow.



If you underfeed and you see a deficiency then if you water with what the plant needs, the plant will bounce back within hours. If over fed then you cant bring back shit lol.


Your solution from me to you:
You need to start testing your run off (PPM's and the PH). That is what dictates your next feeding. If your following a chart and not testing your run off your basically just going in with a knife to a run fight. Plants can be ineffective at bring up some nutrients due to ph. Just check the run off and your ph and feed accordingly.
Example:
If your in soil and your run off is a ph of 6.0 with a 1,000ppm then here is when you water with ph 7 water without any nutes. Watering with a ph of 7 you will bring the ph to 6.5 which is perfect.

If your in soil and your run off is a ph of 7 and ppm off 250ppm same as your tap, you can feed full strength feeding or fill strength watering but at a ph of 6. This will bring the ph down to 6.5.

But as I mentioned soil doesnt need to be ph'ed. But many people do just for the fact other people tell them. If your plants were raised without ph'ed water I would stick to not phing the water. If they were raised on ph water then I would ph water. A raise or drop off more than 1.0 ph as in 4.0 to 5.0 can shock and kill the plant. Example is run off is a ph of 4.0 and you feed a ph of 7 water resulting in a ph increase of 1.5 for a total ph of 5.5. This is too drastic and should be brought up gradually.

I'll be able to test my water and runoff tomorrow...I don't have a ppm meter. Ive been using straight tap water....which is hard water. My soil ph has raised in the last 2 weeks...it was just under 7, now it's just under 8...I think the raise in ph is my problem. What's the best way to Adress my High soil ph? Ph down? Dolomite? Vinegar?

Littlebeezy said:

I'll be able to test my water and runoff tomorrow...I don't have a ppm meter. Ive been using straight tap water....which is hard water. My soil ph has raised in the last 2 weeks...it was just under 7, now it's just under 8...I think the raise in ph is my problem. What's the best way to Adress my High soil ph? Ph down? Dolomite? Vinegar?

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The ph of the soil doesnt matter. the run off is what is important. the ph of the soil can be 7 but run off can be a ph of 5.

theres a ton of cheap meters on amazon that are good.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002T6L5M?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
This is probably the best one you can buy for the money currently, it has a temp sensor which auto correct to give you the true ec reading.

Cool thanks. But isn't runoff related to soil ph? If you put in 6.5 water...and runoff is 7 or higher doesn't that mean the soil is too alkaline?

give them molassas ,it is good

Littlebeezy said:

Cool thanks. But isn't runoff related to soil ph? If you put in 6.5 water...and runoff is 7 or higher doesn't that mean the soil is too alkaline?

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Yea that would mean its alkaline but your soil is a natural buffer and if fed dechlorinated water the soil will adjust the ph of the water to acceptable ph levels. So in other words soil is not directly related to the ph of the run off. I highly doubt your run off is any higher than 6.5. Its probably around 5.5 from my experiences if your soil ph is increasing. But get a meter and test the intimidate run off from the pot. This way you get the true reading instead of the water your putting in.

Littlebeezy said:

Cool thanks. But isn't runoff related to soil ph? If you put in 6.5 water...and runoff is 7 or higher doesn't that mean the soil is too alkaline?

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Yes. But, it's a matter of accuracy. Proper runoff testing is described by the NCSU Pour Through Method.

Some people do have alkaline soils. One guy had boron lockout recently due to too much ground clamshells or something added to his soil.

Littlebeezy said:

I'm a new grower...this is my 3rd harvest, still learning as I go.

So..I'm growing in soil. 8 plants in 5 gal buckets under 1000w hps. Barry white strain using "age old and buddha grow" nutes. (Grow and bloom)

So everything has been going great no problems. 4 weeks into to flowering everything looked great. Now week 5, plants are showing what appears to be nitrogen toxicity, dark green leaves, extra foliage, weak stems, clawing leaves (not extreme clawing but leave tips are pointing down) there are no signs of nute burn. They're just just a little droopy...and the claw leafs seem to be random. The flowering nute Is extremely low In nitro so Im not sure if it's nitro tox...but I can't find anything else that explains the symptoms. Also, my soil ph suddenly jumped up to 7.8 at the same time the leaves started to claw. It had stayed very close to 7 the entire grow up to this point I'm freaking out...I didnt give them any nitro on their last feeding. I have no idea whats wrong. Could it be nute lockout? Root rot? Over/under watering?Some other deficiency? Any help or advice would be appreciated.

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Flush your plant bro

I'm 42 I been growing 35 years and still wonder some shit myself. I got my first 2 autos ever a super Skunk from ILGM and a UK Cheese from HSO they are 12 Days old I gave them a micro feeding on the 9 day old mark my PPM'S were at 850 and for whatever reason I just checked my soil and the PH is reading 3 on one of those little soil meters. By what every auto grower says on the net ....they should be fried right......

I became a better grower when I quit reading lables. Always start at a 1/4 strength with the nutes and work up from there. Learn to read what your plants are telling you and journel shit and use it as reference. I would just clean the soil out with a flush and wait a couple days and feed as you see fit. CO2 could help with alot of these things too

I'm going to do a flush tomorrow...at least a partial flush. My setup isn't conducive to catching 100's of gallons of runoff. They're all woven into the scrog screen so I can't pick up my pots and take them to the sink/tub. But I'm definitely going to water the shit out them and get as much runoff /flushing as is plausible.

Thanks to all who responded to my threads. I appreciate it

DesertGrow89 said:

Get your ph down to 6.5-7. You don't need that much P until maybe the final two weeks of flower. There are plenty of people who have used DG foliage pro 9-3-6 throughout veg AND flower with excellent results...

What is in your soil mix?

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yes listen to this guy. see allot of people think you need high bloom formula and it isnt always the case. the 3-1-2 npk ratio of the foliage pro is suppose to be a good for veg and bloom. i have mixed grow and bloom at 50/50 with the dyna -gro for a while with good results. only after the plants show blooming tho. and i feed low ppm or ec.

and by the picture it looks good, just cant see the color of leaves because the hps is great at hiding the plants true color and shades.

You can get a wet-dry vac which fits on top of a 5gal bucket. They cost about $25 at Home Depot and Lowes. Get the crevice tool to attach to the end. You can suck the water out of your saucers.

I make deep-wall saucers by cutting 5gal buckets down to 4" deep (for a 3gal container). Makes it easier to get a lot of runoff compared to the typical saucer.

I've also found rubber bumpers with nails on the end. They're designed for nailing into the legs of a table or something. I push 5-6 of those through the bottom of a container, allowing a little more margin for runoff capacity in my deep-wall saucers.

I flushed as best I could. Will a flush cure an insoluble nitrogen problem? I gave them a little fish bone meal 3-16-0 at the start of flower. Just realized it's insoluble nitrogen...I'm going to stick to liquid water soluble nutes next time

My tap water which I use is 7.5...and runoff is 7.5. I don't know if over time the water ph changed the soil...because the soil has always been 7 til recently.

Littlebeezy said:

My tap water which I use is 7.5...and runoff is 7.5. I don't know if over time the water ph changed the soil...because the soil has always been 7 til recently.

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I would feed ph of 6.5 which would bring it down to 7 theoretically then the next watering I would feed 6.0 and then check your run off and go from there.

That's the plan. Thanks