Leaves yellowing - help please!

Hi there,

This is my first grow and it's gone pretty smoothly so far, apart from a couple of nute burn episodes and thrip problems.

I'm growing "semi-outdoor", moving the plants around so they get about 9hrs of direct sun a day, and 3 weeks ago I introduced a flowering cycle, covering them with giant cardboard boxes when necessary for 12hrs a day of dark (working surprising well).

Whilst the buds are developing very well, and fast, recently lots of leaves have been turning yellow and dropping off. There isn't much pattern to it although they are mainly older leaves. I understand it's normal for this to happen during late flowering, but this is only 3 weeks in and I'm worried that in 5 weeks there will only be the buds left. This morning I picked off at least 10-15 from the larger plant.

Any ideas as to what might be causing this?

Soil grow, the larger plant outside is NL and the other is AK-48.

I'm now using flowering nutrients although admittedly only 2/3rds dose as I'm worried about nute burn again.

Thanks in advance

Its not normal for a MJ plant to yellow(more than the random leaf here and there)anytime during its life cycle. By the looks of your pics I would up its N dose a bit. The more leaves that yellow and fall off just means fewer to produce energy for bud production. I would try and keep your plant as green as possible right up until harvest day. Fish Emulsion works well along side bloom nutes when it comes to keeping a plant healthy and green through flowering.

I dunno guess I am playing with a different deck.... I see the plant as health as hell and a normal yellow leaf or heck even 5-10 at a time on a larger full plant is normal... take the yellow ones off or let em fall (I take em off and toss em on top pf the dirt below- keeps a bit more moisture in and composts at the same time.

I only see less then 7 or so yellows... the plant believe it or not is a pretty stubborn plant it actually wants to grow (given the right conditions)

Yeah my current plant would disagree with u. Its lost quite a few fan leaves but in the spots that the leaves r falling off at the nodes r still growing strong. I have several plants from 3 diff. strains I'm growin and they r all in the same soil and r all getting the same food yet this is the only plant that I have leaves falling off of, maybe u can tell me whats ailing it?

dvs1038 said:

Yeah my current plant would disagree with u. Its lost quite a few fan leaves but in the spots that the leaves r falling off at the nodes r still growing strong. I have several plants from 3 diff. strains I'm growin and they r all in the same soil and r all getting the same food yet this is the only plant that I have leaves falling off of, maybe u can tell me whats ailing it?

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she needs those dead branches off her... I use the lollipop tech too.. your plant also looks like it should... yellowing esp during flowering is 100% normal and expected.


Allowing them to die on the plant zaps some energy that can go elsewhere.. same as the yellowing fan leaves.. unless she is ALL yellow or even more then 10-15% pluck the yellow ones off.. why worry about saving a few yellow fan leaves?

Thanks for the replies. Certainly it's abnormal as I'm pulling a lot of yellow leaves off every day when before flowering it was only the odd one, so I'm going to up the N dose and see what happens.

One question - could it be to do with the heat? It's got up to 38c (shade) here in the past week and they've been in the sun. However it seem to be select leaves around the middle of the plant so I imagine it's something else that's up...

depends on your nutes your giving it. when i use BUD XL its surges it into a cycle of more energy to budding and no energy to sustain leaves so some nutes make the leaves yellow real fast. if your budding period isnt that long read the nutes make sure its a flowering cycle nute not a budding cycle nute.