So I have been having problems that start around the same time every grow for the past four grows. When the plants are in veg they look great, but at about week 3/4 of the flower cycle the problems begin. In the first three grows I grew a dominant Sativa cross, New York Power Diesel (NYPD). The first grow I used 1 gallon pots from start to finish with only a week veg. These plants looked like they were suffering from major nutrient burn by the end of the cycle. I only was able to flush these ladies once, and even that was not a great flush. I thought this was my problem, solving this on the next grow but to no avail--the plants still looked burned (still used 1 gallon pots with 1 week veg). I switched to 3 gallon bags on the third time around. I flushed them once half way through and then again in the end, but they still looked burned but better than before. I was watering them with nutrients at every watering, about every other day, and I determined that this was the problem due to a very high ppm reading on runoff water and the flush water (as high as 1800 on the flush runoff). I cut the nutrient intake down to a minimal amount in the last three weeks and it seemed to help applying only water for most of the time.
So now that you have a little background of what I have been through I will list the variables I am using i.e. nutrients, atmosphere etc.
Soil - Foxfarm Ocean Forest
Bacterial and Fungal Inoculum - Tarantula and Piranha by Advanced Nutrients
Nutrients
Biobizz grow - 1ml/L for every week
Biobizz bloom - 1ml-4ml/L increasing from week 1 - week 10
Biobizz TopMax - 1ml-4ml/L increasing from week 1 - week 10
Atmosphere (for 12/12)
Day/Night Temperature - 75-78F/64-67F
Relative Humidity - 35-45%
pH - the pH of the soil is ~6.5/6.8 from a cheap soil pH tester. The water runoff is around the same from test strips.
I water with RO water with a deionizer attachment with a final ppm reading of 0 at the tap. When I water I usually use 2 gallons of water for 6, 3 gallon plants. That gives enough water to fill the containers with little runoff and do this around every other day depending on the soil moisture content. As the plants get bigger they transpire water faster. I try and keep the soil moist but not saturated. The plants are elevated off the floor with an oscillating fan on them 24 hours a day.
So now my current situation. I am now growing what is thought to be Platinum Kush or Purple Mater Kush, either way it is some Kush variety. I am at week 4 in the flowering cycle and 3 of the 7 plants in the room right now are having problems. These 3 plants are all shorter and lighter green than the other 4. The stronger 4 plants have dark green, thick waxy looking leaves with very good bud growth. The 3 weaker looking plants are all smaller in stature with smaller bud growth and in the past three days have developed what you can see in the pictures, a turning up of the fan leaves followed by dying brown spots that are crispy to the touch.
When I saw this my first thought was to flush these plants but when taking ppm readings of the water runoff, it only read around 400ppm for these plants not nearly high enough to be the cause of the problems, i think--I am getting flustered at this point. So now I am leaning toward some kind of deficiency. I am using a soil mixture (FoxFarm) with a lot of organic sources of nutrients with a heavy bacterial and fungal inoculation which should speed up the conversion of organic forms of the nutrients to plant available forms. Because of this, and previous experience with nutrient burns, I am only feeding the above schedule once per week with the thought to increase to twice as they get further into growth. What is really strange is that half of the plants, all getting the same water, nutrients, light, love, you name it, seem to be doing fine and then these three are all showing problems. Maybe soon they will all be showing the problems, these are just the weaker plants and therefore are the ones first hit.
Tonight I hit the problem plants with a dose of SuperThrive which is basically chelated iron and other micronutrients which is a used to reduce transplant shock, and help with root growth. Hopefully this will help.
Should I incorporate AlgAMic back into my feeding regime? What does the knowledge of the forum have to offer me in my quest toward perfection?
On a side note the bigger, stronger plants in my grow right now are all exhibiting lateral twisting of the leaves. There are times when the night temperature can fall to around 60/62 degrees and I attributed the physical abnormality to this; not paying it much mind due to the overall strong healthy appearance of these plants.
Pictures
1 - One of the healthy, tall, strong plants with the lateral twisting leaves and overall dark green, waxy leaf complexion.
2-4 - These are the problem plants, you can see the fan leaves beginning to die on me.
5 - This picture shows the height difference between one of the tall healthy plants and the smaller lighter green problem plants, all plants were the same height when flower began and have had the exact same care.
Please lend me some of your knowledge. I am a hard worker and have been toiling away for a year now with improved success. But as a perfectionist, until everything is exactly the way I know it can be, I will not be satisfied. Thank you for your time.
-Tamjee
So now that you have a little background of what I have been through I will list the variables I am using i.e. nutrients, atmosphere etc.
Soil - Foxfarm Ocean Forest
Bacterial and Fungal Inoculum - Tarantula and Piranha by Advanced Nutrients
Nutrients
Biobizz grow - 1ml/L for every week
Biobizz bloom - 1ml-4ml/L increasing from week 1 - week 10
Biobizz TopMax - 1ml-4ml/L increasing from week 1 - week 10
I followed the biobizz feeding schedule listed for when the Biobizz brand AllMix soil was used due to using FoxFarm soil with many of the same organic additives.
I own, but do not use AlgAMic and this may be my problem.
I own, but do not use AlgAMic and this may be my problem.
Atmosphere (for 12/12)
Day/Night Temperature - 75-78F/64-67F
Relative Humidity - 35-45%
pH - the pH of the soil is ~6.5/6.8 from a cheap soil pH tester. The water runoff is around the same from test strips.
I water with RO water with a deionizer attachment with a final ppm reading of 0 at the tap. When I water I usually use 2 gallons of water for 6, 3 gallon plants. That gives enough water to fill the containers with little runoff and do this around every other day depending on the soil moisture content. As the plants get bigger they transpire water faster. I try and keep the soil moist but not saturated. The plants are elevated off the floor with an oscillating fan on them 24 hours a day.
So now my current situation. I am now growing what is thought to be Platinum Kush or Purple Mater Kush, either way it is some Kush variety. I am at week 4 in the flowering cycle and 3 of the 7 plants in the room right now are having problems. These 3 plants are all shorter and lighter green than the other 4. The stronger 4 plants have dark green, thick waxy looking leaves with very good bud growth. The 3 weaker looking plants are all smaller in stature with smaller bud growth and in the past three days have developed what you can see in the pictures, a turning up of the fan leaves followed by dying brown spots that are crispy to the touch.
When I saw this my first thought was to flush these plants but when taking ppm readings of the water runoff, it only read around 400ppm for these plants not nearly high enough to be the cause of the problems, i think--I am getting flustered at this point. So now I am leaning toward some kind of deficiency. I am using a soil mixture (FoxFarm) with a lot of organic sources of nutrients with a heavy bacterial and fungal inoculation which should speed up the conversion of organic forms of the nutrients to plant available forms. Because of this, and previous experience with nutrient burns, I am only feeding the above schedule once per week with the thought to increase to twice as they get further into growth. What is really strange is that half of the plants, all getting the same water, nutrients, light, love, you name it, seem to be doing fine and then these three are all showing problems. Maybe soon they will all be showing the problems, these are just the weaker plants and therefore are the ones first hit.
Tonight I hit the problem plants with a dose of SuperThrive which is basically chelated iron and other micronutrients which is a used to reduce transplant shock, and help with root growth. Hopefully this will help.
Should I incorporate AlgAMic back into my feeding regime? What does the knowledge of the forum have to offer me in my quest toward perfection?
On a side note the bigger, stronger plants in my grow right now are all exhibiting lateral twisting of the leaves. There are times when the night temperature can fall to around 60/62 degrees and I attributed the physical abnormality to this; not paying it much mind due to the overall strong healthy appearance of these plants.
Pictures
1 - One of the healthy, tall, strong plants with the lateral twisting leaves and overall dark green, waxy leaf complexion.
2-4 - These are the problem plants, you can see the fan leaves beginning to die on me.
5 - This picture shows the height difference between one of the tall healthy plants and the smaller lighter green problem plants, all plants were the same height when flower began and have had the exact same care.
Please lend me some of your knowledge. I am a hard worker and have been toiling away for a year now with improved success. But as a perfectionist, until everything is exactly the way I know it can be, I will not be satisfied. Thank you for your time.
-Tamjee
