Stumped...problem with plant. Ca deficient?

Hey all, so a week or two ago two of my plants older/larger fan leaves started showing browning, which has progressed to full on necrosis at this point.

I spent time reading up and looking at pics I saw and first thought it was low on Phosph. I grabbed some seabird guano but it more or less had no change. If anything it may have harmed.

Then leaves started to become super soft and fall off on their own. Not large ones, maybe an inch and a half or two in diameter. It's the texture that worried me, like I said super soft and limp and just plucked off at a touch. Research pointed to an N deficiency but I've heard to be careful in flower with that.

The sort of leaf browning/necro happening also looked a lot like Ca problems people have had. I added some Calyx Magnum (Humboldt's version of calmag) to it [2-0-0] thinking it might help the limp/browning leaves and a few days after the sugar leaves look burned. The directions said 3-7 per gal, I used 5. I'm willing to bet this is where the burn is from.

Now that this is happening, I don't know what to look for to see if the Ca problem is being addressed. And I'm concerned with going forward and how to address. My plan was to do quarter nutes til a few weeks before harvest (really only a week or two more) then ween off the rest in the final weeks. Rn I'm doing 50-60% in retrospect prob way too high for this stage.

It's only halfish way through flower (day 40) so this seems a bit early for the leaves to start dying off so rapidly.

Soil is about 2/3 FFOF 1/3 ProMix. Nutes are FF Big Bloom and obviously Calyx magum. Only did the guano onces - maybe a tbsp or two.

I'm stabbing wild guesses bit I think I've been reading yellow tips mean nute burn, as in pic 3, where brown tips mean light burn. Pics 1 and 2 are some interesting colors. The yellowing is looking deficiency, but maybe it's overdose causing lockout which can cause deficiencies, I think. And so can overwatering. So is the brown overwatering? Is that brand ca mg for soil? Because my brand calls for 5 times more in hydro as in soil. Is pic 3 and 4 same plants as pic 1 and 2?

Yep all the same plant, this is a first grow and I'm only doing 1. Only a handful of leaves got that sort of coloring on them, plenty look green and normal. I've always known yellow tips to mean the same thing - burn. Had it happen to a few early leaves, but I managed to fix it. This problem is much more tricky. It's not mold or a parasite - indoor grow and rH doesn't get over 60.

I was wondering about lockout. I'm not so good with knowing which nutes cause which lockouts yet, so I guess I'll have to look more into it. It's weird it's like it has different symptoms in different parts of the plant lol

Yeah, I made sure it was a soil compound. Forgot to mention it was only 3-7 mL per gal recommended. I thought it would be okay since N was only 2, but I could have been wrong.

Ok. Yeah it's real hard to know which nutes cause what lockouts. I just saw something other day learned something new that the so called immobile nutes cant move around and that would explain more how certain problems occur low and not on new growth, whereas if its mobile deficiency it will be everywhere including new growth. Ca is one of the immobiles. So if my logic serves me right, if you were low on Ca, what ca your plant got would stay at the bottom leaves and you would see the problem at the new growth or tops. But if you were low on a mobile such as I think all 3 NPK, then the mobile would move from the old leaves to the new growth where it's most needed and you would either see the problem at the old growth or maybe all over. Maybe someone can confirm. Plus have you checked your water pH? Just a litmus paper can give you an idea.

Root problems. pH related. Have you checked pH going in and runoff? Runoff PPM as well?

I think that HRH is onto something. Looks like you have some Ca def but it may be caused by a pH issue.

hotrodharley said:

Root problems. pH related. Have you checked pH going in and runoff? Runoff PPM as well?

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Damn I knew I forgot to go over something. I have thought about pH and tried to account for it as well.

I always water with spring water, pH is always perfect 6.5 - I've tested it each time. I bought a soil test kit and used samples from the top and bottom of the pot. Got a pH of around 6 or so - I was really surprised because the bogus meter I have was telling me I had an alkaline issue (I'm wondering if you were remembering my post from when this started about pH...totally forgot I had put that out there haha)

With that all said, I haven't checked the run off in a while. Last time I did it was off a bit. Looking it up now and it does seem to share symptoms. I'll look more into this, thanks!

Alright so I did another soil test, and it looks about the same as I remember the last one. Maybe my eyes are just shot lol Does this look too acidic? It's def not alkaline like the effin meter said haha

Took samples from several parts of the pot, top and bottom, mixed together and tested that.

if the camera is true I'd say 6.25. But that's strange because that's pretty good. Did you then end up adding more acid to your water because what your meter was saying?

raggyb said:

if the camera is true I'd say 6.25. But that's strange because that's pretty good. Did you then end up adding more acid to your water because what your meter was saying?

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No, I didn't wanna do anything just off the meter, I'd heard they're not reliable so I waited.

Lol I thought it looked good too, if anything the light I had on it made it seem a bit more yellow. And again, I use spring water for her and it's perfect each time I've never had to adjust it. Going off what you said about mobile vs. immobile nutes, I'm wondering if the N in the Calyx Magnum just caused the burn before the Ca had a chance to do its thing.

What's really weird is how the leaves are turning, they're getting splotches of light brown everywhere on the leaf that just progresses until it looks like pics 1 and 2.

I don't think N of 2 is that high. maybe you want to measure the runoff's pH and ppms, but other than that I'm not sure what else to say. Maybe something's wrong with your soil recipe for some reason. Maybe flushing or letting them dry out an extra day or both would help. Want to say flushing would be water only in the same volume of your pot. I'll cross my fingers if you do it. You could do just one to see how it goes and cut your losses if goes awry.

Just my guess but maybe Manganese Deficiency?

Runoff pH. Check that.

hotrodharley said:

Runoff pH. Check that.

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Cool I'll do that next time I water. Is that better for reading pH deeper in the pot/closer to the roots?

StrawberryYields said:

Cool I'll do that next time I water. Is that better for reading pH deeper in the pot/closer to the roots?

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Yes and when everything else is pretty much right and leaves are still yellowing suspect root problems.