This is a Blue Haze photo in a 5 gallon bucket with some soil that I prepared. Up until about a week ago it was growing great but recently I’ve got a lot of yellowing on the lower leaves. Not sure why this is happening and I’d like to hear everyone’s opinion of it. Thanks in advance,
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Good evening 
. Is your soil a living soil? If not what nutrients are you using? How old is your plant? It is normal for the lower leaves to turn yellow and drop off as they age. 
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I ended up route bound during my last 3 weeks of flower. So I picked up a 2’x4’ Fabric Grow Bed. For my AC infinity 2’x4’ Advanced Grow Tent System.
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Did you recently repot? Need more info previous to this?
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It’s normal for a cannabis plant to shed its lower leaves as the plant matures. It’s a bit more yellowing than we usually see, but if the rest of the plant is healthy, I’m not sure that I would worry about it.
A 5-gal bucket is plenty of room for a cannabis plant. They don’t have good drainage and take longer for the soil to dry between waterings though. Suggest using fabric posts for the next grow.
The soil looks really wet. Are you letting the soil dry out between waterings? Do you know your runoff pH and PPM numbers?
A support ticket will help us help you. Can you please fill out a support ticket? Please include what type of water you are using (RO, distilled, tap.)
COPY/PASTE the below list into your forum post.
Answer these simple questions the best you can.
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• What strain, Seed bank, or bag seed
• Method: Soil w/salt, Organic soil, Hydroponics, Aquaponics, KNF
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• Vessels: Pots, Grow beds, Buckets, Troths
• PH of Water, Solution, runoff (if Applicable)
• PPM/TDS or EC of nutrient solution if applicable
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Thanks everyone for responding.
@Flitme Yes, it is a living soil. It’s a combination of 3 year old potting soil and some local soil. Our local soil has a strong clay base and was added to the potting soil to help in water retention.
@Kadin1213 Are you saying that transplanting to a larger container addressed your yellowing leaf situation?
@cep201 It was transplanted to the 5 gal. bucket well over a month ago and didn’t show any signs of stress as a result.
@MidwestGuy Good to know that yellowing is a typical reaction that a plant matures. I did see where some of the lower and smaller leaves yellowed and dropped off but this seems a little excessive . As far as drainage is concerned, as I stated I did add some heavy clay soil to my mix. I have quite a number of holes drilled into the bottom of the bucket and lined the bottom of it with gravel. I’ve grown hot pepper plants in the same set up and never had a drainage problem prior to this. This situation has been going on for about a week and a half prior to posting here.The soil in the bucket is wet as I had just watered it to runoff about an hour prior to taking the picture. I was thinking along the same lines as a possible root rot problem but I don’t think that’s the culprit. Water just seems to run right through this setup. I’ve never been able to put more than half a liter of water in before I see it pouring out of the bottom of the bucket. Just prior to watering all of the leaves were drooping from a lack of water. No idea what Ph and/or PPM numbers are as I don’t have any way to measure those. I am using well water and of course natural rain water.
Thanks everyone for responding. It’s got me a little perplexed and worried because I have three other plants in the same style container.
Water retention is not a good thing for a cannabis plant. Cannabis needs airy soil and wet/dry cycles. Clay is not a good soil for cannabis. Most cannabis soils are primarily peat.
Same comment as above. Peppers and cannabis are very different plants.
It’s not uncommon for different cannabis phenotypes to respond differently to the very same environmental conditions.
The best 3 suggestions for keeping your grow in line are:
Fabric pots
A good cannabis soil that is pH buffered
Managing pH and PPM
I know that is easier said than done if you are new to the game, but they will help you keep your plant healthy and productive.
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I’m guessing @Kadin1213 went to a fabric container for both size and the benefit of a fabric pot. Fabric pots allows much higher oxygen levels at the root zone and also air pruning. Because of this pruning a plant becoming root bound is much less of an issue.
Heavy soils and cannabis do not go together well. When soil is used cannabis needs to dry a bit between watering. Alternatively I lighter more porous medium can be used. In this case the water / feed schedule is necessarily much more frequent.
If it were my plant I would transplant into a 10 gallon fabric pot using fox farm ocean forest soil.
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Hmmm? Do you have a catch tray underneath it? How about testing runoff? I assume you will be growing in a no runoff type living soil.
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check run off - I’m thinking it’s the Ph at the root zone. Doesn’t look like normal yellowing and dying off - that’s the yellow of lock out.
I kill my plants that way all the time!
Soils high in organic matter will continue to “cook” and the Ph will rise as a result. Too much microbial action will cause the same issue.
Actually clay soil can be great for growing weed but it does need to be augmented with some organic matter as well as an aggregate like perlite, pumice, etc. to keep if from packing too tightly. Clay soils are rich in minerals and trace elements weed loves.
We used to grow in red Virginia clay chopped together with leaf mold or rotted cow patties and we grew some monsters - guerilla style!
Back then just getting the cut buds back to the car without getting caught was the first high from the harvest! 
But, to reiterate, Ph at the root zone is my guess.
Best of Luck to you!!
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TY,I will check this out. 
No, Last couple of weeks of flower. All TriCombs are nice and milky! Didn’t want to stress them. Decided on live resin bubble hash.
@Tylersays You might be on to something here. I bought a Ph meter and my soil is off the chart high. I’m going to grab some elemental sulfur and see if I can knock it down some. I’ll try to remember to update this post after I apply it. Thanks again to everyone’s input.
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Yeah - soil Ph is the bane of my existence! LOL!
The problem is they look so good you never think anything is wrong then by the time they start to show it’s actually pretty far along in their issues. A testament to a strong plant but not helpful to us that they show little to ZERO signs before it gets to the “critical” level.
Good call on the sulfur, hope it helps!
I have zero issues outside with the girls but my tent grows almost always suffer.
I know - I push them too hard! LOL!
It’s got me seriously considering doing 2 DWC buckets in my small tent and a larger, 3 or 4 bucket RDWC in the 4x4. At least in water you can correct issues like these pretty quickly.
Hope you’re able to get it under control and finish out the grow successfully!
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Well it’s been about two weeks since I posted my problem here and I want to thank everyone that responded. I was going to add some sulfur to my soil to bringing the ph down. After researching the effects of sulfur, it appears that will take a lot of time so I decided to do something a little more drastic. I added a bit more than a tablespoon of vinegar to half a gallon of water and applied that mixture twice. It seems to be working as the yellowing and dying have stopped.
I ordered a ph pen and some ph up/ph down. to try and get a better handle on the situation.
Once again, thanks to all that responded and I hope this will help someone in the future.
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