Had a great support chat with the boys at BudgetLED who make my lamps. I had asked about using the dimmer switch and strategies for best results. After spending some time browser their instagram acct, I don’t see a hint of yellowing or droop.
The QBs definitely make the plants GROW and thus use up for Nitrogen, but that I shouldn’t have an issue with that if growing in a living soil.
I think moving forward I will continue to veg my plants dimmed to 40% and ramp up the lights to full power the final week before flipping to 12/12 → assuming this process is successful anyway.
Notched the dimmer to just below 50%, lets see how the plants respond tomorrow
I believe in Senescence. I sure don’t know much about it but the thinking is, that it is normal. plant knows it is at the end and uses the energy up out of the leaves instead of thru the roots? Most want to keep everything green till the end and from what I am reading that is not normal and could effect the final product as far as smoke goes. Also if your pH drifts out of the 6.0-7.0 range your leaves will yellow. Me personally I think it has a lot to do with pH. Lots to learn but hey, who am I? I am just growing weed ! Have a great day.
copied and pasted from another site, I did not write this.
In attempting to understand the nature and cycle of a Cannabis plant, many conclude that knowing when a plant is finished is easily seen by watching all of the plants changes, which include; buds are no longer are swelling. Pistils have receded and have turned orange. Trichomes are cloudy/amber via a certain percentage. The strain’s approximate flowering cycle in weeks. Leaves have/are turning yellow.
I believe a grower can see when a plant is ready by watching all of these “Signals”, without even using a special scope to see when the Trics are a certain color, as Tric color can be seen with the naked eye. But the key is, making sure the plant is “Done”.
Now, my real purpose of starting this Thread is to discuss the yellowing of leaves. I have talked to growers who feel that keeping fan leaves green all the way up to harvest is good and that yellowing of leaves at this stage is not the best for a maturing Cannabis plant.
I have done research on this subject, and the Cannabis plant in the wild can tell us something about how she will finish out her life during the final stages of maturity. In the wild, Cannabis will die at the end of Flowering, so the seeded buds can drop into the ground for the next natural grow. This seems logical as we all know that Cannabis didn’t come from our Grow Room/Closet.
We also should consider that Cannabis in the wild does die, and the leaves will turn yellow during maturity. I’ve watched many growers, including myself, become nervous when leaves begin yellowing during the last 2-3 weeks of Flowering, wondering if we over/under-nuted. I’m not so sure that this “Stress” is warranted, as we are simply watching what Cannabis does in the wild, and, this is a firm signal that our plant is entering the final phase of Flowering.
Trying to maintain green leaves all the way and into the final stage of Flowering seems to not only be unnatural, but also confuses a grower to when the plant is actually finished, as this is an important signal to know when to cut our plant(s) down. We also see some comparison to this when we watch Fall colors change our plants/trees during a certain time of year, letting us know the firm signal of a season via a plants color change.
It appears that a Cannabis plant will begin to digest the sugars/proteins/nutrients left over in the green leaves and this is what helps the buds develop fully in potency, size, and readiness. This also gives the grower confidence in the plants development and the time when she is really ready for Harvest.
Just some thoughts of mine…peace GM
good post Z! my problem was that i had half my leaves yellow 2 weeks into flowering. in my third grow the first three plants did this but i was able to keep the leaves green thru the first couple weeks of flowering on the last three plants and i’m very happy to finally achieve that. my super soil just needed some extra nitrogen in the stretch of starting flowering.
This is an excellent post and I bookmarked it so I can re-read it every time I’m a few weeks out from the end of flowering.
I apologize if I gave the wrong impressions, but I was definitely not suggesting that the plant needs to remain a lush green throughout the flowering cycle. I’m a big fan of Mr. Canucks Grow on YT and am convinced that the plant SHOULD get it’s ‘end energy’ from depleting the energy stored in its leaves, and not the roots. I think when the plant finishes this way it’s like a mini-autumn taking place with the leaves of the plant as the continue to be used for energy.
The yellowing I was addressing is the yellowing that seems to affect most QB growers and if you google search “Quantum Board Yellowing” there are quite a few out there having the same issue.
I’m not worried about making mistakes, but learning from those mistakes does keep me up at night. I wanted to better understand why my plants did this:
Looking back, I think the QBs created an N deficiency because of the rapid growth. My soil wasn’t ready for it and my plants (in 5 gal pots) were already approaching being rootbound.
I later watered with a Worm Cast tea to address the deficiency… but I forgot to pH the water and watered with an 8.0 casting tea and it just everything pretty good.
I’m hoping that my next batch of 4 plants, all planted in living soil from Kind, won’t suffer the same fate and remain lush green up until the end of the plant’s natural cycle where I expect a medley of leaf discoloration
Next time try tablespoon per gallon of used coffee grounds to keep pH drifting out of range when making tea, just a suggestion. I don’t pH anything right now, but I have learned that the coffee grounds will keep your pH in range if your tea gets too far out of range.
I think what happened, I pH’d the tea the night before and for some reason, didn’t water the plants and put the aerator back into the bucket with the tea.
I woke up the next morning in some kind of daze and just mindlessly watered with the tea, not realizing that the aerator increased the pH.
Even with the super soil, I still pH my water as fresh tap is 7.5. I don’t mind it and it gives me something scientific to do along with recalibrating my pH meter once a week as well.
I’d love to own a legit Soil pH pen like the one from BlueLabs, but was thinking this might be enough? I think I saw a post on this forum that this was “the best” at the time. Sure beats teh $150 price tag of the BlueLabs pen
In the beginning I was adjusting my tea for PH…I don’t anymore after reading much on that topic.
I found that if I brewed it and then adjusted the 8ph down to 6.5 and then let it brew some more it shot right back up…this is the critters putting things back in balance naturally and this will keep happening…brew…adjust…back up…etc etc.
The critters do the heavy lifting I don’t adjust tea PH ever…
Now the ingredients you use making the tea can have an affect on the plants. If you feel they need more N than either add something to the tea to provide that N or simply Top Dress the soil with some N before watering with the tea…
My thoughts…your mileage may vary
If I run into an N deficiency again, my plan is to topdress with Worm Casting or with more of the living soil concentrate.
My first grow wasn’t a true living soil I don’t think. I had ammended some FFOF with worm casting, mushroom compost, Bud & Bloom, this that and the other… I then occasionally fed with Liquid Karma, CalMag, and yea. I’m not doing that anymore. Going to focus on good soil, and good water.
I think my 7.5 water is a bit out of range to be watering my plants directly and let the microbes do their thing. Like I said, it gives me a reason to go hang out in the basement for a little while and be busy
I’m getting my 4/20 order from Seedsman later today and when those seeds get started I will be using Roots Organics 707 + Natures Living Soil to create a living soil mix.
Beyond that, my local hydro store has Indicanja Soil, which is another living soil that is ready to go out of the bag. I will try that one next in an attempt to avoid ordering online.
I’m currently running both nature’s living and Indicanja soils.
As a side note if your using RO water by itself with nothing added to it there’s no reason to test or adjust its PH…
If adding something to RO than may want to check it just to see what the additive does PH wise
I was under the impression that RO water is not adequate because all the minerals and such get stripped out of it.
My tap is 7.5, I let it sit in a 5gal bucket for 24 hours… aerated… then I knock the pH down to range using a solution of Citric Acid crystals + RO water.
Here is my Journal of concurrent grows…Didn’t start a separate journal just continuing with this second journal.
I set up 2 clones one with Nature’s and one with Indicanja soil about 3 weeks ago so it’s near the bottom. If the nature’s works out well I will probably be moving forward with that over the Indicanja because the cost to set up is lower than Indicanja.
Using RO water is like using a clean slate where you decide what to add to the water rather than what is put in by the water company or what’s in it from where they get the water.
Living soil is tricky. Building a healthy soil to start is important. I’m still trying to figure it out… I use an organic soil that I amend with compost, wood char, mycorrhizae, sea shells, seabird guano and langbeinite. Instead of using tea I cheat a bit and use root magic rhizo mix for all the good critters. A tsp every other watering.
I expect my plant to be turning yellow before harvest. The fall colors are beautiful as long as they start from the bottom up. It’s also a sign that it’s time to add more potassium to finish her off. Regardless of what is fed mine get nothing for the last couple of weeks.
You also see the trichomes start to get really frosty during this period and the plant gets really stanky.
You talked about using ro water to water with. I’m very happy using my aquarium to water with.
this has been a problem for 4 days bud. read my “Monk’s third” for the last 4 days to see what has been happening in regards to this issue. dbrn32 is involved and i sent a ticket in to them the first day. you will also notice that we no longer have a preview on the bottom right of screen when we are typing a comment.
btw, it took 20 seconds for this comment to load to the site.
