Working through my first grow and plant has started to rapidly decline in health within the last few days. Plant started developing brown spots on lower growth and today I found a lot of lower growth yellowing and some of the leaves fully withered. Also the stems are starting to get small streaks of purple. Unsure if its a fungal issue or a nutrient issue. Wondering if the plant will be salvageable or if it would just be a better decision to cut my losses and start new. I removed most of the effected leaves but other leaves are starting to show signs.
Grow Info:
1 lgc x misoma plant in a 5 gal fabric pot
running happy frog and worm castings at a ratio of 80%/25%
watering daily about 1000ml
Using gaia green 4-4-4 and 2-8-4
3x3 tent w spider farmer se3000 300w LED running about 60%
plants receiving a little under 800 PPFD at canopy
temps: day 70-75F night 65-70F
Humidity: 40-50
Ventilation: inline fan
I’m seeing multiple things going on, I think. In the first couple pics of the single leaves - that almost looks like a surface burn to me rather than a nute deficiency but I can’t tell. I just top dressed my ladies at noon today with some of the same dry ammendments and got some all over the lower leaves of one. Think I got them rinsed off and dried ok, but we’ll see in a few days.
I’m also seeing something in the 4th pic that looks like PM (powdery mildew) or residue of some sort on the surface of some of the leaves maybe. Again, can’t quite tell. Do you have plenty of airflow other than the inline fan?
Also, when I top dressed on my last grow, I think I over boosted the gals with a combo of the 444, 284, & some organic fish shit (powerful stuff it turns out and first time using Gaia Green). On one plant - all the top leaves tightened up and curled similar to what I’m seeing with your gal. I pulled some run-off and had ppm’s near 4K. Did a mini-flush and she recovered. Some of the leaves never did though.
Do you have a ph/tds meter? I would def soil slurry just to double check your numbers. Always rule out a ph issue first before you start chasing deficiencies. Sorta like throwing parts at a car without properly diagnosing. The curling of the leaves could be an early sign of a ph issue.
thank you for the feedback the PM has been a pretty consistent issue throughout the grow. My dumbass bought a clone from the hydro store to put in the tent with my seedlings and finished it outside, but this was definitely the root of that issue. I have a basic clip on fan and nicer 6 in osculating one so airflow should be pretty decent keeping that relatively in check. I’ve been using a agromagen growsafe as a folier but it hasn’t really been working too well to target the PM.
I forgot to turn off my osculating fan when top dressing so I most likely got some on the leaves which is probably what happened to some of the lower leaves.
I need to check the PPM but I’ve been watering to a slight runoff and adjusting PH and this issue seems to be on the mend. I think it was a combination of feeding with water incorrectly ph’d too low in combination with a slight overfeeding issue. But I’m seeing some of the brown spots on more leaves which is concerning.
Thank you for the advice I’ll definitely check the PPM and get myself a more accurate PH meter to make sure the pH is in check
Thank you for the feedback. I have a pretty cheap ph meter that I haven’t calibrated in about 2 weeks and I think this could be the culprit of the issue. I believe I may have been pHing my water too low. I also have a cheap tds meter too I could use to check the numbers when I get home.
Thank you for the feedback I’m just trying to make adjustments as I go along and at this point I’m more concerned about making it to the finish line than the quality of the end product
I’m working on my 6th grow so I by no means have the experience or knowledge to be giving expert advise so please keep that in mind. Lots of resources on this forum. But at least I can share some of my experiences.
Like @ChittyChittyBangin was saying, a lot of issues stem from pH problems. Definitely adjust your pH to your desired 6.5 (for soil) going in. A few grows back, I was having a problem with the run-off pH being much higher than the pH going in and was steadily going up. I made the mistake of trying to force the pH down by watering with a lower pH, around 6.0. That only created more problems than I already had. Turns out the soil pH was not as high as the run-off was indicating and I was chasing a problem that wasn’t as large a problem as I’d thought.
And last grow, using two different lines of nutrients, I found that the run-off on my Gaia Green fed plants was higher than the other line of nutrient plant’s run-off. I’m currently learning myself how to water growing organically with no run-off. You want to keep all those micro-organisms in the soil doing their job. I’ve been purposely getting anywhere from 1 to 2 fluid ounces of run-off up till now just to give me an idea of when to top feed.
I hope all my rambling helps a little. Happy growing.
