No departure from nominal PH besides the original 5.0-5.5 and then top-dressing with the dolomite lime as you also advised. Soil PH is 5.5-6. I was, however, told in person by another grower that you don’t monitor the PH of FoxFarm soil because it’s pre-adjusted. They said with a soil like that, it should just be lighting and watering. They said substituting 25% of my content with coco and lava rock could have resulted in nutrient deficiencies, but as mentioned, I originally blended 4-4-4 to compensate for that and have been feeding cal-mag for more than 50% of the grow. Based on my initial research, the soil I had blended should have not needed anything for the plant. These symptoms, however, have remained identical regardless of how I react and have persisted the entire grow.
Could under-watering result in these symptoms? Is watering every Wednesday and Sunday not enough? What could prevent the plant from using available calcium in the soil? If I have a “hungry” plant, how do I know how much cal-mag is too much? With the plant in the stages of flowering that it is, and how it’s looking right now, can I save it? What do I do now?
Good afternoon @ThisHighUp your most welcome just trying to help like I said I’m no expert nor do I have the experience a lot of these guys have on hear but I will try my best I dont guess I research and then give the information I’ve come across so hopefully it helps lol😆
@Myfriendis410 has a grate point about root bound plant if your plant is root bound it may be pulling nutrients, but at a reduced rate and may only be pulling certain nutrients and leaving subsequent nutrients behind ie calcium,zink and other trace elements could be left behind while your lady puts everything into flowering. And as he mentioned ph lockout I refer back to my previous comment on ph fluctuations,
I’ve had a good look at the images you uploaded can’t see anything wrong with the set up lights ect so I’ve done some further research to see if I could identify this problem from another source
To my self the areas I’ve highlighted are yellowing and showing deficiency the Browning patterns I’ve never seen anything like before by deficiency normally caused by light or heat stress or wind burn to close to a fan but you fan isn’t close enough for that unless previously closer.
But while researching I come across these images relating to a potassium deficiency
What’s throwing me, is that all the deficiencies like that seem to illustrate yellowing, and occur on the edges. This symptom has literally zero yellow involved; just darkens, then turns brown. I think the yellow hue you saw in my photo was from the flash shining off the leaves. Here is a close up of the right leaf you circled in my photo, you can see today it began turning brown, no yellow and it starts in the middle of the leaf, not the edges:
I understand the thinking of being root bound, however as mentioned this problem has existed the entire grow once it was transplanted and moved under the LED, even when it was a tiny plan in a big 3 gallon pot. So, I don’t think it’s because the plant is root bound. The last and only time this plant looked proper green and happy, was when it was root bound in a coffee mug on my window sill getting crap natural light. I can’t believe it was doing better under those circumstances than in a proper setup with care and attention.
I guess there must be different types of “yellowing” then? When I google the symptoms of what’s been suggested, I only see stark, vibrantly yellow discoloration, like this:
I haven’t been able to find a single picture of someone else’s plant which looks like my symptoms do. There has never, ever been any vibrant yellow on the plant; it mostly goes straight to brown. The leaf in my photo you’re calling yellow, still looks green to me (albeit a lighter shade), especially when you compare against the ones I just posted above:
Again, just trying to make sense of this. I google the symptoms, but see no photos which my plant looks like, and I’ve been dumping calcium into it for a while with no changes. I’m getting frustrated.
The light only has 2 on/off switches; one for veg and one for flower. I was originally running only the veg switch on, until @Myfriendis410 told me it was underpowered and that I should immediately turn on the flower switch as well, even though the plant was still in veg at that time. I’ve been running both switches on since then. Position above the plant has not changed from what was pictured.
He was correct. You do want to keep both switches on, I just didn’t know what you had, and might have missed it on your earlier post. Sometimes I’m everywhere, and don’t remember what everyone has for lighting.
@Covertgrower No worries, just being thorough in my responses! It’s destroying me that I can’t solve this. And I have friends/peers telling me I shouldn’t even have these issues the way I’ve chosen to go about this, yet I do. One of them was who recommended I seek assistance here.
So at the end of the day, if it’s lack of calcium, yet the soil already had calcium from the start and I’m also feeding extra, it’s not due to being root bound; what else would cause a calcium deficiency??
Are you letting the plants sit in the run off from your watering. Just throwing that out there. I saw something similar once and that turned out to be the issue
Right on, so I mentioned and asked some stuff above, what’re you thoughts?
On here, I was told to monitor soil PH. But a friend who grows large scale told me FoxFarm soil is pre-adjusted and that you don’t monitor PH in soil grows, really. The friend did say I may be short on nutrients eventually by subbing in some coco and lava, but that the 4-4-4 I added should prevent that issue, and with adding cal mag it shouldn’t be hurting for what it needs.
My initial soil measurements of PH were 5.0-5.5 depending on where I measured so @Myfriendis410 told me to top-dress dolomite lime which I did around the same time I started feeding cal-mag. Soil ph came up to 5.5-6.0.
Thanks for hopping into the discussion. I’m not letting it sit in the runoff, using 1" pot risers under the fabric pot. I wish it was something like that!!!
Sometimes it’s the simple things we overlook. I will think on it and if I can come up with anything other than what the others have said, I will get back to you
I’ve been following along with the issue that you are having. I’ve seen where it has been suggested that you have some ph fluctuations. I believe that this may be what is happening. I have limited experience compared to some of the others that have tried to help sort this out. Your friend is correct about FF soil being pre-adjusted for ph. I grow in a 50/50 mixture of FF OF and FF Coco Loco and can say that regardless of what your friend believes your ph can change in FF soil. I’ve seen you have had low ph. I can’t say that with 100% confidence that is what the problem is but everything I’ve seen here so far points to ph issues. In one of the pics you posted I can see discoloring from the center out, a fairly clear sign of ph fluctuation. I personally set ph going in at 6.8. If you haven’t been consistently monitoring ph runoff I believe you should start. In this pic you can see exactly what I was saying about discoloration.
Thanks for the feedback and advice. Yeah, I guess it has to be PH at this point, because I’ve been feeding calcium and I don’t think it’s the light. Low ph would explain the plant struggling to uptake the calcium. This leads me to a few other questions for you, though!
You are essentially running what I am, FF OF/Coco Loco with the exception I added in some lava rock as well. What do you use/do to “adjust your ph to 6.8”? Are you using ph up/down in your watering or are you using dolomite lime or something else? Do you find your PH moving in that medium throughout your grow?
This morning I top dressed with more dolomite lime to attempt to raise soil PH above 6 and double dosed cal mag. Any other advice on how to attempt to rescue this?
Thanks again everyone for the help, this has been a challenge with much contradicting advice and methodology etc., it’s a lot to sort through and determine what’s right. Can’t thank you guys enough, I hope I can save it.
I just use ph up after adding nutrients or cal-mag. As I said I’m not experienced enough to be sure that the lava rock could be a issue. I don’t use any nutrients through veg and usually flip between 6 and 8 weeks of veg. On previous grows I was using FF dry nutrients while in flower and had my ph in soil drop down to 5.3 . My runoff ph readings was coming out at around 5.9 to 6.1 But I was was having issues with deficiencies. I did a slurry test on soil and discovered that my ph in soil was 5.3. I flushed with sledgehammer and 6.8 water and got things back on track. On current grow I’ve done things exactly the same with one exception, I stoped using FF nutrients and switched to Jack’s 321 it has been smooth sailing on this grow. I did do runoff readings during veg just to be sure that ph was good. Since I flipped to flower I’ve not done runoff readings, I add Jack’s and then ph water and haven’t had any problems with deficiencies.
On this grow I haven’t had a problem during veg with ph. I suspect that my ph issues began while using FF dry nutes. Honestly can’t say for sure that’s what caused issue, but since switching to Jacks things have stayed on track. Hopefully this info helps. Wanted to add that I have seen others that has had ph issues using FF soil so I believe that while it won’t always be a problem ,it definitely is possible.
