Deficiency or Toxicity - You Decide

Sick Plants & Problems
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Deficiency or Toxicity - You Decide

Finally swallowed my pride, and here I am.

As a qualifier, there are many variables at hand. It’s my first grow in a tent, first at this location, first use of this water source, first time with Jack’s 3-2-1, first RO filter, first quantum boards, first with Recharge, first with these genetics, first mainline training, first with sonoffs, first with Blumats, and probably a few more firsts that I forgot. The only things that are not firsts are my use of coco and my previous experience in growing cannabis.

FML. This what makes it fun, right, the experiments?

However, I cannot deny that the problems with my plants are concerning and I would like to fix them (if possible) this round or next. Not knowing the source of the problem, definitively, I don’t even know if I should call this a deficiency or toxicity problem. Maybe neither or a combination? IDK.

Here’s what I do know from observation:

Plants in my care exhibit a number of different issues that I believe are nutrient related, such as interveinal yellowing, curling leaf tips that eventually brown and die-off, and a strange split-leaf effect that seems to only happen in very early vegetative growth. All the other problems manifest throughout the grow cycle.

Pictures:

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This is an overview shot of my bloom canopy in week 3-4.

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Interveinal yellowing in young vegetative growth.

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Closer look at tip die-off.

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Split leaf mutation.

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And that’s about all I know, for sure.

If anyone has an idea about what this could be, PLEASE let me know!

I don’t care how bad I fucked up, this is a learning process and I want my next run to be even better… ad infinitum. Tell me what it could be and suggest solutions. I want all the knowledge!

Things I think could be related: toxicity, deficiency, pathogen, distance from quantum boards, or even nutrient uptake issue from thorough and repeated bacterial and fungal inoculation. It could be more than one issue, too. I feel so lost.

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More info please, what’s your EC and pH. Most of the time I would guess pH being an issue.

How far are your lights? They turned all the way up or dimmed? What spectrum and wattage? I doubt this is light related.

What’s your min/max temp and humidity. High temps and low humidity can cause plants to burn.

Is it the same coco? Buffered and or rinsed? A bad batch of coco can cause all kinds of issues.

What genetics and how far along are they? It doesnt quite look like senescence to me though.

Unfortunately you changed so many variables, it is hard to tell what it is.

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If my head weren’t attached, it would wander away. PPM varies from 650-800, as I’ve tried to fix the issue. Not sure what the conversion factor is on my PPM pen, but I’d guess 0.5 instead of 0.7 (since it’s so cheap).
The pH source water is incredibly low, so much that Jack’s buffer only brings it up to 5.3 (max). I then correct with baking soda as pH up, to between 5.5 and 5.8.

Lights are ~16" away and turned up to ~60% of max. Spectrum is 4k, though I have a supplemental 20w photo-red bar. Wattage is currently 150, but I’ve run it as high as 185 and have capacity up to 250.

Temp min/max: 70/85 Humidity: 50/70.

All the same loose bagged Canna coco, supposedly somewhat buffered. Not sure about their rinse before my use, but I didn’t rinse it. I did flush to 10% runoff with nutrient feed at every transplant stage, though.

Week 3-4 with Master Ghash (SoCal master kush x 88hpg13) and some CBD Chem plants (Chem D x Unknown CBD).

Tell me about it. I’m a fool, hoping for grace along with mad-men.

Thank you @ReikoX !!!

Who’s next? Take a whack, I’m ready!

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https://sensiseeds.com/en/blog/magnesium-deficiency-cannabis-plants-spot/

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@crazaer hi bro just my two cents looks like heat issues it’ll you can raise the light to about 24 inches and have a fan circulating the air more I believe it would help also check potassium level less is more

I’ve had similar issues with too hot lights Nd too hot soil

I am sure it’s heat
Peace best wishes
Paps

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Thank you @HaRdRoC!

Gosh, that looks pretty spot-on. I’m always hesitant to jump on Mag issues, since lots of people focus on that first and I vaguely recall that coco can have mag issues bc of K lock-out.

Rather than flush, is it too late in bloom (week 3-4) for a Mag foliar feed?

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I think you should be alright with foilar, as the buds aren’t that far along, but I’d try and block them with my hand as much as possible, just because… lol

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This sent up a red flag to me. Baking soda is not a suitable pH up. Baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. Sodium is bad for plants. How much are you having to add to get the pH up to 5.8?

I highly suggest you buy a suitable pH up. I’ve used potassium bicarbonate before, I got it at the home brew store.

It you google sodium toxicity in plants you will see leaves with burning outside edges like you described.

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Thank you @Papalag!

I pondered heat, too.

I can’t do 24" now, but I can adjust plant height for next cycle. Lights on, my temps usually hover at 80F. Is that too high? I thought it was at the upper limit of acceptable.

If I’m reducing K, would it be better for a full flush and replacement or just keep at a lower strength?

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With LEDs 80°F is totally acceptable due to the lack of radiant heat.

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Increase air circulation and I would flush for a clean start

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~1/4 teaspoon of baking soda to 8 gallons. I am happy to get a better pH up. I didn’t know it could be that bad.

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How bad is your tap water that you feel you have to use RO? I believe Jack’s works great with tap water.

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Crazy question, are you mixing the Jacks 321 in the correct order? Because I was mixing it in the 321 order when I started with it. It should be more like Jacks 312. I mix each separately in a small bottle, then mix together in the final container. Adding the Calcium Nitrate last.
I have horrible water and Jacks buffers it perfect for PH.

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Initially I got the RO filter because it was cheaper than a regular sediment/carbon filter (amazon is weird sometimes) and my water tasted terrible. Then I got a pH pen and noticed that, while my initial readings were excellent (6.8-7), they dropped precipitously to 4.8! I thought it might be a reservoir shift with the water supply agency, which sometimes happens seasonally.

I recalibrated my pH pen and the results seemed to be consistently low for both tap and RO.

Just now I recalibrated and it’s jumping from 6.8 to 2.3!!! Realization: getting what I deserve for buying a cheap pH pen. Is it too late for an amazon return? Eeeeek. I feel dumb.

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Thank you @Tommy_McCain

That’s a perfectly reasonable question. I mix in Jacks first, then Epsom, then Cal Nit.

What is horrible water for you? pH, particulate/sediment, dissolved solids?

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Ya I’m also thinking deficiency, probably magnesium. They look a bit light in color overall, but that could be your light throwing off the spectrum? Maybe try bumping the jacks up a bit before adding in other stuff that could further complicate things.

Also, you might want to try using your tap water…most nutes are designed with tap water in mind.

As far as pH goes, grab a bottle of the tester drops for like $10 and you’ll always have a somewhat accurate benchmark to compare your meter too. I gave up on cheapo pH pens and just use the drops all the time now, they’re accurate enough for our purposes imo.

@ReikoX since you seem to know about this, can I use dolomite lime for pH up?

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Jacks gives me ~650 ppm at regular strength. I’ve bumped it up to ~800 before and didn’t notice a difference. I’m leery of going higher than that.

Yeah. It would certainly speed up my fill time for the reservoirs, too. RO takes forever! I could also take the RO membrane out of the filter and only use the sediment/carbon side. Thoughts?

I’ve wanted to do this, for simplicity’s sake, but I’m terrible at color recognition. I’ve even tested myself against high quality pH pens and my guesswork about shading is terribly inaccurate. Not sure why, but those gradients between yellow and green all look the same to me.

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Also, got my first “You have runout of likes today” message, @beacher!

So many firsts for me.

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Ya reading the color on those can be spotty, especially if you have an orange HPS or LED raging 3 ft away. I sometimes leave my grow area and hold it against something white to be sure. There are strips too that can be a bit easier to see.

I’m not sure about the different stages of the RO filters, but I know many nutes are designed with the calcium and ph levels of average tap water in mind. Some of them even make different versions of their nutes for well water…GH used to make a micro like that

Never used jacks so I can’t speak to the ideal ppm, I definitely wouldn’t go past full strength of you’re already there. Did you say you use epsom with it? If not it might be worth a shot.

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