hey all. i’m having a problem with my plants and was hoping someone could diagnose them. My plants are in terrible shape. Plant 3 took it the worse. I have very little experience with plant problems as i went years without them. I assumed it was a deficiency as I don’t think i gave them enough nutes hoping not to burn them. I’m worried i’ll have to kill them and start over. Anyone with experience feel free to chime in.
Plant 1:
Plant 2:
Plant 3:
I am not a soil guy but I do ok in coco better in hydro lol so let’s see… More info the better try to answer as many questions below as possible…
1 what’s your media material coco or soil ?
2 Nutrients bottles or organic ect. What manufacturer? What ratio you are mixing these at if you are.
3 watering schedule times per day amount of water per day?
4 are you using tap water or reverse osmosis?
5. Are you monitoring PH or PPM ?
More info will help everyone dial in on your issue and help get you going on the right track .
soil, fox farm ocean forest.
fox farm trio for nutes, (big bloom, grow big, tiger bloom)
switching between water and nutes every other water, i don’t think i was giving them enough
tap water
not checking ppm, i was getting away with it for a while so that could be a factor, never had issues until now
I’d probably give them a thorough watering with some Epsom salt
Then a couple days later do a good feeding
If using tap water, consult your municipality to see if they clean it with either chlorine or a family of chemicals called chloramines.
If chlorine, let your tap water sit out for a day or so before using it to water. While chlorine is an essential micro-nutrient for plants, too much can burn it, but more importantly, kill off beneficial soil microbiota – the fungi and bacteria that convert the chemicals in soil to a plant-usable form.
If chloramines are in your water, there isn’t much you can do. They can’t be removed without some advanced chemistry. These chemicals are stronger than chlorine, and have no role in the rhyzosphere/food web. If you suspect you have chloramines in your tap water, I would recommend ditching tap water and amending R/O water, such as runoff from an A/C or dehumidifier, or using well/rain water.
Also keep in mind that using bottled nutrients such as what you are using, when working with soil, is doable but it is not my preferred approach. The nutrients are chelated, which means they are attached to other chemicals to help them get directly absorbed by plants. What this means, is that you are basically “force-feeding” the plants, rather than letting the plants uptake what they need, when they need it.
I am going to ignore that fact though, since you are not using an organic soil methodology. No harm. Just be mindful of how much nutrients you use, and how the plants respond. With chelated nutrients, it is both very easy to use too much, and very easy to mistake a deficiency or toxicity for an unrelated problem.
The Epsom salt mentioned above is a good choice if you suspect that the plant is not getting enough magnesium or sulfur. Be careful not to splash the leaves though, as it will leave a residue and disrupt optimal photosynthesis and/or burn the plants. Use this if you suspect the problem to be a deficiency in either of those micro-nutrients only.
When using bottled nutrients, one must also pay closer attention to pH/PPM of input solution and runoff, to ensure there is not too much going in, or too much staying in. Chelated minerals are very potent and disrupt the soil greatly if not careful, leading to a lot of misdiagnoses.
From the looks of your plants, it’s really hard to tell, as a lot of symptoms mask those of other problems. If you can, perform a soil test, test the water before and after mixing nutrients.
I’m guessing lockout. How much of the trio have you given them? The plant in the second picture looks super dark. I’d flush it a little and then just use plain water for a week or so. When you water make sure to moisten all the soil. Your pots look kinda dry around the edges. When I water I focus on the outer edge of the pot. Good luck.
Always a wealth of knowledge and well spoken!!! Cheers @resimax excellent post !!!
Thanks. I’ve been growing for longer than I’d like to admit, but I don’t consider myself an expert. I just like to pass down some knowledge I’ve learned, and I’m always happy to be corrected if anything I say is untrue.
The fact is, nobody is an expert or knows what the problems can be from a look. You must take in a lot of parameters and view how the plant is responding over a period of time, to see what the issue could be.
Some plants like to be loaded with nutrients. Some don’t. Some like slightly more or less acidity in their soil, and some don’t.
If we all knew the answers, there wouldn’t be science left to discover, and this would be a pretty boring hobby (and world) in my opinion.
I started years ago with chelated minerals, and found it to be too much work, but more importantly, too much money for my poor ass. These days things are much easier to control, though that is not to say I don’t run into a problem occasionally. Of course I do. Not even a scientific study with control groups can account for all the different variables to come up with empirical evidence for the grand scheme of things – they must pick and choose.
I enjoy following along on issues trying to help where I feel comfortable contributing. I always walk away with more knowledge and I like helping out the OG family if I can . Cheers !!!
A few things I can think of that may help the OP:
These plants seem like their root mass is overcrowded. I would first try to transplant them, which will also give you a glimpse at their root health.
If transplanting, or starting in these pots again, it isn’t a bad idea to drill holes in the sides for root pruning. Preferably, using a fabric pot for plenty of oxygen to the roots. The thing about roots is once they get crowded on the bottle, they like to work their way up the sides of the pot looking for more oxygen and things they can use. More air in the pot helps them.
If you aren’t happy with the way the plant looks like, my best advice is to not kill it, and try to learn from the mistake. This can be done by transplanting into a new container/medium, or not. In my experience, if you aren’t happy with the morphology or how the plant looks now, you won’t in the end either. There are exceptions to this of course, as a lot of chemical changes happen when bloom commences.
I do not like to kill plants, and I like to learn what exactly went wrong, by keeping it alive and running experiments on it. For example, I started a plant in December, and grew it under a 60W T5 LED I would normally use for clones – for a whopping 16 weeks in veg. I gave it just the minimally viable photosynthesis, and it performed well up until week 15, when the roots became crowded, and it could no longer get enough calcium. The whole plant started to die off rapidly. At that point it was April or so, and I transplanted into the ground in my backyard. I just let it go, without adding any fertilizers. It took about until week 23-24 until it snapped out of it, and took off into a lush green plant, and 12 more weeks after that – this week actually – it started to bloom in a healthy state.
just transplanted them from 1 gals into 3gals a couple weeks ago so i don’t think it’s that. the weird shading on the plants happened when i had them under a LED i’ve never used before so i don’t know if that was a factor. i don’t think it was too much nutes, maybe not enough i think.
Keep in mind a 3-gallon nursery pot is actually 2.25 US gallons. The horticultural industry loves their “Trade Gallons” to confuse us. (There is actually a good reason why they are less volume, but it’s still something to be aware of when using nursery pots).
Edit 2.25, not 0.75. I never multiplied by 3 
What’s your humidity? I wonder if #3 has septoria … 
If you just transplanted from 1 to 3 gal pots a couple weeks ago there should be plenty of nutrients still in the FFOF alone. Water the whole pot with plain water and wait.
I’ve read that simply adding organic material to the water will neutralize chloramine. Molasses or compost/vermicompost (for ex) will neutralize it.
Tim Wilson (of microbeorganics) talks about it:
https://www.microbeorganics.com/
So does Clackamas Coots.
Dr. Elaine Ingham also says that humic acid will neutralize chloramine.
(she talks about it in this podcast episode)
I also read Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) also does (1000mg can treat 40 gallons of water).
Anyway… getting off topic here. Sorry OP.
Your issue is not chloramine.
Do you have an EC meter?
If not you might want to consider buying one.
If you do have one then check your runoff PH and if it’s over 6.7 ph I would give them a good flush and then a good feeding.
Just like mentioned above from my experience looks like a ph lock out.
But no one expert what so ever.
But definitely check your runoff.
Good luck and happy growing…
No idea what the problem is.
Maybe just water for a week or 2.
OK here’s what I would do:
Get bigger fabric pots 10g.
Get Dr Earth 444, 284 at Home Depot and mix in new dirt for bigger pots.
Get Earthworm Castings/Compost for top dressing. Cover tops of soil, mulch, with cardboard or straw.
Ditch Grow and Tiger.
Get worms from a bait shop. Once in new pots water only for 2-3 weeks. Top dress with 3/4 bloom 1/4 grow plus compost. Flip 1-2 weeks later. Soil is reusable and improves over time. If FFOF is available maybe you can get Happy Frog. Mix em. 2 bags HF 1 FFOF.
$0.02
