More often than not with us homegrowers, supplies like plant feed sit around longer than the stuff stays completely stable. I’ve read that plant feed becomes less acidic, more basic, over time. But on the other hand, cannabis, while depleting the soil, tends to make soils more acidic over time due to the demand in calcium our beloved lady has, and calcium buffers the soil’s acidity. But usually, these are kept in balance by feeding enough calcium and magnesium to the plant from additional feeding bottles, or from adding calcium sources in other ways to the soil or feeding water. If you grow organically, you just read the plant and determine which of your plant feeding strategies feeds the element that the plant is showing lacking in, or take away the element that the plant is in excess in, and if you read your plant right, things will perk back up, but for every element there’s a different timeframe in which things show and perk back up. Magnesium for instance can be deficient for 4 weeks before signs show IIRC. After a while when growing year round with the same materials you become more proficient and feeding the right things before symptoms show up in some plants, others will always show symptoms that are not manageable by feeding in extra elements, that’s strain experience largely, but usually only becomes an issue in the blooming stage, or should only become an issue I should say.
Anyway if you google for Jorge Cervantes and deficiencies leaf signs and symptoms you should be able to find a chart with leaves that show symptoms, and it should come with information on where the symptoms are found on the plant and other intracacies of each element, I can take pics in the book later but gotta pick up my kid rn.
Are your plants showing signs or are you just going by meter readings?
These are notoriously Not accurate for PH beware.The moisture detection is pretty good on those about all thier good for.Get a reading pull it out and clean it off don’t leave it in.The vivosun yellow Ph detectors work better than that thing as long as you calibrate them regularly and don’t let them dry out.I even double check the water after I use one with liquid ph detector in a tube and it checks out on those.Thier cheap but they work
First off I’m a noob, so please forgive me if I don’t know what I’m doing. This is my second grow. I’m growing in a stealth cabinet which you can see on my grow diary here: The year of making do
Yes the plant has had a few rather odd symptoms (light sensitivity, signs of maybe calcium deficiency, clawing tips with yellowed leaves, some edge burning) — the complete story of which you can see on the diary page, and overall the plant has been a bit of a slow grower, like my first grow attempts last year.
Fortunately I got a pack of pH test strips today and have deduced that my fundamental problem is that my electronic pH meter that I’ve been using for my water is inaccurate despite my best attempt to correctly calibrated it, and therefore I’ve been adding pH-up unnecessarily to the plant which has probably resulted in alkaline soil. I think this is my fundamental problem which I’ll address going forward.
His book is free online at ILGM’S web store and the new book is free online as well just do a search. If you can’t find it DM and I will try and send you the link for the web sites.
@Beak, I don’t know what pH meter you are using, but check out the Dr. Meter pH100 meter. I have had one for two years without an issue. Easy to calibrate and use. There about $30 on Amazon.
This guy knows .That is also a very good ph meter I have one of those as well they are solid had mine for awhile and it works the same as I first pulled it out the box
Also I just want to put this out there this stuff is pretty accurate and it’s cheap by General Hydroponics.You add half a tube of the water your testing and add 5 drops shake and match it to the bottle in less than 2 seconds.It’s a quick fix and nice to have in your toolbox if your meter takes a shit and it’s pretty accurate to test out to see if your meter is telling the truth.
I have this too and I like it. Only caveat is it’s color based so if your ferts are brown or you’re trying to do a soil slurry test it can be hard to gauge.
I haven’t used my fancy pH pen in a very long time.
I don’t do slurry’s myself i ph the water then I add and add Apple Cider vinegar Eggshell Molasses Calmag and got the hang of getting the right dose to get down to 6.3 and the Mix works in my environment pretty good.I use the Fulvic in between dont ph that one just put it in my water from my bubbled 55 gallon with a huge air stone in it.With using cooked 2 week soil with the basalt and Malted two row I never get ph problems with that routine.Ever if it’s a yellow problem now I adjust light and distance and bam back to full green again.
Actually I got that piece of advice from you @Gpaw .First sign of trouble dim the lights a touch and observe.It’s almost like fixing an electronic problem turn it off wait a second turn it back on.90% of the time it works all the time
Yeah once I saw the crispy leaves that just, well, looked burnt, I decided to back off the lights and so far she does look better. Thanks everyone for great advice!
.That is also a very good ph meter I have one of those as well they are solid had mine for awhile and it works the same as I first pulled it out the box
