First organic / living soil grow, looking for advice

Indoor Growing Organics
#5

It looks like a rootzone pH issue, low temps, and/or too small of pots. It could be due to a recent transplant, but at 3wks I’d think they would have figured it out if it was just transplant stress. Could also be temps (too cold) or too much light. Definitely increase the temps if they’re under 80F during the day or 65F at night- they really enjoy tropical environments.

If I had to guess, I’d say high pH and cool temps because I think you said you were using big pots? The soil company recommends 40L minimum per pot. That soil has lime in it, which raises pH. You might check your water to see if it’s also high out of the tap. If so, pH’s likely the issue. But that’s just a first guess.

The soil company also says you should topdress with their organic amendments, so I don’t know if maybe the soil isn’t very heavily fertilized and it needs more juice for them? It’s hard to say without knowing how much of the ingredients they put in there.

Hope that helps! :slight_smile:

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#6

I’ve been told plants growing under LEDs need extra CalMag.
The interveinal discoloration does look like the beginning of a magnesium deficiency.
Anyway the general consensus is add some CalMag into the water. I’d also double check the water’s pH.

Cheers
G

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#7

@Nube @Gpaw thanks for the input!
And yeh, I’m growing in 10 gal (40ltr) pots, about 80-90% full.
I think it could possibly be a combination of temps and pH. My temps have dropped to 76-78 at lights on, I’ll make an effort to keep them higher and more stable.

I have a pH soil meter but it’s a relatively cheap one, so not sure how accurate it is, currently says its around 7.5.
My tap water is usually around the 7.5 as well, but I has been as high as 8.6 a while ago, so I’ll make sure to check next time I water incase it has risen.

Am I right in thinking that pH should still be around 7 though for living soil? I’d read few times now that adjusting pH isn’t that important in living soil, it’s more to do with alkalinity?

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#8

That ph is to high to absorb Cal. I try to keep mine between 6.2 and 6.7.

:green_heart: :seedling:

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#9

Fellow organic grower here . You paid good money fir that soil so don’t u dare add calmag. Toss the ph meter in the drawer. The plants roots will dictate there own ph exactly where they want it.

Its either too cold root zone, too bright light or too low humidity more than likely a combination of the 3 .

Keep calm and grow on. Try and keep the top of the soil moist . Not overwater but mist the soil quickly every other day . Or a mulch layer really helps with biologicals dead straw , rice hulls , leaves, or a living mulch alfalfa, clover, ect .

Plant looks good get the environment in check and it will pay off. Might be as simple as getting pots off cold floors and lowering exhaust speed 1/10th .

Top dress with an organic bloom food week 4ish wouldn’t hurt but not necessary.

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#10

Living soil can self-adjust for normal pH ranges of about 6 (acidic) to 8 (alkaline) for short periods, but it doesn’t do well if you keep applying wacky pH water in either direction. 7.5 might be OK if it never goes much higher, but since it does, that seems a likely culprit. I think Gpaw hit the nail on the head that maybe high pH and low temps are causing a lockout.

That’s one of the reasons I use full peat moss as the base for my soil, oyster meal and gypsum instead of lime, and R/O water. I had big problems with water that was consistently as high as you mentioned. A guy named @RastaRoy starting a dirt company in Michigan advised that high pH water was my problem. He said to mix full peat soil and don’t use lime so the acidic soil would naturally counteract the alkaline water. And it worked. You could add a little 1" layer of peat to the top of your pots, maybe under the straw layer, and see if that helps.

Peat is naturally acidic, and I’d rather go a little in that direction than the other way. Lime is great to buffer soils if you have acidic water, but tough if you have very alkaline water. I got an R/O filter for $150 or something and it’s great neutral water for both drinking and growing.

But this is the internet, so YMMV. :slight_smile: I hope you get it figured out!

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PH Down in an organic/notill setup?
#11

Thanks for stopping by and dropping in with some advice.
It could absolutely be low temps. Temperature has dropped here in last week or so, the fabric pots are sat in a plastic tray in the tent, but the tent is basically sitting on a cold wooden floor so I’ll see about raising them up a bit off the ground.

At the moment they do have a mulch layer of barley straw and some crimson clover cover crop (the clover is just starting to poke through now). I’ll give the soil a misting, and back off a bit on the watering.

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#12

Thanks again dude, appreciate the input.
Tap water around here is usually pretty good, but I’ll give it a check again today, incase it has jumped to the 8.6 it was a few months ago.

Sorry for the short replies, I’m running late for work lol. I’ll be sure to have a read up on all of this properly later on today.

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#13

I agree that continual watering with high pH water can cause problems… if you can’t get an alternative like rain water you could make up a solution of citric acid (1 tsp in a pint of water) and then use this as a pH down. Good organic soil has decent buffering capacity but there are limits.
Also i would add that ive been growing organic with some success for a number of years… i changed to LED about 10 years ago but as they have got more efficient and brighter over the years i have had to start adding cal/mag to avoid issues.
Cold soil also won’t help as already said.
VG

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#15

I have some photos down solution already from previous grows that I was using bottled bites on. So I can easily add some of need be.

I’m not sure about feeding cal/Mag as water soluble nutrients into my living soil, but I have some top dress amendmentI can add, and a whole bunch of crushed/powdered egg shells i could use too.

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#16

No need for CalMag, just pick a bunch of dandelion leaves and topdress with them.
They’re 10% calcium. Add a bunch of tree leaves while you’re at it, tis the season.

Get bottled water with the right PH. It’s not like it’s expensive, you could mix bottled water with tapwater, 50/50, if you’re really strapped for cash. I use rainwater myself.

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#17

I’ve been trying to work up enough ambition to cook up some water soluble calcium-

I’ve still got a good amount of cal mag plus, but now that I’m using recycled soil, I need quit buying bottles…

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#18

@SonsOfAvery is UK like myself so we have an abundance of rainwater readily available 24/7 lol. Hey I’ve found a benefit to living in the UK just now :rofl:

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#19

With soil you have to think easy, cheap and simple long-term solution instead of quick short-term fixes that require a bunch of work, money and resources because you’re anxious.

Never do anything when you’re anxious, instead work on not being anxious.

Apply this to everything in your life and good things happen.

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#20

I’m in recycled living soil too - started using a product called marphyl, it’s a mild nutrient supplement. Haven’t had any cal/mag issues since I started using it. It’s hard to get off the bottle altogether haha

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#21

Looks like similar issues that I had with LED and organic soil. I think my issues were mainly due to temps being too cold, and probably some overwatering as I hadn’t figured that out yet. I ended up switching to T5s and hps / cmh as they are more forgiving I find than LED. Planning on trying out LED again though with a veg 3x3 tent I’m going to set up soon and an hlg 300 - I think being able to dim the LED will help a lot as well.

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#22

@VerdantGreen Hey it’s you from ICmag! I’ve been reading your posts for a loooong time.

@SonsOfAvery , I really don’t see that much to be concerned about. When you water, do a runoff pH test to see what the actual water in the root zone looks like compared to input. This will give you an idea of what the substrate is doing pH-wise. If you are having issues, they look almost negligible. If the plant is growing well and quickly, a little mottling here and there can fall under “it’s just that particular plant”.

A good rule of thumb is:
Dark green “crispy” foliage with small “burn holes” in the older leaves is indicative of high pH issues.

Chartreuse-yellow newer foliage accompanied by purple stems and petioles is indicative of low pH issues.

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#23

what else is going on with your water? not sure about the UK, but in my neighborhood we have multiple anti-microbials onboard. knowing everything about your water seems like a good place to start

the other thing that jumped out at me was that you’re vegging with 360 watts of LED. that’s a lot of horsepower…what type of space are the plants in? (what are they, btw?) how bout some more pics? :grin:

what’s your plan for flower? I read the ingredient list on your soil. man…that stuff wasn’t cheap!

cheers, I’ll be watching.

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#24

Nice to see a few more people messing with living soil. I will be starting up my no till living soil grow thread pretty soon, just put 4 plants into a 3x3 bed yesterday.

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#25

In veg I’ve had the best results when heating my tent to 82-84F to help the leaf surface get closer to 80F with my LEDs.

I’ve also tried pre-mixed soil like Michigan M3 soil and found that it definitely needed to be watered with something much closer to 6.5 pH than my tap water, which is generally 7.9-8.1 pH. I’ve started adding a smidgen of powdered citric acid to drop my water into the 6.0-7.0 pH range. Between that and the extra ambient heat, I end up with much happier plants.

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