First organic / living soil grow, looking for advice

Indoor Growing Organics
#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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#26

How are you liking the citric acid? I tried and found it to be too much of a hassle.

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#27

I’ll not be watering to run off with 10 gal pots unfortunately, I don’t have that much water, and would definitely lead to over watering.

I don’t think it’s that much of a problem at the moment, I’m just trying to keep ahead of the curve incase this becomes a problem. I’d rather amend now if it needs it, and in couple weeks time be in a better place instead of chasing my tail and playing catch up for the rest of the grow.

@noknees
I have a journal for these here, just figured I’d ask the question more publicly to get the best range of inputs. The plants are bodhi’s Soul Mate f2s, and they’re in a 4x4 tent.

@SmackyMcSmackers that’s good to hear, I’ll try and get the temps up a bit, as in UK it’s really starting to get colder now.

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#28

Thanks again to everyone who has chimed in with comments , I really appreciate the wealth of knowledge and information being shared!

If you’re not already, and want to follow along
This is the journal for the grow so far.

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#29

What do you mean you don’t have that much water? This isn’t Arrakis bruv, turn your tap on.

If you want to know what your root zone pH looks like, that’s how you do it.

Any indoor soil mixes should have enough porosity to allow you to occasionally water to saturation. Do whatcha want, your plants. But if I was troubleshooting, root zone pH is where I always start.

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#30

A runoff test works but you can also do a slurry test to check the pH of your medium

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#31

I thought u were on city water . It is normally pretty neutral . 8.6 would be border line criminal. Gotta shave a point off that . Id verify your meter is accurate with drops or strips or solution you don’t want to be adding an acid thats uncalled for.

you’ve gotten good advice here but seriously don’t sweat the small stuff i agree 34ow is some serious horsepower for veg

I also would like a big picture of the entire scenario .

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#32

Haha I’m just joking, I have plenty if water here in UK, basically all ot does is rain lol.
I just don’t want to be watering to run off right now if over watering is a possibility, but I understand what you’re saying, and maybe a slurry test will suffice at the moment.

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#33

Yeh, just regular tap water has hit ph of 8.6 in the summer just gone, it’s not something I’d be keen on consuming regularly haha.

Here’s a bit of a better look at the whole plant in question.

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*the 75f is what it dropped to after I’d had the tent open for 5-10mins while I tended to them. It’s sitting at around 78 today.

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#34

The most likely culprit is the pH being whacky but it could also be lacking some magnesium. Definitely don’t use CalMag but you can 1tbsp of Epsom salts to 1gallon of water for an organic friendly boost of magnesium. It won’t kill your microbes and I’ve had success with it when my leaves looked like that. My tap water sits around 7.6 without adjusting and had this exact problem during veg. It stopped as soon as I adjusted the water and added some Epsom.:+1::+1:

I believe it’s unlikely to have anything to do with calcium and a good pH range is 6.5 - 6.8

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#35

I found a pretty good explanation for PH in living soil from Jeremy at Build A Soil. From 10:00 onwards.

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#36

I had similar issues on my new growth in my current organic run, during veg, and I’m pretty sure mine was due to watering with water that was too cold.

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#37

That’s a other great consideration, I keep my water at room temperature, so it’s never cold, like from the tap cold. But could be worth sitting it next to the radiators to warm a bit before using.
Thanks!

#38

Since the root zone is generally cooler than air temp, I don’t pay as much care to the water temp. I never water directly from the tap since I like to let the water off-gas some of the chlorine for a day or so. By the time I water from my buckets, it’s usually around 65F…though I know that water from my tap is typically somewhere in the low 50s F.

I’ve heard it’s not good to let standing water get too warm (like over 70F) or you risk bad molds & stuff growing in the water. But…take that with a grain of salt, because I don’t have anything to back that up.

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#39

Start with simple,
get your Ph in check before doing any amendments, living soil will buffer the ph, but certain nutrients (calcium especially) still won’t be bio available if your ph is too far off. A quality ph meter is a great investment even if your growing in dirt. As others have mentioned sometimes just watering with bottled spring water is easier than fighting with unreliable tap water.

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#40

What ended up

#41

I also am getting this issue with living soil when I switched my veg light to led. My temps are 77-80, so I’m unsure if that’s the culprit.

Thinking I might just switch back to my MH for veg as i had no problems in veg with MH and it brought the overall temp of my basement up.
I’ll just flower with LED, my flower LED worked great last round.

1 Like