Ok so I’m finally backup and running in both tents.
I have been noticing what I thought was light burn the past 4 grows, some worse than others, but this time it was really bad in the tent with the Black Raspberry Kush. Upon further inspection I noticed (and others noticed) that my plants also looked like they had N tox. Which is strange because I monitor run off EC/pH as well as input EC/pH pretty religiously.
If interested I posted an in depth overview here:
I posted on a few forums and got some good ideas but nothing conclusive so I’ve decided to address the 4 more likely problems:
- Too much NH4
- Too small of rockwool cube
- Not enough air movement above the canopy
- Problems with pool shock
Too much NH4
While other people have had success with DynaGro I did notice that they use a lot of NH4 in their nitrogen sources. I’ve seen other people have trouble with Masterblend vs Jacks and consider that the main diff is the NH4 in the source of Nitrogen. I honestly have no idea. I’ve had other people say that NH4 builds up if you use it in hydro where there isn’t a lot of bacteria to break it down, or possibly the ammonia causes issues etc. Either way, best I can tell is that in a sterile system with rockwool it is undesirable. So I’ll be using nutrients which only use NO3 for their nitrogen source.
Too small of rockwool cube
I’ve seen people do amazing things with small root spaces, but generally this is only true of very experienced growers. I found a few posts of people having similar problems to me who also tried to use 4 inch cubes start to finish. I’m going back to full size 6 inch cubes for now. I had to change some things in my grow space to get this going, but it’s all working now.
Not enough air movement above the canopy
The problem appears mainly on the top of the plant while the bottom looks fine. This made me think light burn, but also I stopped using circulation fans in my 2x2 because I’d seen other people get away with it. Someone suggested the tops of the plants may be pulling in a ton of water and also then nitrogen etc. causing problems. My temps are never above 82 so I honestly don’t know, but I do know that not having a circ fan is unorthodox and so for now I’m putting them back in. I don’t like them because they are known fire hazards, but for now this is the direction I’m going.
Problems with Pool Shock
I use pool shock in my rez, and I noticed others having issues with it. It does a great job of keeping things sterile but overall I’m not sure about it. I have seen many people have luck with good old clorox which is easy to measure so I’ll be going that route.
So here are the four potential solutions I’m implementing:
- NO3 as only Nitrogen source
- 6 inch rockwool cubes instead of 4
- 1-2 Small circulation fans above canopy
- Clorox instead of pool shock
Here are the 4 Sweet Seeds, Sweet Zkittlez I’ll be running with these changes:
Thanks for stopping by, and good luck in your gardens!