Aloha Gurus!!
I am having trouble sorting out the yellowing and burnt tips.
The tips and yellowing started about 2 weeks ago. I did some research and thought it was a nutrient deficiency so I top-dressed with more Bio Flower and mixed up some GH Grow and Bloom @ 420 PPM.
My next watering is tomorrow evening and I am guessing I should use plain PH water and check the runoff PPM and go from there, flushing if necessary.
Any suggestions before I end up making them worse would be greatly appreciated!
4x4 tent
Illumitex NeoPar LED (wattage unknown, any info?)
3-gallon pots
Bio365 Flower soil - Hand watered 6.2-6.5 PH, to light runoff every 3 days
Roots Organic Terp Tea Bloom
Blackstrap Molasses
85-90° on - 70-75° off
45-50% RH on - 50-60% off
Doing organics in small pots is hard. They look very under fed to me as you say you’re ph adjusting the water. Getting some type of light meter will be a valuable tool for you as you’re not sure of the light output. How often are you feeding molasses as that can really mess with the ph if you’re over doing it. I stopped using it except for once every 2 weeks when I top dress my dry amendments.
It sounds like you’re mixing salt based nutes and organic nutrients and soil. I usually have better results when I go with one or the other. Organics rely on the micro organisms in your soil that break down the minerals and nutrients to feed the plant. Salt based nutrients give them the food directly. I use organic dry amendments and will use salt based nutes to correct a serious deficiency if I see one but it is hard on the living microbes in the soil. Too much can really cut the numbers down. The GH trio is a balanced feed and you can just use the grow recommendations on the bottle and then switch to the other formula they list as bloom or flower a couple weeks after flip when the stretch is over.
I’d try feeding the recommended rate for vegetative growth and see how they respond. The yellow leaves won’t get their color back but you should see the progression stop and new growth should be green and healthy.
very difficult one here as I think adding more food will cause problems…your tips are burnt to a crisp which denotes soil toxicity…pH is a little too acidic also…personally you should be aiming for 6.7/6.8…if I was in this position I would flush plain pH adj water through everything and leave 3 days to try to remove toxic buildup of nutes and molasses…add some nitrogen to your first feed once dry and assess what the plant needs visually from there…you can’t make a diagnosis fully online…personal enviroments and growstyles are all different…
How many grows did you finish before this one? Do you think you have a feel when it’s time for watering, fertiliser and switching to flower? To me it looks like they have been switched too early in too big pots and watered too much. On top of that LEDs and stuff plants not necessarily need like molasses and fertiliser.
I have only used the GH grow and bloom once during the last feeding because I thought there was a deficiency. Should I stop using the GH and get something organic? Any recommendations?
Should I flush them tomorrow and checking the ph and ppm of the runoff and go from there.?
I wouldn’t do a big flush personally as that will take out any nutes you have in the soil. What are your watering practices, as in how do you decide they need to be watered? The burnt tips can sometimes be from letting the soil dry out too often, from light levels being too high or over fertilizing which it doesn’t seem you have done. The hard thing is I’m not familiar with the soil your using and it could be hot and that’s what is causing the burned tips. Is the soil like a water only super soil supposedly by chance?
Yes, Bio 365 flower is a super soil, but I was told I would need to add nutrients mid flower. I was recommended the terp tea. The yellowing started before I added any nutrients. I just thought lack of nutrients was the issue :/.
I water every 3 days. I usually stick my finger in the soil knuckle deep and see if it is dry, or I pick up the pot and check the weight. I now believe I might need to water more frequently?
I water until there is water coming out of the drain holes.
I just noticed your temps and humidity levels are at a VPD( vapor pressure deficit) that is really high. That for sure increases the amount of transpiration the leaves are doing and could account for the tips being so dry.
Just saw that you are watering every three days and I think we are getting closer to the issue. Organic soil needs to be kept moist consistently for the microbes to be healthy. I water 2.5 gallon pots daily with 2 liters of water and get little if any run off. When you water does it seem like it goes right through the pot and you have runoff very quickly. If so the soil could be hydrophobic and have dry pockets in it. Try adding a drop or two of plain Dawn dishwashing soap and that will allow the soil to absorb the water better. Ideally you would use Yucca root or aloe but Dawn is at the grocery store and easier to get quickly. I’d water until runoff and then take a little break and come back and water them again slowly until you get a decent amount of runoff. That will help if there are dry pockets but I think in pots that small with temps so high it needs to be watered daily. If it’s possible you can try to get the lights on temp down to the low 80s to help it recover. I’d also try lowering the light intensity some to give them a better chance to rebound. Humidity needs to be kept below 50% ideally in flower to help prevent mold and bud rot. I’ve attached a chart for VPD , you just plug in your temp and humidity and it will give you a number. For flower you want to be around VPD of 1.2-1.6. . Using your temps and humidity I come up over 2.0 which is really off. Here’s a link to the VPD website
There are numbers for the air temp and leaf surface temp. You would need an infrared thermometer to check leaf surface temperature but around 3° F lower than air temp should put you in the ball park.
So let’s try the slow watering with a surfactant like Dawn repeated shortly after the first one, dimming the lights by about 25% if possible, if not you can raise the light about 4" or so and watering slowly every day for a couple days and watch for signs of it perking up. Let me know how that goes in a few days. Remember that the leaves that are pale/burnt won’t come back green. They are done and you need to look at the healthy leaves to see if it’s progressing or staying green.
The only thing I don’t know is what week of flower you’re in. That will help to figure out when to feed them and how much once it’s stable again. Feel free to post here or DM me if you have any questions.
When I water it takes a while for the water to runoff. I use a bucket with a pump and wand. The bucket is 4 gallons and it gets used up by the 6 plants. They are in week 4 of flowering.
I will check into the vpd tomorrow.
Oh, I raised the light a few days ago to 22" above.
Thanks for the info!
No problem, does the water just sit on top of the soil at first then begin to soak in or does it have no problem going into the soil? Good call raising the light. Whenever I first see an issue the first thing I do is drop my lights a little bit to ease the stress on them. The pump and wand sounds nice. I use a turkey baster that hold 2.25 ounces and it stinks putting out 3-4 gallons a day one turkey baster at a time. It does force me to water slowly and helps with soil compaction from heavy watering in a can.
With the wand on the shower setting, I can hold it on one plant for about 10 seconds and it will slowly pool on top, then I go to the next and repeat until I start getting a little runoff. I used to hand feed with a 32 ounce cup and have to reach under the net. The wand is awesome, I can feed from a chair… lol
I just watered at 6.5ph, they were dry. Ugh. I turned up the exhaust fan, Temp is 84° @ 48% rh right now.
I will dm you tomorrow night.
Thanks again…
Bedtime here on the East Coast
I’m in VA and am usually up for most of the night with bad insomnia. I don’t use scrog nets for the very reason you said. It’s too hard for me to water and do pest inspections. I need to be able to look at them up close and be able to rotate them. Nothing wrong with nets, I’m just disabled and can’t function with them in the way.
