Organic Soil Help Plz

[tr1ck_]

Hello, first off thanks for taking the time to try to help me, its greatly appreciated. I guess I should start by giving some info on my setup.

I have a 400watt HPS in a DR80 Tent.

The temps are usually 77-81
RH is usually 25-35
The strain is FMS Iced Grapefruit

I am using LC's #2 soil with LC's #1 fertilizer:

6 parts Fox Farm Ocean Forest
2 parts perlite
2 parts earthworm castings

2 tablespoons Dolomite Lime per gallon
1 tablespoon Blood meal per gallon
2 tablespoons Bone meal per gallon
1 tablespoon kelp meal per gallon

The water they are getting is 0 PPM RO/DI water (I have to use Ro/Di because we have chloramine where I live), its usually right around PH6.0 It usually sits for a few days before I use it, so I usually put my air-stone in the water for a few minutes before watering to get a little bit extra oxygen. I have been adding 3-4ml/gallon of Cal-Mag+ every other watering, otherwise its just plain water.

The runoff is coming out at about PH6.5 with 175PPM.

You can check my grow journal if you need any other information:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=202765

I first noticed the burn on the 10th and I thought it was due to over-watering causing some sort of lockout. I since let the soil dry till I could stick my finger 3-4 inches deep before feeling moisture, and I just re-watered right as I was taking these following pictures.


First, here is a picture on the 10th, showing just the beginning of the nute burn:

All of the rest of the pictures are taken today, this one is showing two of the plants, the one of the left has one leaf that is so brittle its cracking off:

Here is a closer picture of the plant on the left:

Here is another plant, you can see this one has the leaves curling as well:

https://www.icmag.com/ic/album.php?albumid=26986&pictureid=602454

Here is a picture of another plant:

Here is a close-up on one of the burns:

Here is the last plant, which seems to be curling the most:

Let me know what you guys think. I also forgot to mention that the plants were all topped a few days ago, will this accentuate burns/curls?

 

[Midnight Tokar]

While that looks like a real good mix I wonder if it might not be a bit too hot for such small plants.
Also why do you give Cal/mg every other feeding when you have Dolomite in your soil and don't show any signs of a Def. you may be causing a lockout by over-use.

Also humidity looks real low to me, you can put pans of water in the tent to raise it.

 

[VerdantGreen]

hi tr1ck, its an odd one, the mix sounds maybe a bit hot but i would say some of the symptoms look more like deficiency. the brown holes in the leaves could be potassium def.

would agree that the humidity is a bit low. try and leave some water standing in the trays of some wet towels as that might help. also if you can get the light any closer that helps them use more nutes.

for future reference topping is better done when you arent looking for rapid root growth after a repot - better done when the roots have filled the pot a bit.

but they really dont look too bad. the lower few leaves often fade or show odd symptoms and its not too much to worry about.

i dont know about using calmag in organics. and as i said before RO is not very good for soil grows - you said your tapwater is bad... you could try usinhg some ascorbic acid (vit C) to neutralise the chloramine and then mix some tap with RO so it has some dissolved solids which are better.

maybe next time try using an unferted base like peat for your soil mix rather than using a ferted soil and adding more ferts?

i think your plants will settle down and be fine

good luck

VG

p.s. have you checked that they arent root bound??

 

[tr1ck_]

While that looks like a real good mix I wonder if it might not be a bit too hot for such small plants.
Also why do you give Cal/mg every other feeding when you have Dolomite in your soil and don't show any signs of a Def. you may be causing a lockout by over-use.

Also humidity looks real low to me, you can put pans of water in the tent to raise it.

Thanks for stopping by with advice, its greatly appreciated. I will lay off the cal-mag for a while and just feed plain water and hopefully things straighten themselves out. I really don't have the ability to raise the humidity anymore. I already have a humidifier inside the tent.

hi tr1ck, its an odd one, the mix sounds maybe a bit hot but i would say some of the symptoms look more like deficiency. the brown holes in the leaves could be potassium def.

would agree that the humidity is a bit low. try and leave some water standing in the trays of some wet towels as that might help. also if you can get the light any closer that helps them use more nutes.

for future reference topping is better done when you arent looking for rapid root growth after a repot - better done when the roots have filled the pot a bit.

but they really dont look too bad. the lower few leaves often fade or show odd symptoms and its not too much to worry about.

i dont know about using calmag in organics. and as i said before RO is not very good for soil grows - you said your tapwater is bad... you could try usinhg some ascorbic acid (vit C) to neutralise the chloramine and then mix some tap with RO so it has some dissolved solids which are better.

maybe next time try using an unferted base like peat for your soil mix rather than using a ferted soil and adding more ferts?

i think your plants will settle down and be fine

good luck

VG

p.s. have you checked that they arent root bound??

Thanks for the advice, I had never heard about using vitamin C to get rid of chloramine, and to think I just replaced all of my Ro/Di filters with the ones made to remove chloramine

I will definitely use a less hot soil while the plants are smaller next time, I only had enough of the non-fertilized soil to fill the red party cups, and when I transplanted into the 6 inch pots I had to use the soil with the bone/blood/kelp added in. I think that is when the problems got worse.

I will also be able to lower the light today because my fan that will blow over the tops finally came in the mail

I do not think they are rootbound as they have only been in the 6 inch pots for less than a week, however I will probably upgrade them to their final 4gallon airpots very soon. I just have to remove the weakest link of the 5 plants.


Thanks for all of the help everyone.

 

[tr1ck_]

So everything was looking great, I did a EWC/Kelp Meal tea and all new growth was looking perfect, I watered once after that with plain RO/DI water. Then yesterday I had to water again and I used 4ml/gallon of Calmag+ and 4ml/gallon of Liquid Karma. Today when I look at the plants they all look great except 1 which is showing some deficiency's

Does anyone know what this is or what can be done to stop it? I am baffled since only one plant is showing the deficiency.

 

[grapeman]

I'm with VG and the others.... might be a bit hot. I've used what you are using exactly, but only potted 18" plants into it for flower. For vegging I used a much more mild soil mix. Plus I've stopped using cal-mag altogether. I'll give a few foliars of epsom salt early on and the EWC and EWC tea should provide the Ca (so I've learned).

How long did you let the soil sit before using?

 

[tr1ck_]

Are you sure those look like burns? It baffles me how only 1 out of 5 plants showed these deficiencies/burns, all of the the new growth on all the plants has looked great for the last 2 weeks or so, until yesterday when 1 randomly shows this while the rest still look great.

I transplanted them into their final 4 gallon air pots with soil that has been cooking about 1 month, so maybe I'll get lucky and this will clear itself up

 

[tr1ck_]

I am really starting to think this is a cal-mag deficiency. I have been using Ro/Di the whole way through and I have only used my cal-mag twice. It is also cloudy which means it may be bad at this point.

I have a hard time believing its overfert since I have not ferted and the plants were looking better for a while and then took a turn for the worse, you would think they would have just continued to look worse and worse. I also only runoof at 175 ppm which seems really low to be a burn I thought.

What do you guys think about doing a foliar feed with some epsom salt, or pulverized lime? Is it possible to foliar only certain branches and then see if it fixes or makes the problem worse? Or does the plant absorb it via the select branch and use it throughout the whole thing. I could also foliar or water with molasses if that would be better

Or is this a burn and I am just being a noob

One other question, if this is nute burn, should I continue using cal-mag anyways since its ro/di? Or should I use 0ppm water.

 

[Scrogerman]

What are your day & night cab temps , RH too? dont think its any kind of nute burn myself, nute burn itself always starts in the new growing tips as far as i know, its where ive always seen it first, cant see any on yours, from a far they look N deficient, (prolly is a bit too, 'maybe a bit Mg too).
have you foliar treated at all? Id be possibly looking at environment causing nute assimilation problems(low RH can cause assimilation problems with K for example), one thing that sprung to mind was this, which i call VPD damage(vapour pressure deficit), the yellow blotches in one of your first pics reminded me of it & related damage. It will prolly come to light exactly whats causing it, as the damage progresses.(but thats no help!)
I hate it when shit like that happens. Dont use 0ppm water btw either, iirc RO is no good for microheard etc. Out of interest, how hard(ppms) is your tap water?

81f & 25%RH Lights On, (typical problem in winter) is gonna cause potential problems, RH is very low for veg period(should be 50%-70% really).
Did you rear these plants under the 400w or did you use CFL's or the like to begin with?

never heard of people foliaring with PulLime before either, epsom yeah not a problem, if you do foliar, get dose right & use a spreader, use in low light levels, treat whole plant & fast dry(5mins). Dont foliar with HIDs blairing down on them, they will burn then.
(the more i looked at it the more i think it environment/nute assimilation,VPD related, last 2 pics confirm it for me!)

Hope you get to the bottom of it mate! G'Luck!

 

[Scrogerman]

Ive seen damage like this happen, when ive taken a plant out of its veg Cab, running at a nice 60%RH at a Plez 74f(something of this order), & threw it stright into a Flowercab with similar numbers to what the OP has there at 81f & 25%RH, & i got similar if not the exact same tissue damage. After further research on perfect environment for MJ & VPD & the related damage that can occur, i found the cause i believe. getting your environment balanced would be my next step.

Id raise the lights &, try to get the RH up, slow airflow/add humidistat etc. even consider a humidifier.

On a positive note, ive found that as the Canopy gains mass, so does the RH in the Cab & eventually the damage subsides as RH returns to a more suitable range, just my obs. Fix RH, problem goes away! go figure!

There is a set range for RH at given tempreture, to make plants happy/comfortable, so they can assimlate nutes properly/breath/transpire etc if its outside this range problems will occur. Read up on VPD & the perfect environment for MJ, ill see what i can dig out for you. I could be wrong but i think i barking up the right tree.

G'Luck!

 

[tr1ck_]

What are your day & night cab temps , RH too? dont think its any kind of nute burn myself, nute burn itself always starts in the new growing tips as far as i know, its where ive always seen it first, cant see any on yours, from a far they look N deficient, (prolly is a bit too, 'maybe a bit Mg too).
have you foliar treated at all? Id be possibly looking at environment causing nute assimilation problems(low RH can cause assimilation problems with K for example), one thing that sprung to mind was this, which i call VPD damage(vapour pressure deficit), the yellow blotches in one of your first pics reminded me of it & related damage. It will prolly come to light exactly whats causing it, as the damage progresses.(but thats no help!)
I hate it when shit like that happens. Dont use 0ppm water btw either, iirc RO is no good for microheard etc. Out of interest, how hard(ppms) is your tap water?


81f & 25%RH Lights On, (typical problem in winter) is gonna cause potential problems, RH is very low for veg period(should be 50%-70% really).
Did you rear these plants under the 400w or did you use CFL's or the like to begin with?

never heard of people foliaring with PulLime before either, epsom yeah not a problem, if you do foliar, get dose right & use a spreader, use in low light levels, treat whole plant & fast dry(5mins). Dont foliar with HIDs blairing down on them, they will burn then.
(the more i looked at it the more i think it environment/nute assimilation,VPD related, last 2 pics confirm it for me!)

Hope you get to the bottom of it mate! G'Luck!

Scrogerman, thank you very much for the thorough response. First I was wondering if it could be the RH as well, I am usually around 25% and my daytime temps have been around 75 degrees, night time temps about 65-68.

I actually watered them last night with 3ml/gallon of cal-mag, as well as 1ml/gallon of liquid karma, i then diluted this mixture 50/50 foliar fed two of the plants to see if it helped or made them worse. Unfortunately I left the HID light on when I did it so now I am a bit worried I did more harm than good. The light was a good distance above along with good airflow and low temp's though so maybe they will be fine.

I have to use ro/di because my town uses chloramine, and the ppm comes out of the tap at 250-350 depending on the time of year.

The plants were under cfl's for about a week, and then under the 400 watt for a couple weeks since then. I cannot get the RH any higher at the moment, I already had a humidifier in the tent and it did almost nothing because of the airflow (raised it maybe 3-5%). It also caused a huge layer of ice to build up on my window and constantly drip all over the floor (which was a huge annoyance)

I will probably be ordering some magi-cal soon as I don't really trust my calmag+ and I am really starting to think this problem is almost entirely due to lack of calmag, as well as partially caused by low humidity.