Mid-Flower Issues

[BlueJayWay]

I've taken action to fix these problems but wanted to share because for one, I'm always second guessing myself, and secondly it could always help someone else.

Some Stats:
Plain RO water (bubbled) @ about 7.0ph, within the 6.0 range with nutes added
CocoNot medium

Basic formula for Veg:
Canna biovega
calmag +
enzymes
and the occasional soluble seaweed & EJ "micronutes"

Basic formula in flower:
Canna bioflora
calmag +
enzymes
molasses
Canna bioboost
occasionaly boost of soluble seaweed, HN "bloom" (rock phosphate)

About the beginning of flower I started innoculating everything with microbes every other watering or so and using granular mykes in all transplants.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/picture.php?albumid=33931&pictureid=793921

Here's a few of the ladies before they were flipped:

Here they are very early on in flower:

Now, they were all fed identically throughout, and the ones you see are nearly all the same age.

Here's the God Bud I like the best, it took all the feedings like a champ and remained very dark green up until now @ 45 days and I believe it is mainly showing a calcium def, and now it's finally losing some nitrogen? Pics are mid flower and @ 45 days.

Here's a sour bubble in early flower:

They were looking so darn good and taking somewhat high veg nutes so well that I believe I got ahead of myself and started feeding too frequently with the added seaweed & rock phosphate which are 1-1-16 & 0-10-0 respectfully and shortly after a heavy feeding of the bloom 0-10-0 (with the rest of the nutes) they started to deteriorate. Since the "severe" signs of what i'm calling over-loving (lol fertilzing) I have flushed with plain water, and light feedings of just the bioflora / molasses / camag+, and now these sour bubbles that are @ 45 days have just been getting molasses / camag+.

@ 45 days:
The not so good looking SB, the crisping of the leaves, yellowing, discoloration etc. started from the bottom up

The better looking one that may have a tendency to purple up a bit anyways and took the nutes a bit better, although you can still notice some leaf damage.

The following Blush's are a couple/few weeks behind @ around 30 days and they did get a heavy feeding as noted above, way too early (i had mixed too much so i just gave them all a feeding! LOL)
But have sinced flushed and cut the nute schedule in half, and they haven't received the seaweed or phosphate nutes since, i think they may be showing signs of nitrogen & phosphorus def? So might bump up the nutes a little as maybe i backed off too much now?

And a group shot, the front two LEFT are sour bubbles, the rest are God Buds, the right two are phenos of the god bud i'm not keeping as they didn't want ANY nutes from the beginning of flower, one of them turned all to crips (fan leaves), oddly enough though, the top left is the clone of the top right and doing much better @ it's stage in flower with JUST veg nutes still.

This is my first run with CocoNot (and ALL these nutrients) and i was loving it, as you can see by the veg pictures (and other album photos) they were loving it too. With flowering the nute schedule gets a little more hectic and I believe I have some dialing in to do.

Right now I have a few vegging in just happy frog soil, and a few in a mix of happy frog soil / coconot / vermicrops compost blend.

I do love the coconot medium and how it takes water and is very friendly to rootgrowth, i do also miss a more heavily fortified SOIL with less feedings, as i had gotten used to.

So, going forward I will make a 50/50 blend of the CocoNot with an organic soil like happy frog or vermicrops soil with some of their compost thrown in, and maybe mix in some alfalfa meal & dolomite lime maybe.

I will also continue veg nutes a little longer at the beginning of flower and ease into the heavier P/K's a little slower, as that seems to help the ones that are just getting into flower.

The addition of mycorrizae, granular and innoculating seem to help a lot for the younger ones not yet in flower and the couple that are in flower.

I also want to add in my own plant teas, and experiment more with making teas in general.

Thoughts? Am I missing something, diagnosing something wrong?

One thing, with plain RO water, should calmag+ for the most part be used every watering 5ml or 10ml per gal? Can't ever seem to figure that one out...

Thanks everyone, this site is a wealth of information and constantly getting new ideas etc. and loving it!

BlueJ

 

[BlueJayWay]

As a side note - I may cut out the BioBoost alltogether, it goes quick and is $$$ and i can't see clear benefits from it.

This is the SB keeper and it looks great 'n all, but i don't think i can attribute it to the bioboost?

 

[MPL]

Just saw the stuff in the first post. I'm really high.

I think it looks like they might be underfed, or overwatered. You're using a lot of stuff in your nutrient solution. You should back off to just the base, try it, get the plants looking good using it and add from there. Trying to figure out what's wrong with a plant when you are giving it so much different stuff is hard.

 

[BlueJayWay]

"trying to figure out whats wrong with a plant when you are giving it so much different stuff is hard"

Exactly MPL! From time to time i need to be reminded that, i give give give too much to my ladies! LOL Thanks for chiming in man!

They may get overwatered from time to time, as i have to go out of town for 3 to 5 days at a time every other week or so if i don't overwater and let them suck up from the bottom, they get too dry before i get back it hasn't been a major issue, but i'm working on NOT having to go out of town so much.

Also, I just read that the soluble seaweed should be 5ml per FIVE GALLONS, not the 5ml per ONE gallon that i gave them on a couple feedings It was after those heavy feedings they started going downhill. Oddly enough that one God Bud took it ALL like a champ!

I'm backing off on the feeding schedule a bit until i get these girls dialed in better and also continuing the VEG feeding longer into flower as they are yellowing out too soon...

I think the cocoNOT medium uses up ALL it's nitrogen before they flower also..

BlueJ

 

[MPL]

No problem I often have to remind myself the same thing.

Overwatering doesn't happen from super saturating the soil so you can stay away for an extra couple of days (unless your pots are way too big for your root mass). Generally, overwatering occurs over time. The roots are slowly starved of O2, start dying and then start rotting. Especially if you are watering properly between your trips out of town, that alone wouldn't (or rather, shouldn't, I could always be wrong) be enough to overwater them.

That seaweed may have been locking other nutrients out, or causing pH problems etc. at that high of a dose. Even organics cause problems with they are too concentrated.

I'd water with plain water for the next couple of feedings, then start them on a light dose of basic nutes. If you have it around, Clearex or something like that would really help cut the amount of time you have to baby your plants.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

 

[MPL]

double post

 

[OSUB]

bluejayway

your blush's are experiencing a magnesium deficiency. the intervienal chlorosis & curling up of leaves is an indicator of that. magnesium is a crucial element in the plants photosynthesis process & cannabis uses an extraordinary ammount of it during flowering. magnesium is to chlorophyll as iron is to hemoglobin. seriously; chlorophyll and hemoglobin molecules are nearly identical. but anyways, the extreme yellow, almost bleached white color on the blush plants is an indicator of a potassium deficiency as well. the magnesium deficiency looks more severe.

i would flush your god bud out before feeding it any nutrients. the marginal leaf burn shows a high salt content in your soil. you could have a build up of an excess nutrient that is hindering the absorption of other nutes. other than that, it looks like it needs cal mag.

same thing with the sour bubble. the marginal leaf burn & browning shows a high salt content, coupled with identifiable deficiencies (like a magnesium deficiency)

hope this helps!

 

[prince kali]

sorry, but your plants are so overfed, incredible.
when you saw them so glossy dark green (almost black) didnt you wonder whats goin on??
in other words.. you killed them with food.

dont know, you can try to flush them really nicely with plain water, and then feed them half dose of minimum requirements.

bah!


ps. after shooting them in the leg with nutes, backing off nutes is again stress, deficiencies occur.. i am sure your ph is far out of balance too..
well, its hard but seems you learned something there... "less is more"

 

[BlueJayWay]

Oh yeah, LESS IS MORE!! As you can see though, it's not a total loss

This is a perpetual grow, sep. veg & flower, the newer girls aren't lookin' so sad.

BlueJ

 

[Stress_test]

All of the pictures show signs of nitrogen toxicity, even the earlier pics in veg.

I would suspect that they began having problems in veg, just before flipping 12/12, and are lockup up. Which is showing up now as deficiencies because the plants aren't uptaking anything. Basically they have been living on stored nutrients throughout the flowering process.

The earlier pictures show the bluish or purplish hue and clawing, downward curled leaves are indicators of N toxicity.

I would suggest that you reduce nutrient levels in mid or late veg cycle slightly. Reducing in this instance is really an increase because by reducing nutrients you will allow the roots to uptake what is available.

 

[jonnybgood29]

check your rootball my friend. if im not mistaken, that looks like either rot or root aphids!

 

[TripleDraw27]

bluejayway

your blush's are experiencing a magnesium deficiency. the intervienal chlorosis & curling up of leaves is an indicator of that. magnesium is a crucial element in the plants photosynthesis process & cannabis uses an extraordinary ammount of it during flowering. magnesium is to chlorophyll as iron is to hemoglobin. seriously; chlorophyll and hemoglobin molecules are nearly identical. but anyways, the extreme yellow, almost bleached white color on the blush plants is an indicator of a potassium deficiency as well. the magnesium deficiency looks more severe.

i would flush your god bud out before feeding it any nutrients. the marginal leaf burn shows a high salt content in your soil. you could have a build up of an excess nutrient that is hindering the absorption of other nutes. other than that, it looks like it needs cal mag.

same thing with the sour bubble. the marginal leaf burn & browning shows a high salt content, coupled with identifiable deficiencies (like a magnesium deficiency)

hope this helps!

What Stress Test said and this nugget of info I quoted is great!

I am using CalMag every watering with my RO. If I do not, I see early symptoms rather fast. You should check out the KISS Threads after this venture of yours =)

GL.

 

[BlueJayWay]

Thanks, you all are awesome! Ya know there's something to say about "instinct." I've never gotten such dark green foliage in previous grows, and i've never used Vermicrops CocoNot medium, and these nutes and ro water etc etc etc. They look so good darkened up (even healthy and quick growth etc) so i ignored the thoughts to slow down on the nutes, kickin' myself now, but that's what this is all about, trying diff. things, learning, making mistakes, pushing the boundaries and most importantly improving!

Should always let the plant tell you what it wants, not give it what you want it to want.

I'll have some pics up of a few that are at 30 days flower and 20 days flower, much improvement over this first run for sure! They've been given calmag consistently, lower amounts of veg nutes BUT given it longer into flower (two to three weeks) before switching to bloom nutes, granular mykes @ transplants & microbe teas every week or so.. and no random concoctions of too much ferts!

 

[BlueJayWay]

Blush - what do you think? (same plant).

 

[dansbuds]

that last pic has a calcium def.

 

[BlueJayWay]

Yeah that's what i was thinkin', this one has gotten calmag every watering, 5ml early on and 10ml/gal for awhile now, i guess bump it up? My RO water has a ppm of 4 usually, not sure if that's normal for RO. This was the only one I didn't top from seed as it was a super slow vegger, it's just over 4 months old from seed, maybe 20 days into flower.

 

[Lowman]

Classic Phosphorus lockout. I don't think you can do much about it now. Try doin a run without all those the additives except the kelp product can stay. Keep you EC around 1.2. Drop the N after day 35ish if possible.

I would also recommend using tap water if possible and dropping the cal/mag unless you see a calcium issue.

 

[BlueJayWay]

A lot of opinions here:
Nitrogen toxicity
root aphids
magnesium def
calcium def
phosphorus lockout

I've always done tap water, but inevitably i end up running out of water that's been sitting to dechlorinate and have to use it straight. Maybe i'll split the water nossle on the RO and keep a res. with bubbling tap water and do just a couple plants from the bunch to see the difference.

The ladies in the first batch of pictures that i fudged up the worse are done and over, bud is smelling delicious and trich covered, i did lose out on some weight though for sure. But all were from seed and some reacted tremendously well while others couldn't handle the nutes, i believe, and may have needed more calmag @ times.
The middle is the "runt" God Bud, i say runt because it vegged slower than a mofo but in flower became solid bud, absolutely solid. The other two are Sour Bubble, again the one that handled the nutes better, and maybe i paid more attention to her as she is a beauty



My newer ladies are only showing the dark spots on the lower large fan leaves as in the leaf picture in my post above. I thought it looked like calcium deficiency, but Lowman, you say phosphorous lockout?

 

[overgrowit]

Another vote for root aphids here.

Check your roots with a 35x or greater scope or magnifying glass. Some types are not visible with normal vision.
My plants looked just like yours halfway through flower. Some of the strains i have are resistant and do fine throughout the whole cycle. I thought it was a strain specific nute problem at first.

check out this video capture from my scope. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q89n5WHpum4

 

[BlueJayWay]

Those little fuckers! I do have springtails here and there lol, i checked the last rootball i harvested. Vibrant white healthy massive root system, but i did not use a scope. I happened to pick up a 100x scope for trich checking, maybe i'll go aphid hunting on sunday with the next ladies getting chopped and see what i can see!