Nute problems or what? Stunted, purple woody stems, yellowing

[Tompo]

Update: Problem solved. Was my tap water that has huge amount of calcium. Buy spring water from grocery store and try for a full week, if it helps (you should see it almost immediately), continue using that or go for RO.


Hi!

I have (again) some problems that I have no clue how to resolve.

Setup:
Light: 1 x 600w bare bulb, big fan underneath
Substrate: canna coco
Nutes: GH Flora series (450 ppm)
Water: tap water, high calcium, hence hardwater nutes
Temps: 20-22C day, 19C night

These plants were taken as clones from a flowering mother (2weeks into flower) and it took a month before they even rooted. Then it took another month before they begun growing decently, and another month before the first non-1-fingered leaf popped out. So, they are quite old and very stunted as you can see from the pics.

I had one problem with nutes I realized just two days ago.. I had been watering with 15 grow - 10 micro - 5 bloom that is supposed to be used in the beginning of flowering and the correct would be 7 G - 7 M - 7 B! What I found from the cannabis problem guides was that sulphur defiency would look somewhat like what I'm seeing, and that's what's in GH bloom.

Problems:
1. Stunted growth
2. Purple stems
3. Droopy leaves (Very much so at night)
4. Yellowing / drying leaves
5. Some deformed growth

Pics:

 

[MIway]

it looks like uptake issues not related to having enough foods... too soggy or the pH is off or there is something else in the root zone that isn't letting em uptake as well. does look as if to be growing through it... was much worse earlier on & getting better, slowly, though still not quite right.

also looks a bit stretchy, which could be light, heat, or the uptake issue. my guess is u didn't flush the coir first & the balance & pH is off, and maybe overwatering it with too much love.

just a note, the numbers you gave don't make sense to me as if u r mixing 7/7/7 of flora w clean ro... the ppms should be much higher than 450, so you might want to cal that meter as well. peace

 

[krunchbubble]

super calcium lock out......

buy an RO dude, will save you shit tons in headaches......

i have some of the best water quality in the US, ppm's under 40 and i still RO, keeps alot of the guessing game at bay.....

 

[Tompo]

1. does look as if to be growing through it... was much worse earlier on & getting better, slowly, though still not quite right.
2. u didn't flush the coir first & the balance & pH is off, and maybe overwatering it with too much love.
3. the numbers you gave don't make sense to me

1. Yes, you are right, they have gotten a little better all the time, but still have something pretty badly off..
2. I have read you don't need to flush Canna coco+ so yep, I didn't do that.
3. Sorry, the ppm's are close to correct I guess. My water is 200ppm and I'm giving about 5ml total per 10 liters. Those numbers above were just the ratios for each bottle. This pheno is very very very sensitive to nitrogen so I have kept the ppm's on the low side. You can spot dark green leafs in the pics that are earlier growth.

I'm watering once every 2 days with about 20% runoff. I have calibrated my PH meter constantly, but only with 7.0 solution, never made a double point calibration with 7 and 4. Should probably do that too.. I'm aiming at 5.8.

Watering every 2 days the pot is very light before watering, but the rockwool cube remains a bit moister than the coco though.

super calcium lock out......

buy an RO dude, will save you shit tons in headaches......

i have some of the best water quality in the US, ppm's under 40 and i still RO, keeps alot of the guessing game at bay.....

Hmm, I need to investigate this further, thank you for pointing this for me!

I have zero calcium in the nutes. From the 200ppm of my water I have no idea how much there is calcium, but I guess a LOT. When I had a metallic sauna cup filled with water for some few months (exchanged the water frequently) for cats to drink, calcium started to crystallize(? or something like that) to the walls and the calcium stones were huge. Also, if I let tap water dry on the kitchen sink a large white area remains.

 

[Kcar]

Check for rot where the stem goes into the RW cube. I hate using
RW in coco. The RW holds moisture long after the coco has dried out.
Rapid rooters for coco.

 

[187020]

sup wit air exchange

sup wit air exchange

Hi!

I have (again) some problems that I have no clue how to resolve.

Setup:
Light: 1 x 600w bare bulb, big fan underneath

lemme ax if you're using at least a 6in vortex type fan/filter above bulb?

lemme ax if you put a small fan (set on low) underneath the bulb to create a gentle column of air, big fans jumble the air with excess transpiration occurring (leaf cupping)?

 

[Tompo]

lemme ax if you're using at least a 6in vortex type fan/filter above bulb?

lemme ax if you put a small fan (set on low) underneath the bulb to create a gentle column of air, big fans jumble the air with excess transpiration occurring (leaf cupping)?

Yeah, I have a decent fan blowing air out of the room and it's intake is above the bulb. The fan below the bulb is on low setting and doesn't do much to the leafs, just a gentle breeze. Distance from bulb to plants about 55cm, about 2 feet.

 

[Tompo]

Check for rot where the stem goes into the RW cube. I hate using
RW in coco. The RW holds moisture long after the coco has dried out.
Rapid rooters for coco.

This will be the last time I use (this big atleast) wool cubes in coco. I was planning on using rockwool slabs for this grow but then decided to go with coco instead, hence the large cubes.

I didn't spot any rot there. But another thing, the roots coming out of the bottom of the pots seem a bit thick. They dry out pretty quickly there so I didn't expect to see fine hairy roots, but I thought better to mention this anyway. Looking inside the pots from the drain holes there are some hairy fluffy roots in the clay pebbles (about 2cm of them in the bottom) though.

 

[187020]

Yeah, I have a decent fan

watcha got homie

 

[Tompo]

watcha got homie

This one

 

[krunchbubble]

1. .


Hmm, I need to investigate this further, thank you for pointing this for me!

I have zero calcium in the nutes. From the 200ppm of my water I have no idea how much there is calcium, but I guess a LOT. When I had a metallic sauna cup filled with water for some few months (exchanged the water frequently) for cats to drink, calcium started to crystallize(? or something like that) to the walls and the calcium stones were huge. Also, if I let tap water dry on the kitchen sink a large white area remains.

when ever i check out a spot that im may be growing in, i look for calcium deposits on the walls around the houses in the neighborhood from the lawn sprinklers, very good indication of severe calcium....

so, ya what you see in your cats dish and sink IS Calcium.....

 

[Mia]

You obviously don't live in the south bay Krunch!lol
You must be getting that good hech hechy water.
All our tap is groundwater. awesome.not.
To OP, get a RO.
You definately having some lockout, nute uptake issues.
Krunch I just got me some drip clean the other day per my hydro guy's rec, now I just saw your three year old thread on it lol. I'm hella stoked!

 

[Hydro-Soil]

I had one problem with nutes I realized just two days ago.. I had been watering with 15 grow - 10 micro - 5 bloom that is supposed to be used in the beginning of flowering and the correct would be 7 G - 7 M - 7 B! What I found from the cannabis problem guides was that sulphur defiency would look somewhat like what I'm seeing, and that's what's in GH bloom.

Go look in the coco forum for H3ad Goes Coco. You want to be using 0/6/9 throughout your flowering. All the nutrition issues will go away.

I too would highly recommend getting an R/O machine... best thing for your girls you could possibly do, and for you. I can definitely taste the difference between 250ppm tap-water flushed plants and R/O water flushed plants... from the same garden.

Stay Safe!

 

[joe fresh]

great info from alot of knowledgeable ppl here....


but lets start with you MAIN problem then you can move on to the rest (if there is any)....

I didn't spot any rot there. But another thing, the roots coming out of the bottom of the pots seem a bit thick.

can you say ROOT BOUND???

I'm watering once every 2 days with about 20% runoff. I have calibrated my PH meter constantly, but only with 7.0 solution, never made a double point calibration with 7 and 4. Should probably do that too.. I'm aiming at 5.8.

watering every 2 days....with 20% runoff at that.....basicly your flushing your plants every 2 days with water that was ph'd with a meter that wasnt properly calibrated....




first off lets transplant those babies ASAP...when you transplant make sure to trim the roots abit it will recover faster. when looking for runoff 20 ml of runoff is more than sufficiant, anything more will just flush out nutes and put ph out of balance in the soil/coco. stop watering so often...every 3-4 days should be enough if you have to water more than that then you need to transplant. and lastly get both ph4 and ph7 calibrating solutions so your meter will give you the correct reading.


edit: forgot to say that cold temps (22 in the day) will cause slowed growth and stunted roots and can also throw off ph.....get the day temps to 25-27 and the night temps to 22...you will be happy with the result

 

[Lowman]

Looks and sounds like a sulpher deficiency to me. Foliar with epsom( 1 tsp/G) and drench with epsom(along with reg. nutes)...and I think you will see the issue disappear.

Don't get sucked into the RO advice. Tap water works great for coco. I have hard water(0.6EC) and I don't use hard water nutes. I don't have to add cal/mag to my nutes either. Coco likes tap water. It already has the cal/mag in it. Just have some cal/mag on hand incase you see a calcium issue.

 

[Tompo]

I feel stupid arguing when I'm asking for help, but isn't watering coco with 20% runoff frequently the norm? I have had one setup with constant flow and coco and the crop was good.

Root bound.. I'm 99% sure you are right! When these were in the rockwool blocks without coco they grew the block full of roots before growing more than a few centimeters so probably yes, this pheno needs a lot of room and the pots are probably way too small. Thanks!

I will transplant these right away, rise the temps, buy the 4.0 calibration solution. We'll see if those alone helps.

I won't be buying the RO filter yet, but that's the next step if the problems won't go away.

Thank you for your help, really!

 

[Hydro-Soil]

L
Don't get sucked into the RO advice. Tap water works great for coco. I have hard water(0.6EC) and I don't use hard water nutes. I don't have to add cal/mag to my nutes either. Coco likes tap water. It already has the cal/mag in it. Just have some cal/mag on hand incase you see a calcium issue.

H3ad goes coco. No need for cal/mag, save your F'n cash. (Edit: Here's the Link.. it's a sticky. H3ad has done all the nutrition work with Flora Nutes... Want plants like theirs? Use the 0-6-9 like they do.)
Please at least run your last 2 weeks with plain R/O water. Your meds won't burn my throat that way and your ash will be whiter.
(Please do it, even if You can't tell the difference. The lab and I can.)

Stay Safe!

 

[Tompo]

Thanks HS for the link, I need to read and learn from him. I made a quick glance of the first few pages and he told he's noticed keeping coco wet seems to be beneficial, but he only waters with minimal runoff.
I didn't see any comments about veg nutes, I guess he's using his own bloom ratios trough all phases. I remember Lucas once tried using FloraNova grow instead of only Bloom that used before and he noticed stronger stems and overall better veg growth. Weird h3ad isn't doing that too

HS, how does RO water react to nutes regarding pH? Do you need to use any ph-?

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Yes, keeping coco wet keeps the root zone full of oxygenated fluid. Listen to what H3ad says about coco... it's gold.

You'll need to pH as normal, yes... "After" adding nutes.

Don't get the epsom salts (garden grade) unless you have a plant that's known for being mag hungry. Cal/Mag throws off the ratios and has extra calcium and nitrogen in it... stuff you don't want near the end of the flowering period.

Vegging with bloom nutes creates shorter and more compact plants. There are very few instances that I'd actually veg with a veg mix and mostly when plant sizes are large shrub to tree size. In those setups you want the extra internodal spacing to help eliminate high-humidity pockets and dead air space within the plant near harvest.

Good luck and..

Stay Safe!

 

[ColoradoOG]

Don't get sucked into the RO advice. quote]


Don't get sucked into the RO advice? I dont see your logic on this? With 200ppm starting its great advice. When people recommend this it is to reduce variables. Water source is extremly important and its eliminating one of the biggest unknown factors. By suggesting cleaner water it becomes easier to identify other issues. You start by suggesting he add epsom salt yet you know very little about his plant/room. The best approach to any plant problems is eliminating unknown factors and adjusting minimally. I dont mean offense by this post but in my opinion your approach should be different when diagnosing someones plant problems.

PS As for the water, you dont need to spend 100+ on an ro system yet. If your curious whether or not its an issue buying a week or twos worth of RO is fairly cheap and should be enough to identify if its the issue or not.

PSS: Before changing ferts I would recommend trying RO/ and checking ph before changing anything else. For one you have rockwool which its normal PH is 8 and coco which typically likes PH range of hydro. Also I agree with the original poster in not using rockwool in the future. Coco likes to be watered more often than other mediums and rockwool stays wet far longer than other rooting mediums. It creates inconsistancy in your medium and may not be the issue now..but it could possibly create issues in the future.