Is this Iron def?

[SmokinErb]

I've got two plants both displaying the same symptoms, which I believe to be the lack of Iron. Probably due to me using distilled as opposed to spring water.

You can see the yellowing "veins" that occur on the new growth, while the lower parts of the plant are green and healthy.

pH of water going in is at 6.2-6.4, never tested run-off as I have no pH meter (I use a fish tank pH kit, add 3 drops and compare the colors) and the kit I use is affected by the tinted water coming out.

Organic soil mixture, just add water from start to finish.

Here's a top view of each plant. One is Fruity Chronic Juice (Delicious seeds) and the other is Blue Cheese (Big Buddha seeds):

Also, how would I correct this since it's an organic soil mixture? Not sure what supplements I could use to make a tea that would boost iron levels. Never even made a tea before.

 

[SmokinErb]

Okay just tested the run-off pH. Not sure how accurate it is, but the results would explain the deficiency. Run off was 7.5-7.8 despite the 6.2 water going in.

Gonna run a couple gallons of pH'd water through 'em and hope for the best.

 

[Aksala]

How big is are the containers they are in? They just look hungry to me. Maybe outgrowing their pot. IMO you need to have a pretty strong organic mix to keep em looking strong when you choose to use plain water..no nutes...and a minimum of a 3 gallon pot.

 

[SmokinErb]

They're in 5 gallon containers, and if you look *really* closely you can see a few burnt tips here and there.

I'm almost certain it's a pH issue. Just ran 3 gallons of pH 6.2 water through each of them, and the runoff is still testing at about 7.5. That high of a pH would lock out Iron, so I'm pretty confident that's what my issue is. Not really sure why the pH won't lower despite flushing all that water through 'em.

Here's they are from the side, you can see the slight leaf clawing which further supports my belief that my soil mix is a little hot. There's only a handful of burnt tips on a few leaves and it never went further than that, so I didn't worry about it:

Edit: After further researching the symptoms, I believe it's actually mg lockout rather than fe lockout. Can mg lockout be remedied by a epsom salt spray while I figure out how to fix the soil pH issue?

 

[SeaMaiden]

How do you figure Mg lockout? Yes, it can be and I would use a foliar of MgSO4 as a 'tell' to help sort out what really does look like a Fe- to me. Something I've never experienced with cannabis, but have and do regularly with my rhododendron and Camellia. I put some nails in a bucket of water and use that to water them, and whaddaya know? It worked!

I also wouldn't spend too much time flushing a medium that's been being fed using distilled water, I think you can end up messing things up even worse doing that. If it were my plant, I would simply begin using water & feed at the correct pH values.

 

[SmokinErb]

Meh, I've been watering with pH'd water from day one. Started out with 6.5 pH and then dropped it down to 6.2 as they started to show signs of pH issues. Never tested the runoff of an organic soil mixture before yesterday, and I definitely wasn't expecting to see a 7.5. Flushed 3 gallons of 6.2 water through, and re-tested the run-off pH... still 7.5.

I figure Mg rather than Iron because, well here's a picture of Mg from Joe Fresh's sticky thread:

And the Iron:

The onset of the Iron def is wrong for my case - the yellow does not start at the base of the leaf and work its way down to the fingers, it sets over the whole leaf very evenly.

However, Mg doesn't get locked out at a high pH, so I think I'm just gonna shoot her up with an epsom salt spray and see if that fixes it. I'll be watering with 6.5 from here on out as opposed to the 6.2 water, which I feel to be a little bit low and just hope for the best. No idea why the run-off pH won't lower, but if epsom spray fixes it, I'm not going to stress over it too much.

 

[SeaMaiden]

Where it happens on the plant has everything to do with it. Mg is at the bottom of the plant. Fe is at the top. The foliar would tell you, possibly in a matter of hours, depending on VPD and transpiration, whether or not Mg is involved in the mix here.

The plant pictured second is also N+ and P-. In other words, it's got a few issues. Let me share some info-graphic stuff that I found to be far more reliable in resolving problems.

K, this first picto-graphic is helpful, but deficient in many ways. It makes no distinction about where on a plant the deficiency occurs, and this is important to know relative to things like nutrient mobility within plant tissues (translocation), and how that relates to plant growth. It only shows what the leaf looks like, not where it occurs on the plant. It has also left out the Ca part of the equation entirely, and I feel it does not adequately depict a truly advanced case of Mg-, which develops a green 'halo' around the interveinal chlorosis that, if it's gone to that point, has usually gone completely yellow down the mid-sections of the leaves. In any event, pictures, or it didn't happen.

This second is a flow chart that I have found I *must* keep in mind when trying to Dx a problem. No pix, just words and arrows. Simplistic, but that's helpful for me.

I would rework this simple chart a bit, because I've found that K- occurs mid-plant. Otherwise it's again a generally useful tool, if basic, and demonstrates the importance of understanding how where a symptom is observed is just as important as what the symptom is. Make sense?

 

[SmokinErb]

Wow, that was amazingly helpful. Just bookmarked your above post. For some reason I believed that Mg def started on the new growth as well.

So now we're back to Iron deficiency. You stated that you soak a few nails in the water that you use to water plants that are suffering from Iron deficiency. I've got a bunch of nails down in the garage - does the type of nail matter? How long does it need to soak? Would like to hit this problem from two ways at the same time, adding more Iron to the water as well as working on the pH issues I'm having.

Now, Iron availability is greatly reduced as the pH of the soil rises. That is the most likely cause of my deficiency here as the run-off pH is 7.5, I've been struggling with high pH symptoms for 2-3 weeks now and have had absolutely no luck getting it down. I pH all water going in, I've tried flushing with 3 gallons of 6.2 pH water last night with no success in lowering run-off.

My plants are receiving their first 12-hour dark cycle right now. I was really hoping to have healthy plants going into flower, but they're getting too big and I'm already concerned I may over grow the space I have for them if they stretch too much.

Edit: Since my run-off pH is so high, would some lime in the water help buffer the soil's pH? I know lime will actually raise pH, but I think it buffers soil to around 7.0? I've got a 50lb bag of lime in the garage right now that I could use on the next watering.

 

[Jbonez]

Sorry but this looks like a classic Zinc def.. Am I the only one?

 

[SmokinErb]

Okay so quick research shows that both Zinc and Iron can be fixed the same way - a galvanized nail in the soil or water. And both have roughly the same pH availability ranges.

Does anyone have any explanation as to why my soil's pH is testing so high despite all water going in being pH'd to lower than normal levels, and a recent flush?

 

[Jbonez]

Did you amend it with lime or something? That raises soil ph..

Havent been in dirt for a while now, but I remember amending dolomite lime into the soil to counter ph drops and its a Ca source I believe as well..

 

[SmokinErb]

I use an identical soil mix as Phillthy:

1 bale promix
2 bags FFOF
EWC
2 bags NSPB: FLF

That's off the top of my head, been a while since I mixed the dirt but its close to that. The NSPB is a blend of organic amendments, specifically made for cannabis plants. I do believe that there is lime in the NSPB for buffering the soil.

You can read more about the NSPB here if you're interested: http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=193299

 

[SeaMaiden]

Jbonez, I can't say for certain Zn-, honestly it resembles more a Fe- to me. Perhaps that's because of my previous experience with it, and I've never experienced Zn-.

Smokin, as for the lime, I personally wouldn't use something like dolomitic lime. In my experience it brings water columns up to around 8-8.5 pH, and you don't want that. I honestly would not concern myself too much with the run-off, but then I should qualify that by saying I've never been able to resolve a problem using run-off as my metric. Slurry testing works far better in helping to resolve issues for me. YMMV, of course. My slurry test method is fairly simple and only works well if using chemical salts or are only interested in media pH.

You need a sample of 0EC water, measure its pH.
Take several soil/media samples from the plant(s) to be tested, at a few different depths. Mix together.
Wet the sample down enough to make a very wet slurry, let rest 7-10mins.
Take your measurements.
Now you'll have an idea of what's happening IN the media rather than what you can measure coming out of it, and what you're reading is what's in the root zone.

As for your 'soil' recipe, I'm not going to read through that whole thread, so I grabbed the first recipe I saw which is in the first post:

4 gallons of organic potting soil (unfertilized)
1.5 gallons coir
1.5 gallons peat
1 gallon EWC
3 gallons perlite

Are you mixing the above with what you've posted previously? If so, there seems to be a bit of redundancy going on and I'm curious how much peat and coir are actually in that mix. I think the peat and coir levels may end up 'requiring' that you use lower pH values, shooting for a range that's closer to what's better in coir cultivation (5.8-6.2, give or take).

 

[SmokinErb]

Dug through the thread to try to find my post in there to find my exact soil mixture. Mixed this soil about a year ago, only just now getting to use the last of it - kept it moist and turned it regularly over the past year.

1 bale Promix HP
2 bags FFOF
4 gallons EWC
1 CUFT coir
2 bags NSPB

I've ran 2 grows with this exact mix with no issues (other than a battle with spider mites.)

I like the idea of the slurry, I'm going to be keeping that in mind. I *really* need another pH pen, the problem I have with measuring run-off or the slurry is that the water is tinted brown, and I use a chemical pH test kit and the brown really affects my ability to compare the colors. I say my run-off is about 7.5 because when i test it, it appears to have a blue hue to it, when it needs to be a light green. That blue hue could be anything from 7.2+ depending on the shade of the blue.

 

[Avinash.miles]

ya probably

 

[maryjaneismyfre]

Mix some all-in-one hydro nutes with chelated micro nutes pref. or a tablespoon molasses per gallon, along with 5g per gallon Epson salts and dose those babes, give the pots a good soak..If you can get humic and fulvic acids, dose em up with those too. That combo should bring your PH into range and chelate minerals so they all become accessible across a range of PH sorting out all your possible deficiencies. The blue chedder is a hungry girl from its chedder lineage, you can dose her right up.. I have seen the same genes grow as big as your plant in only 3 or 4 days from transplanting as a rooted cut in the right semi-super-organic mix, seriously. This in homemade-hessian insulated smartpots..The breathing rootzone makes a huge difference.

If you want to go the tea route, dont F around, make a fountain pump venturi in a spare bin and load a pillowcase with kelp, alfalfa, horse/cow manure and little chicken manure and half a facebrick to weigh down. Use molasses as your sugar base and add humates and fulvates to the mix. Spray the babes down wet when lights go off and they will glow green almost overnight, you will visibly, in 2 days, see where your 'green paintbrush' missed and spray again. Good luck..And definitely correct before flowering.

 

[TheGrapeApester]

Hey guys and gals I stumbled upon this when I was looking through trying to find how to fix a zinc problem ..whats going on with your plants looks simliar to mine I also think it may be zinc any advice I'm using a rdwc?

 

[moonymonkey]

one thing that will throw at ph outa wack is definately to much water.u cud let it dry out and see if the new growth,looks better,before going hard the other way.peace mm/

 

[dubwise]

my mom would put nails around the base of azalea's in the past to help out with iron def before....about 4-5 of them all around the plant.

 

[noyd666]

chelated iron tabs,nails take 4400 years to work and there used for makeing boats. the iron tabs work quick on rhode's and cam's. sold by yates brand over this way.