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Nitrogen toxicity?

Smitty82

New member
Hey all, new to this forum. I've got a couple plants on week 3 flowering. They've been absolutely perfect until now. Sunday night, however, gave them about 50% more water than I usually do (with nutes -- FloraNova Bloom) as I was going out of town for a couple days. Seems that was a stupid thing to do because I just got home and they look like hell.

The Cherry Pie looks really bad, the green crack not nearly as bad but signs of the same problems the cherry pie has. The leaves are all curled under and on the cherry pie have browned. Looking around online, my guess is nitrogen toxicity. The soil is still moist on both as if I just watered this morning.

Im worried the cherry pie might be done for, but I'd at least like to save the green crack if possible. I've attached photos. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Cherry pie




Green crack

 

Smitty82

New member
Thanks OG_NoMan. I hadn't been checking PH at all up to this point as prior to right now, everything looked fantasic, leaves were nice and perky, plants looked super healthy and happy. It's only after this episode of watering more than usual that this happened. So, it definitely could be a PH problem since I haven't been checking, but does it not seem strange that it happened out of the blue? The only difference was the change in amount of water they were given. I have no experience, so maybe it's not that strange. Just trying to understand so I can salvage what I can and do better next time.

If you still think PH is most likely the issue, what's the best way to go about confirming that? I'm growing in soil and I don't have a soil PH meter. I do have a water PH meter, though I'm not all that sure I know how to use it properly. The time I tried before, it seemed to be really slow to react and gave different readings for the same water... I guess maybe its defective and I should get a new one or is there something simple that I might be doing wrong that could cause that?
 
T

Teddybrae

Mate! you've got to bite the bullet and buy yrself a meter. otherwise it's all guess work ... which involves us, your fellows, in purposeless replies! we can't help if you don't help yourself! cheers anyway!
 

Switcher56

Comfortably numb!
Mate! you've got to bite the bullet and buy yrself a meter. otherwise it's all guess work ... which involves us, your fellows, in purposeless replies! we can't help if you don't help yourself! cheers anyway!
Having a bad day are we? :dance013:
 
If you still think PH is most likely the issue, what's the best way to go about confirming that? I'm growing in soil and I don't have a soil PH meter. I do have a water PH meter, though I'm not all that sure I know how to use it properly. The time I tried before, it seemed to be really slow to react and gave different readings for the same water... I guess maybe its defective and I should get a new one or is there something simple that I might be doing wrong that could cause that?


What kind of water pH meter do you have? In general you'll need to let your nutrient solution stabilize before you test its pH, which can take different times depending on how large your mixing reservoir is. When I make a 1 gallon mix for the micro garden it takes a few seconds of shaking, but when I make a 250 gallon mix for the commercial grow it takes several minutes with a big pond pump mixing it.

As for actually testing the pH of your soil, your best bet is to flush with distilled water, catch the runoff, and test that. Combined with your nitrogen claw problem, my advice is to go buy several gallons of distilled water and flush each pot thoroughly, and don't water them again until they dry out most of the way. They've still got a chance.
When it comes to what could cause a pH shift basically overnight, the answer is tricky, especially since I don't know much about your setup. Knowing at least what your runoff pH is would help narrow it down a little. There's a guiding rule I learned once and I'm sure I'm going to get it wrong, but I believe that if the problem is bacterial then the pH will spike downward, and if the problem is fungal it will spike upward. But I could also be wrong and that doesn't take into account other potential causes, like fluctuations in tap water quality or a root parasite or stuff like that. In any case, a good flush is probably your best bet.
 

Smitty82

New member
What kind of water pH meter do you have? In general you'll need to let your nutrient solution stabilize before you test its pH, which can take different times depending on how large your mixing reservoir is. When I make a 1 gallon mix for the micro garden it takes a few seconds of shaking, but when I make a 250 gallon mix for the commercial grow it takes several minutes with a big pond pump mixing it.

As for actually testing the pH of your soil, your best bet is to flush with distilled water, catch the runoff, and test that. Combined with your nitrogen claw problem, my advice is to go buy several gallons of distilled water and flush each pot thoroughly, and don't water them again until they dry out most of the way. They've still got a chance.
When it comes to what could cause a pH shift basically overnight, the answer is tricky, especially since I don't know much about your setup. Knowing at least what your runoff pH is would help narrow it down a little. There's a guiding rule I learned once and I'm sure I'm going to get it wrong, but I believe that if the problem is bacterial then the pH will spike downward, and if the problem is fungal it will spike upward. But I could also be wrong and that doesn't take into account other potential causes, like fluctuations in tap water quality or a root parasite or stuff like that. In any case, a good flush is probably your best bet.

Thanks Fidel. My meter is an HM Digital PH-200. I'm gonna go get some distilled water and give it a shot. Does it matter that the soil is still pretty wet from the last watering? Should I wait until it dries out a bit more or go ahead and do it now?
 

OG_NoMan

Not Veteran
Thanks Fidel. My meter is an HM Digital PH-200. I'm gonna go get some distilled water and give it a shot. Does it matter that the soil is still pretty wet from the last watering? Should I wait until it dries out a bit more or go ahead and do it now?

I dont grow in soil but to my understanding you should be letting them dry out between waterings. As far as watering why did you add nutes your last watering? Did the plants look hungery? I think the nutes are what threw your ph. I think you might be lucky and have tap water with a ph @6.5 as why the plants were doing so well and when you added nutes (depending how much) your PH dropped significantly due to the nutrients. Again this is all a guess as you should always be ph`ing your water. Personally I would let the pots dry a bit and continue watering with just water PH'd to 6.5 and let things work themself out through wet and dry cycles. Good luck :tiphat:
 

Smitty82

New member
Thanks everyone. I'm not sure why I had so much trouble with the meter before, seems to be working just fine. I tested my tap water and it seems it's at around 7.2. I've been feeding nutes this whole time Floranova Grow during veg, Floranova Bloom now during flowering.

I checked the soil again and it wasn't as moist as I originally thought, so I went ahead and used some PH down to get my tap water to 6.5 and flushed them with that. The runoff from the Cherry Pie was at 5.4 and the runoff from the Green Crack was 5.8. So yeah, I guess the PH was low!

Let's see how it goes over the next day or two. Thanks again!
 

Smitty82

New member
One last thing just to clarify for myself. So the next time I do feed them, I should make sure that the PH is 6.5 after adding the nutes, right? I'm pretty sure that's correct, just want to confirm.
 

Cheesegez

Well-known member
One last thing just to clarify for myself. So the next time I do feed them, I should make sure that the PH is 6.5 after adding the nutes, right? I'm pretty sure that's correct, just want to confirm.



Ph or overfeeding is your problem , what EC are they getting ?


P.s if that's the cherry pie clone , that's shits got real potential :biggrin:


picture.php
 
I’ve never had any problems similar to yours but I wanted to pop in and say good luck to you. I’ve had other issues and the guys here have helped me get on track so I’m sure you’ll get it all straightened out soon.
 
I’ve never had any problems similar to yours but I wanted to pop in and say good luck to you. I’ve had other issues and the guys here have helped me get on track so I’m sure you’ll get it all straightened out soon.
 

Creeperpark

Well-known member
Mentor
Veteran
know what to do

know what to do

Every since i got a ppm meter, and a Ph meter, everything changed for me! The difference between someone that knows what they are doing and someone that doesn't are these two meters. If you check everything that goes in the top and everything that comes out the bottom with those meters, you will know whats going on in the soil. Plus I always let the soil dry out in between watering. I've learned that most plants do very well with half the recommendations of the nutrient manufacture.
 

Smitty82

New member
Thanks guys, I really appreciate the help. I'm feeling a little better about it now, but we'll see how it goes. I'll let you know. At the very least I know now the importance of PH and how to check it. Also, I guess I'll have to pick up a ppm meter as well as I don't have one of those and it seems that's another important factor I've been missing. If things don't end up working out this time at least I know more to increase my chances of success with the next grow.
 

OG_NoMan

Not Veteran
Another piece of advice: check and calibrate your PH pen weekly. I have learned this the hard way, if your pen is not calibrated your ph can and will be wrong.
 
You can go ahead and flush anytime, it's probably more effective when the soil salts are already dissolved anyway. Testing and adjusting the Ph and EC of your water should be the last thing you do before the solution reaches your plants, unless you're adding some really sensitive living microbes and you don't want to throw a strong acid or base into the solution. Really though, if you're growing at home and you don't have crazy hard water, you don't need to worry as much about the EC. I don't test for conductivity at all, I don't even have a digital pH meter, but I pH test using a reagent every time.
As far as feeding goes, 5.4 isn't really low enough to make me think you had a microbial problem flare up, so I have to assume you overfed them. What kind of soil are you growing in? Living soil mixes will develop available nutrients over time, so any additional nutrients should only be added if you know your soil mix is deficient in something or if the plant indicates a deficiency. Most of what I add to my watering solution is food for the microbes that contribute to the soil, not actually food for the plants. If I do add nutrients from the bottle, it is generally well below the recommended dose. My plants get nothing but neutral water 4/5 days a week.
 

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