More deficiencies in flower - what to do

Hi all, first full organics run across the pond, using Lc mix 1.
I'm growing a Dutch passion brainstorm. Had to use 11l pot (4gallons) due to size of drobe. LIGHts LED PLANTPHOTICS.

Growing Dutch passion brainstorm from seed. 5 weeks veg, in a scrog and all has been going great until couple weeks ago.

I am now in week 6 flower.

Around week 5 started to see some yellowing of lower fans. Lost a fair few of these. will be in week 7 on 5th April. DP say its a 9 week plant.

Yellowing is spreading. It is now reaching sugar leaves. Some of the branches are still nice green. Others though fading fast.

Growth been bit slow last week of so. Buds not really swelling. I've top dressed couple of times in flower with EWC with little bit extra plagron gunao 3-15-4.

Feed 4 or 5 AACT during life, to microbeman recipes. Also given 3 SSTS, last one few days ago. Got barley mulch on pots.

Temps lights 25 on / off 16-18.5c. Rootmat and stat keeps pots around 21c

This morning I foliar feed with 2ml biobizz fishmix and bit of CC Kelp mix per LITRE.

I'm really concerned that This plant is on a rapid downward path. Whilst I know it's good for plants to eat themselves last few weeks, this seems too rapid. And I reckon the way white hairs still coming on couple have 3plus weeks to go.

So what would you recommend my organic friends?!

I'm currently brewing up a AACT of EWC, alfalfa meal and bit of kelp TONtry and give them bit of a boost last few weeks.

Should I give it to them, or just plain water, or anything else to end?

Hoping for some help guys cause there's a lot of love gone into this lady!!
:watchplant



Peace all

Another pic.

Any ideas anyone?

You are in week 6? Less than 42 days of 12/12? If so, give them a little epsom salt for the next few waterings. 1/4 teaspoon a gallon on back to back feeds. That alfalfa & castings tea should supply some nitrogen, but I'd guess your plants are mag deficient. If possible, also try to drop the pH a bit for a water or 2 after the epsom salt application. A lower Ph can help enable more Mg uptake. I cut out all epsom salt 10-14 days from harvest. At that point, I want the plants to ripen, not produce chlorophyl & 'grow'.

I dunno if epsom salt is cool in the strict organic world, but it's a simple mined then refined mineral deposit. Does not salt up smart pots like chem nutes do, I know that

In my opinion
With 2.5-3 weeks to go I would not give them alfalfa.
A WC, molasses tea might work.
Chances are the plant has taken over(senescence) and has stopped favoring the bacteria that is responsible for any nitrogen uptake.
Any thing you could do with just a couple of weeks to go could do more harm then good.
Let them finish on their own!
Ratz

@barletta -day 46 mate. I don't see a mg deficiency as I'd recognise it, what are you seeing? Genuinely interested

@ratzilla - too late pal gave it to them this morning as need drink and had to do something, least I'd convinced myself I needed to

Going be right hacked off if they don't get much bigger

Cheers

It's normal for lower leaves to yellow late in flowering.

At 45 days, maybe a dose of epsom, but none too late. Mg is like a N deficiency in that it shows as yellowing of large leaves due to no chlorophyll production. Chlorophyll is what makes plants leaves green, when they are purple or red, the chlorophyll gets blocked/replaced by other compounds. Mg deficient leaves go yellow from the outside in & looks like the leaves want to hold on to the green near the veins. IMO when I see a nitrogen def, the leaves go evenly pale yellow. A slightly Mg deficient plant will be 'lighter' than she should (chlorophyll) & sometimes they show extra purpling in stems & leaf stems. Nitrogen is a steady progression from the bottom of the plant up, & Mg will show on older but well lit parts of the plants first, IME.

Most soil mixes are short on Mg for our plants. I've found aggressively flowered herb to demand lots of Mg. I add dolomite azomite & glacial rock dust to my soil mixes & I still use epsom at 1/2tsp per 5 gallons of water almost every time I water. If plants need more I will dose them at 1/5 (1 tsp/5gal bukkit) to 1/4 tsp per gal.

Hey C.Rabbit, I aggree that it's normal for lowers to fade yellow late in flowering, but OP's last pic is of leaves that are right up near the plant's tops. Also 6 weeks isn't really late in flower except for the super fastest strains. I'll correct most deficiencies up till 2 weeks left to go. Not over correct, but I like my girls happy till I go water only.

Hey barletta, thanks for that extra detail man. I'll give them a spray of epsoms then, can't hurt I'm sure. Did have dolomite lime in mix, but I understand it can take a while to Become available. Also the pots is pretty small for size plant now so I'm thinking I'm coming to the end of what was available in the mix. I'd vote the post helpful but can't see how!

vikinglace, you need to get 50 posts here before the system allows you to rate posts. I agree, barletta gave good advice.

If you're going to repeat this scenario, make good note of when deficiency started to show. The next time you can start feeding a week or two prior with a rotation of slurry teas and the like. Balance (many rounded ingredients) and frequent light feeding will compensate a lot for an undersized medium.

I hope you don't mind me posting this here OP. It seems like your question has been answered pretty well already. Sure looks like mag...

In saying that. Is there a better full mix option that we can use to supply magnesium? I have noticed that even when adding dolomite and rock powders I cannot keep up with mg use of some strains. It is quite easy to supplement with epsom salts to correct the issue. My only concern is that I can't mine epsom salts from my property so I would like to come up with a different solution. This is a continued problem with soils ranging from 7-8 years old to freshly mixed soils in my experience and on the IC. Lots of posts lately about it.

Currently have a sour pink grapefruit that I literally can't give enough mg. currently 1 tbl per gallon w/ foliars at 1tsp/gal.

I hate using something from a plastic bag to grow a plant.

Wow growingcrazy, a tablespoon per gallon is a TON of magnesium & a LOT of sulfur. At my 1/4 teaspoon/gal max dosage I raise my ec ~0.2. A tablespoon per gallon is 12 times as much. I know this is the organic forum & ec isn't really factored heavily, but conceptually, think of the amount of Mg you are feeding. If you are seeing problems, I would be willing to bet it's not from a shortage of Mg, but rather an imbalance elsewhere.

Too much K can quickly lockup the Mg. It's the reason that coco growers have to add epsom salts after making a 1.2ec balanced nute solution. Coco releases K & messes with the ratios. High pH (I've done it by adding too much rocks & shells to my soil, people I've worked with have done it with chunky tap water) can also make the amount of Mg the plants need unavailable. I like to use protekt or similar, & due to the K & the high pH, I add epsom every time I add silicate. Same story when I used the 1-0-16 (or similar) kelp powder made with potassium hydroxide. Iron deficiencies & nute burn (phosphate & sulfate I'm thinking of) can sometimes look like Mg deficiencies/problems too.

barletta said:

Wow growingcrazy, a tablespoon per gallon is a TON of magnesium & a LOT of sulfur. At my 1/4 teaspoon/gal max dosage I raise my ec ~0.2. A tablespoon per gallon is 12 times as much. I know this is the organic forum & ec isn't really factored heavily, but conceptually, think of the amount of Mg you are feeding. If you are seeing problems, I would be willing to bet it's not from a shortage of Mg, but rather an imbalance elsewhere.

Too much K can quickly lockup the Mg. It's the reason that coco growers have to add epsom salts after making a 1.2ec balanced nute solution. Coco releases K & messes with the ratios. High pH (I've done it by adding too much rocks & shells to my soil, people I've worked with have done it with chunky tap water) can also make the amount of Mg the plants need unavailable. I like to use protekt or similar, & due to the K & the high pH, I add epsom every time I add silicate. Same story when I used the 1-0-16 (or similar) kelp powder made with potassium hydroxide. Iron deficiencies & nute burn (phosphate & sulfate I'm thinking of) can sometimes look like Mg deficiencies/problems too.

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Learning loads here chaps. I'd used silicon a couple of times during grow, but apart from the Dolomite lime in the original mix hadn't added any MG, bar what might be in kelp watering, tea etc. Defiantly going add bit of MG in watering next run. As it is i've given them a couple of foliar sprays with 1tsp per litre over last couple of days, so hopefully it will hold to the finish now and fatten up!

I live in a very hard water area in the UK , and have raed that the high calcium can also lock on MG.

247.5 mg/l (or parts per million) :Calcium Carbonate
99 mg/l (or parts per million) :Calcium

barletta said:

Wow growingcrazy, a tablespoon per gallon is a TON of magnesium & a LOT of sulfur. At my 1/4 teaspoon/gal max dosage I raise my ec ~0.2. A tablespoon per gallon is 12 times as much. I know this is the organic forum & ec isn't really factored heavily, but conceptually, think of the amount of Mg you are feeding. If you are seeing problems, I would be willing to bet it's not from a shortage of Mg, but rather an imbalance elsewhere.

Too much K can quickly lockup the Mg. It's the reason that coco growers have to add epsom salts after making a 1.2ec balanced nute solution. Coco releases K & messes with the ratios. High pH (I've done it by adding too much rocks & shells to my soil, people I've worked with have done it with chunky tap water) can also make the amount of Mg the plants need unavailable. I like to use protekt or similar, & due to the K & the high pH, I add epsom every time I add silicate. Same story when I used the 1-0-16 (or similar) kelp powder made with potassium hydroxide. Iron deficiencies & nute burn (phosphate & sulfate I'm thinking of) can sometimes look like Mg deficiencies/problems too.

Click to expand...

I agree, it is an insane amount of ES to use. I have two strains currently that I'm using this on, the SPG from Horti and a SSSDH leaning ECSDH. Both have the same male SD from Rez.

I have tried tons of methods in my no-till/recycled soil with these plants and nothing works but adding more. Continued yellow fade from the edges in on leaves and raised leaf tips only go away at huge doses. Protekt + ES once every 2 weeks through stretch. LC's mix, coots, 3LB all get the same results. Runoff ph is usually 6.5-6.8 with my tap water being a 6.9-7.0 at less than 10 ppm unfiltered from the well.(perfect ground water being so close to the lake)

I just started a run of these two plants that I am going to use the Earth Juice line on to get a base line. I have also noticed the more ES, the more flavors come out. I would think this is a sulfur reaction?

EDIT: Barletta, your post also made me realize that I never check my EC after adding the ES. I generally don't care about it with organics in anyway. I think I may need to start checking. Thanks!

viking, your water raises issues for Mg 2 ways - 1. it's got a lot of Ca & calcium & magnesium 'compete' if they are out of balance range. 2. It has a lot of carbonate which will raise the medium pH & make the Mg even more difficult to get at. Add to that that most growers (myself included) generally add dolomite as the main supply of Mg to their soil mixes & high medium Ph becomes a bigger issue. Don't go overboard on the epsom, a teaspoon/gal foliar is a very healthy dose. Next grow try adding 1/8-1/4 teaspoon of epsom to almost every water up to 5-6 weeks of bloom if you are in the same soil & lighting.

I was organic & full on recycled/compost/wormbin trying to close my loop. Didn't do no-till, but had pots full of earthworms & their foodwaste castings. Never bothered with pH or ec - owned no drops for the first 4 years & no ec meter for the first ~6. I grew great herb, but crops were inconsistent & I was chasing issues almost every time. When I learned about water chemistry & pH & how the elements interact with each other & the water, my grows got much more consistent. I lower my very nice tap water (city water,with chlorine not chloramine, from a limestone spring fed lake 5miles away, mid-7's out of the tap, rises to high 7's as it stands, ~0.1-0.2ec, tastes great, only sliiiiight Ca deposits in hot water devices) with fish hydrolysate or earth juice catalyst to ~6.0. If I use potassium silicate (most veg & early bloom feeds along with humic acid), I add epsom & need 2x's as much fish/catalyst to get to mellow yellow 6.0 drops.

I only bother with ec when I'm feeding chem nutes. I do most of my grows in soil that I try to keep thriving & use chem salts up to 1.4ec with no high P kickers & lots of organics inbetween/along with. When I feed the silicate/humic/fish/catalyst I just dose for pH. 1/4tsp silicate needs 1/2-3/4 tsp of catalyst or fish to get me to 6.0. My water alone needs 1/4-1/2 teaspoon to get there. I check Ph before I add humic because the ful humix (TM7 this round) distorts & darkens the water color too much for a good reading. I've checked with cheapo meters & those humic acid products don't seem to change solution pH much at recco'd doses.

Good luck fellahs!

The only way to know for sure is to get the soil tested. I say this because there is a situation that is only recently recognized in agriculture where plants can show Mg deficiency in the tissue even with high levels in the soil. There isn't a good explanation for why it happens but the Dutch were the whistle blowers because they kept applying epsom to some fields and it wouldn't correct tissue deficiencies. The only thing that worked was foliar treatments until they could bring the excess in their soils back to normal range.

You have more than just a Mg def. Calcium, Nitrogen, Zinc are likely low, but you may have excess potassium interfering with Mg and Ca.

A soil test will cost you $25. The information you get from it will be worth more than you spend and if you adjust your soil based on the test you could grow 20% more.

Fuckin' eh barletta and orechron.

To put the tbsp/gal-tsp/L in to perspective, that's a concentration 4-5 times (the full nutrient profile) of what one would feed a mature plant in coir/perlite.

DrDukes database may be helpful to track down high magnesium plants that you might find around your area.

Wow this is starting to twist my melon man. Thank god I've only got 2-3 weeks to go

Barletta i think I get what you are saying re the ph. Always thought no need with soil ,but would be interesting to see what's going in based on the water/ teas etc.

I've got about 30l of this soil mix left so I might just sling it to the veggies and mix up another batch trying to get a better mix to taking into accounts your comments and what is available in UK.

Re the epsoms loads of reference s to 1 tsp/ litre , so surprised at how low you guys recommend.

Seriously thank you for all the comments.

I know a major pepper seed retailer who proposes a tbsp/L (think sea water). You have to analyze the source of any information.

1/8-1/4 tsp per gallon gives around 100-200ppm of S/Mg (or near abouts), more than sufficient for foliar.

Easily checked with a bit of math and conversion ( wiki atomic weights) and confirmed against foliar applications used in the wider agricultural community.