Nitrogen Deficiency During Flower

[mayan]

I use Botanicare Pure Blend Pro (Grow and Bloom) and Liquid Karma. I grow in coco. I recently ran into a problem with a strain that I have not faced before and I was wondering how y'all would handle it.

The strain is Orient Express from Ace Seeds. It's a sat/indica hybrid with emphasis on the sativa. It appears to be a total nute hog. Huge stretch during transition. The issue is that it seemed to be starved for nitrogen during flowering. It was getting max amounts of the Pure Blend Pro Bloom, as well as, some Bloombastic at times but it was showing pale, yellowing fan leaves all the way through. This looked completely like nitrogen deficiency. The leaves were not mottled, burned, necrotic or anything else. They would just yellow and drop off. I have been familiar with different deficiencies and this looked strictly like nitrogen.

I grit my teeth through the grow and ended up with a bountiful -beautiful- harvest...even if there were very few fan leaves remaining by that point. There was a two-week flush but many of the fans had already dropped by the wayside during the flower period.

Further logistics - I use coco and I pH pretty meticulously at 5.8 or 5.9. I should point out that other strains being grown at the same time with the same regimin, looked just fine in their coloration.

I'm asking the question as I would like to know what -if anything- I should do should this occur again. Would it have made sense to add a bit of the PureBlendPro Grow during flower? Some other source of nitrogen? Am I completely misguided - could it have been some other form of deficiency?

(I chose not to use the template as the grow is complete and I am highly blow-away by the ultimate harvest. OTOH, I might not be so lucky next time this happens so I want to have a strategy in place.

Thanks for your help, suggestions, ideas, opinons in advance!

 

[pine boy]

Look into a mag deficiency.Most likely your plant wanted magnesium.Some plants need alot and with your newts they prolly had the nitrogen required.
Good luck

 

[Guest 16149]

Might wanna try some Cal/Mag and see if that helps, next time

 

[DiscoBiscuit]

some growers use veg nutes through stretch and then switch to bloom

 

[mayan]

Hi all...Thanks so much for your replies. Don't think it was a cal/mag deficiency as it didn't have the spotting/crisping patterns that I've seen when then there has been a problem. Here, the whole leaf would just yellow and then kinda be ready to fall or be plucked very easily. I typically use cal/mag all along. That said, I'm sure there is much that I don't know about this plant and I guess it's possible that my use of cal/mag may have caused some kinda lock-out.

My gut sense is that the plant didn't get enough nitrogen during stretch - I typically give it a mix of Grow and Bloom for the first two or three weeks during transition but I'm thinking that giving the "feed me" nature of this strain, maybe that wasn't enough.

 

[Mr. Greengenes]

I don't see any mention of grow method, plant size and relationship to container? You say the strain is a nute hog and stretched like crazy during beginning flower. Were they bigger than other plants, more potbound? Just talking nutrients doesn't give experienced growers anywhere near enough info to help with your problem.

 

[SeaMaiden]

I use Botanicare Pure Blend Pro (Grow and Bloom) and Liquid Karma. I grow in coco. I recently ran into a problem with a strain that I have not faced before and I was wondering how y'all would handle it.

The strain is Orient Express from Ace Seeds. It's a sat/indica hybrid with emphasis on the sativa. It appears to be a total nute hog. Huge stretch during transition. The issue is that it seemed to be starved for nitrogen during flowering. It was getting max amounts of the Pure Blend Pro Bloom, as well as, some Bloombastic at times but it was showing pale, yellowing fan leaves all the way through. This looked completely like nitrogen deficiency. The leaves were not mottled, burned, necrotic or anything else. They would just yellow and drop off. I have been familiar with different deficiencies and this looked strictly like nitrogen.

I grit my teeth through the grow and ended up with a bountiful -beautiful- harvest...even if there were very few fan leaves remaining by that point. There was a two-week flush but many of the fans had already dropped by the wayside during the flower period.

Further logistics - I use coco and I pH pretty meticulously at 5.8 or 5.9. I should point out that other strains being grown at the same time with the same regimin, looked just fine in their coloration.

I'm asking the question as I would like to know what -if anything- I should do should this occur again. Would it have made sense to add a bit of the PureBlendPro Grow during flower? Some other source of nitrogen? Am I completely misguided - could it have been some other form of deficiency?

(I chose not to use the template as the grow is complete and I am highly blow-away by the ultimate harvest. OTOH, I might not be so lucky next time this happens so I want to have a strategy in place.

Thanks for your help, suggestions, ideas, opinons in advance!

I didn't care for the PBP, I find it expensive and it drops pH like a rock in a short bucket (using RO/DI or rain water). I have also found that LK makes creating lockouts very, very easy. You don't mention your water source or how you account for Ca and Mg, and as suggested, magnesium deficiency (extremely easy to get in certain coco growing scenarios) can cause what you experienced.

Since you mention no other signs, I'll rule out a P problem (reddened petioles, can progress to yellowing, necrosis of the leaf tips and margins that will die back, leaf drop in some advanced cases), which is easy to have occur if not careful about the K in relation to what the coir already holds.

With my coco grows I found it easiest to simply separate Ca and Mg. In doing so I discovered how vital Mg is, as well as how vastly different the demands of different strains can be (The White vs Orange Krush, for instance, just unbelievable), and for what nutrients.

A quick 'tell' for Mg deficiency is to mix up 1/4tsp MgSO4 (Epsom salt, found at any market or drug store) to a gallon of clean water, adding a drop or four of a non-antimicrobial dish soap (surfactant), apply that as a foliar, being sure to get it well saturated on the undersides of the leaves. If it greens up quickly, BINGO, you need to supplement a little Mg in the mix. If not, it's more likely it was a nitrogen deficiency.

Spotting & crisping is specifically Ca. Interveinal chlorosis progressing to full yellowing can be Mg, or P, sometimes, but rarely in coco, K.

Pix=1,000 words, mang.

I like, but don't love this visual chart. It sorely lacks the visual Dx for Ca. It also doesn't distinguish location of affected leaves, which is also important for good troubleshooting. That's where the flow chart can come in handy.

 

[mayan]

Thanks, Mr. Greenjeans and SeaMaiden...You are absolutely correct and I apologize for not giving more information. I was torn about posting here in the infirmary as the question is a bit theoretical given that the plant is already down. Maybe I should have posted in the Ace forum or perhpas some growth or nutritional forum. Ultimately, I decided that this was the place to plant the question as I am hoping to learn what to do differently should I encounter the same issue in the future. This time around, I don't think it inhibited flower production, however...Pictures and explanation at bottom.

The plant was grown in a two gallon container in coco. My rhythm was basically feed one day. For the next day, I would take whatever was left in the nute bucket, mix it with water and feed the -usually- much weakened mixture the next day. I feed by hand until there is bottom run-off.

I use urban tap water (yes, yes...I know, I know!! But for various reasons RO is not an option.) To make matters even worse, I don't have climate control (I grow small and strictly for myself and a couple of dear ones with serious health issues) and this summer was brutal in terms of heat and humidity. That said, I knew what I was getting into by growing in the summer so I ain't complaining about anomalies.

While it may very well have been some kind of lockout or other deficiency (I really know very little about diagnosing these things), I do note that when upping the feeding, the leaves would begin to green up - something I noticed when I had a "real" nitrogen deficiency during another grow. I also note that another -younger- plant of the same strain was showing similar deficiencies early on in flower and when I upped the feeding to max recommended dose, the leaves regained their color. Not so with this plant...no matter what, the leaves remained yellowed and ultimately most of 'em gently dropped off.

The first picture was the plant last month. The next thumbs were the plant at harvest. A lot of the yellowing (and drying, crisping) of the leaves occurred toward the end of the two week flush. As you can see from the third picture -taken after I had removed the main kolas- that the remaining kolas (one of them is bent in the back) and branch tips were fairly substantial, however - at least for me. The last pictures were of some of the kolas - again on harvest day.

Anyhow...thanks for your thoughts. Very appreciated. I'm sorry to have been unfair in handing out my details. I'm interested, SeaMaiden, in what you use for nutes.

 

[SeaMaiden]

You did what I aim for every (indoor) grow. I want that hard yellowing during the last couple of weeks, I want my girls showing me that they've used up every bit of nitrogen they had stored up to grow fat buds. And that girl looks to have grown some pretty fat buds for you.

Growing in coco requires a little bit of knowledge and a good understanding of what the plants are telling you. If you combine that with multi-cropping (interesting way to use the term when it's all cannabis), and by that I mean growing out different strains in the same run, then you learn an awful lot and learn most about how different each strain can be. I wouldn't be surprised if when you run this girl again (assuming you run her again) that you may be able to up the nutrients even further and she may be appreciative. However, I see some rather severely burned leaf tips, so now I'm thinking some nutrients may not have been playing well together.

So, the pix are a little hard for me to make out, but I see interveinal chlorosis moving inward and upward, along with upturned leaf tips, which is sometimes said to be "praying for magnesium." When the leaf tips and margins become mottled with necrosis in large areas, it's often phosphorous. This is (almost) always preceded by reddened petioles. When you see interveinal and leaf margin necrosis, that's calcium deficiency. She may have needed a little more magnesium than the others, and perhaps more calcium as well.

For soil nutrients I try my best to have that soil as well-amended (mineralized) as possible, and this year I used mostly my own urine for feeding. This is my OD crop, I feel that for someone like me to grow indoors during summer is immoral (long and longwinded story, I'll save y'all the headache). When I grow in coco, even though I am really about organics, the easiest nutrient regimen I've ever used was a combination of Flovanova Bloom and Fox Farms Big Bloom, alternating feeds, along with supplementary Ca and Mg. I no longer use combined Cal-Mag products if I can help it, I prefer to alternate feedings of Ca and Mg so I can push the NP, but not so much K unless they say they need it. To that end I use Epsom salt (MgSO4) and a 6% Ca organic product.

I need to figure out my organic regimen for coco without going to hydro shop bottled nutes. Hhmmm... yep, gotta think on that.

So, what really matters most--how's she smoke?

 

[RandyCalifornia]

I have the same problem, and also grow in straight coco. I believe it is due to the aggressive roots of sativas and the use of small pots. Rootbound plants are hard to water thoroughly, so a combination of underwatering and feeding perhaps.
Nice sativa mayan.

 

[mayan]

Thanks for your thoughts and ideas, SeaMaiden and RandyCalifornia. I find this really informative and I can always use all the larnin' I can get my hands on. I'd like to be a bit more substantive but I gotta go out of town and won't be around for a week or so. Feel free to chip in - I won't be ignoring but I don't know if I'll have time to contribute my thoughts or thanks.