Calcium deficiency and holes in leaves?

Project Ponics

Well-Known Member
Not sure what's going on, been struggling with this problem the past 2 weeks or so.
I do not see any bugs on the plant, but if they are not visible to the naked eye I will not be able to tell until tomorrow.
I do not believe it's all nute burn since some the holes grow on new growth and old.
New leaves grow in deformed at first then look as if something is eating them.
Also looks like I have a calcium deficiency, but I feed the plant 3ml of cal-mag in every gallon of water that goes into the soil. So it doesn't really make sense unless I just need to up the dosage to 5ml per gallon.
Anyone ever had problems similar to this? It's going on the end of week 6 since seedling.

Picture 1 is just the top view of the plant, looks healthy overall.
Picture 2 & 3 is of what looks like calcium denficiency and nute burn? Not sure...
Picture 4 & 5 is of the deformed new growth and tiny holes. You kind of have to look closely to
 

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Project Ponics

Well-Known Member
Sorry here's a picture of them in normal light, still kind of hard to see though

If you look closely at each leaf you can definitely see that some of them are deformed and have holes in the middle of the leaf and on the sides.
 

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drsaltzman

Well-Known Member
Marijuana plants twist and tear.
I'm not seeing anything concerning.
If you are a little careless drops of fert water or soil splash can cause the spotting.
Even though you are in soil (what kind?) you should PH your water.
It's a good practice.
 

Project Ponics

Well-Known Member
Marijuana plants twist and tear.
I'm not seeing anything concerning.
If you are a little careless drops of fert water or soil splash can cause the spotting.
Even though you are in soil (what kind?) you should PH your water.
It's a good practice.
Yeah I knok they twist and tear but not to the extreme of what my plants look like.
I thought it could of been that from spraying them with my mist bottle.
But I have not sprayed the plants in 2 weeks now so I know it's not that.
I am using happy frog and perlite at a 70/30 mix
But two weeks ago or so I flushed the soil because my pH runoff was coming out at like 5.2-5.4.

So I flushed both 3gal pots with 6gal of water, and it brought the pH runoff from 5.2 to 6.2 so it's about 6.2-6.4 now.
The ppm runoff is around 525-625.
 

drsaltzman

Well-Known Member
Yeah I knok they twist and tear but not to the extreme of what my plants look like.
I thought it could of been that from spraying them with my mist bottle.
But I have not sprayed the plants in 2 weeks now so I know it's not that.
I am using happy frog and perlite at a 70/30 mix
But two weeks ago or so I flushed the soil because my pH runoff was coming out at like 5.2-5.4.

So I flushed both 3gal pots with 6gal of water, and it brought the pH runoff from 5.2 to 6.2 so it's about 6.2-6.4 now.
The ppm runoff is around 525-625.
Spots spread over time as the plant tissue slowly dies. You can still see the effect weeks after you stop spraying.
The twists don't look extreme to me. I've had much worse. Some plants/strains are just prone.
With Happy Frog and a PH around 6.2 I highly doubt it's nutritional.
If you had bugs .. you'd know for sure. They don't ring and run. They're in for the long haul and the damage comes swift and large.
Serious ... I look at those pictures and the last thing I think is bugs.

Also ... 6 weeks in the same soil with a flush means you need to start feeding.
 

Project Ponics

Well-Known Member
Spots spread over time as the plant tissue slowly dies. You can still see the effect weeks after you stop spraying.
The twists don't look extreme to me. I've had much worse. Some plants/strains are just prone.
With Happy Frog and a PH around 6.2 I highly doubt it's nutritional.
If you had bugs .. you'd know for sure. They don't ring and run. They're in for the long haul and the damage comes swift and large.
Serious ... I look at those pictures and the last thing I think is bugs.

Also ... 6 weeks in the same soil with a flush means you need to start feeding.
Yeah it doesn't look like a problem at all in those pictures, but if you look closely at the plant in person you can most certainly tell something is eating away at the leaves and it looks to be bugs. But I'll be buying some neem oil tonight along with checking when my microscope gets in the mail! Also I do feed them lol, I just fed both plants about 2 days ago the last feeding before I flip, I've been using roughly 3ml of cal mag and 7ml of pure blend pro grow. Now I'll feed them cal-mag with every watering for the next 2 feedings. Then once my botanicare pure blend pro bloom soil in the mail I'll start feeding them that. The ppm run-off was 625 when i fed them the other day.
 

Project Ponics

Well-Known Member
Well my scope should be here any minute in the mail so I can observe the plant closer.

But also, I do have another plant in the same tent right next to it as you can see in my profile picture.

And that one looks perfect. Does it take a long time for the bugs to spread if it is pests?

It's always been in the same tent but never had a sign of any of the problems that I have had with this main plant.
 

Project Ponics

Well-Known Member
Ok so I just did a pretty good inspection on about 15 leaf clippings from all over the plant. Mainly ones that had defects and holes in them but I did a few fresh ones too just in case.
Looked for about an hour top and bottom side of the leaves, did not see a single bug or pest.

I did see some black specs but after zooming in from 60x to 120x it still just looked like a black spec from the soil or something.

Nothing with legs, or any gnats that looked transparent. I'm sure not sure...
 

drsaltzman

Well-Known Member
Dude, it's not bugs.
Nothing is feeding on your plant.
You're gonna drive yourself crazy.

This is a great place to get advice ... but not all advice here is great.
I think people tend to panic ... especially if cannabis is the first or only thing they are growing.
Just keep doing what you're doing. Those little bitches will grow up just fine.
 

Project Ponics

Well-Known Member
Dude, it's not bugs.
Nothing is feeding on your plant.
You're gonna drive yourself crazy.

This is a great place to get advice ... but not all advice here is great.
I think people tend to panic ... especially if cannabis is the first or only thing they are growing.
Just keep doing what you're doing. Those little bitches will grow up just fine.
It's too late, I'm already driving myself crazy lol.

I know they will still grow fine, and they look great as is.

I noticed all the very new growth on the plant looks fine, no deformed leaves.
The new growth a few days ago had some small deformed leaves and holes in them.
But the newest set of leaves coming in looks good so I'm going to go based on that.

The second plant is what I'm really worried about I guess, it looks nearly perfect. And I didn't want bugs or any problems spreading to the other plant and them both having problems. I was almost considering taking the one plant outside and letting it flower...

But like you said, I'm just going to let it coast and keep a better eye out on the new growth.

Hopefully it's nothing.
 

blowincherrypie

Well-Known Member
your leaves looked a little off under the blurple but then everything looks pretty healthy on other pics.. I admit I have very little experience with happy frog or pure blend but only thing I would say is that she's starting to look hungry. I would keep the calmag at 3 but kick the feeding way up unless you have other supplements you're using. I'd start at 10 and keep working up until they tell u to slow down

Good luck!
 
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Blitz35

Well-Known Member
Dude, it's not bugs.
Nothing is feeding on your plant.
You're gonna drive yourself crazy.

This is a great place to get advice ... but not all advice here is great.
I think people tend to panic ... especially if cannabis is the first or only thing they are growing.
Just keep doing what you're doing. Those little bitches will grow up just fine.
From the pics, there are quite a few leaves with odd parts missing at the edges. I had a pepper plant last year that i never ever found a bug on..yet i had 3-4 fan leaves getting eaten..you can see the chew marks on it..but i never found anything with my scope in weeks of looking..eventually it stopped. It may not be something living on the plant..maybe just stops by to take a bite at times. This plant was growing with all my girls, and nothing at all happened to them. It may just be one or two 'flies' that have stopped by for lunch:)
 

tiltswitch

Well-Known Member
Everything is fine stop worrying. Your giving too much calcium in my view if your in soil, really week four of flowering should be when your doing it roughly. It's most probably a temp issue but they'll be fine, you'll never have a perfect plant with perfect leaves. Whoever said before to not listen to everything your told on here is correct, too many cooks and not enough chefs lol
 

blowincherrypie

Well-Known Member
Everything is fine stop worrying. Your giving too much calcium in my view if your in soil, really week four of flowering should be when your doing it roughly. It's most probably a temp issue but they'll be fine, you'll never have a perfect plant with perfect leaves. Whoever said before to not listen to everything your told on here is correct, too many cooks and not enough chefs lol
Where is he supposed to be getting his calcium? cuz i dont think its coming from his flushed happy frog and if he's under feeding with nutrients that already dont contain enough CaMg so?? If he waits until "week four of flowering" at the feeding rate he's at now he will be dealing with some major issues. "its most probably temp issues" ranks right up there with saying its definitely bugs. not trying to be a dick but he said he was having ph issues (coming in under 5.5 in soil is going to cause issues long term) and he's definitely under feeding. Things look ok now but if he's noticing issues now it's not going to fix itself.

OP - have you done a slurry ph test? or just runoff? check your ph with the slurry method and if you're low you prob need some lime. From the botnicare website feeding schedule i posted above recommends 20 ml/gal by "week 3" of veg and since you flushed a cpl weeks ago slurry check your ph, make sure its ok, and then feed them and you should be golden.

Good luck!
 
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