potasium def or nitrogen toxicity

[nateman]

My tallest plant and my newest both look sick. I used mericle grow potting mix, I've heard the stigma about it.

My tap water is 6.8 ph I. Just use a brita filter and let the filter water for 24 hrs. I use a vick voparizer to keep the air moist. My 1st grew 13" tall and stopped. My 2nd is great and growing all the time. My3rd and 4th plant are very young, 5 or six leaves each, they are stuntedand yellowing. It has all the symptoms of potasium def, lower leaves yellowing, red stems, stunded growth, rust colored necrotic spots which are getting bigger. Now it seems to me, mericle grow being "overly nutritiuos" a deficiency seems less likely than nitrogen toxicity. I also have upper leaves curling up, a symptoms of nitrogen toxicity. It seems that red stems is the deciding factor. Can red stems also mean toxicity?
A picture is worth a thousand word. Sorry I chose the latter.

 

[PutItInTheBowl]

if you put a picture up you would get alot better results with your post... its hard to tell what your deficiency is or your over nute is without seeing the plant

 

[nateman]

I know. But all I'm really asking is if red stems can indicate nitrogen toxcity. I've never heard of that before but its most likely. The only enternet I have is my phone. Not savy.

 

[mrueeda]

I personally wouldn't care too much about the colour of the stems (it could even be genetic factor), rather watch at the general condition of the plant, i would worry more of the necrotic spots and the yellowing of the leaves. If you want to know if your soil is too strong simply watch behind the bag, there should be an indication of what the ec of the soil is like. If its 1.5 or more it could be a problem of high ec in your soil (expecially when watering with tap water which generally has already an high ec). It could even be a ph problem (and i bet its this case), when the ph outcomes the optimum range (about 6.0-7.0) you could observe deficiencies on your plants, and watering with phd solution many times is not sufficient to stabilize the soil to that specific ph you want, mainly because (unlike the hydro case where the medium is neutral), the soil reacts chemically with what youre giving in to create differents compounds which have to be balanced to give you a proper ph. Now jumping to your problem...Have you got ph and ec testers ??? If yes go to your next supermarket and buy some good deionized water or Reverse Ososis water, that is what you want to use from now on. Then water your plants untill you see coming out the bottom of the pot, collect this water and measure ph an ec (you dont want ec higher than 1.5) then report here the values for more help. If no i highly suggest you to buy at least some ph test drops (you ll pay it like 7 bucks), however use RO water to wash the soil of a plant (use like x2 x3 the pot volume in water) and wait the following days to see how it reacts. I finaly suggest you not to use your tap water anymore, or at least mixed 50/50 with RO water. And always wait until the soil is dry b4 watering your plants. Post some pics and more infos (ec of the tap water, ec of your soil, ph of runoff...) for more help...Hope this helps a little and your plants will recover great !

 

[nateman]

Thank you very much. I have ph test. I'll test water coming out the bottom of the pot. Question, should I flush the soil now, or if i need to adjust the ec or ph. Looks like ec meters go for 50 or so right? How about distilled water? Maybe after flush with di or ro water?
I was worried about the red stems because all the plants have been green until now, and its a sign of potasium def. the 10 and 2 week old plants are sick, but my 5 week old plant is thriving. I didn't raize them any different. I'll try put pics up soon.

 

[mrueeda]

Ok ill try to answer everything. First of all with deionized or RO water i actually mean distilled water (i know there are differences in the productive process but for watering plants everything is fine), so, take your distilled and water your plant unill getting enough runoff (Do not flush yet !). An interesting property of the distilled water is that is EC is almost zero, so it will take the ph of everything is mixed with, so collecting the runoff water from your plants and measuring its ph will give you the exact ph of your soil. Do this for your ill plants and report here the ph values you will obtain, so that at least we can exclude a ph problem. Yes, a good ec meter is about 50, but you could even be able to find cheaper ones (i paid mine like 40 and it does the job), however you can avoid this cost if you fertilize wisely and you take a look to your plants. So comin at the ec problem answer these questions:
-Have u used ferts on the plants ?
-If yes how much and how frequentely ?
-What is your ec soil (the value on the bag of the soil u remember)
-What is your ec of the tap water used ?
-Any other info you know on your tap water (like french degrees, if you have a softener... )
these will be very important to understand what has gone wrong...

 

[*BUDS]

My tallest plant and my newest both look sick. I used mericle grow potting mix, I've heard the stigma about it.

My tap water is 6.8 ph I. Just use a brita filter and let the filter water for 24 hrs. I use a vick voparizer to keep the air moist. My 1st grew 13" tall and stopped. My 2nd is great and growing all the time. My3rd and 4th plant are very young, 5 or six leaves each, they are stuntedand yellowing. It has all the symptoms of potasium def, lower leaves yellowing, red stems, stunded growth, rust colored necrotic spots which are getting bigger. Now it seems to me, mericle grow being "overly nutritiuos" a deficiency seems less likely than nitrogen toxicity. I also have upper leaves curling up, a symptoms of nitrogen toxicity. It seems that red stems is the deciding factor. Can red stems also mean toxicity?
A picture is worth a thousand word. Sorry I chose the latter.

We have no idea ,maybe you shouldn't have chose the latter as you can't spell. Get a pic.

 

[nateman]

what did I spell so badly you couldn't understand me. Pictures are better, but it's not from the spelling.

 

[MajorCoco]

Ha. Buds must be having a bad night. He/she(?!) are pretty helpful on this site though, so it was probably just their kinda short way of saying that it's pretty much impossible to pinpoint exactly what is wrong without a photo. Shit, it's pretty tough even with a photo sometimes!!

But...If you're using brita filter than you're probably taking all the calcium and (i think) magnesium out of your water, so it could be that. Mag deficiency will result in rust spots eventually....ditto calcium deficiency.
From what I've seen it's unlikely that foliar feeding with epsom salt and water can ever hurt a plant (even if it turns out not to help)...so try that if you've got the stuff. Have a look for photos of cal and mag deficiency too, if you haven't already and ruled it out of course!

 

[nateman]

Ok thank you. I'll try to get pictures soon. I might have to go to work with thumb drive with pictures of pot plants and use the computer in final inspection to post them. I've been researching all def and abundaces. It looks like potasium def, but the sympoms are the same as nitrogen toxicity but red stems which indicates potasium def. I'm looking into everyone advice. Testing the soil ph too.

 

[imchucky666]

Ok thank you. I'll try to get pictures soon. I might have to go to work with thumb drive with pictures of pot plants and use the computer in final inspection to post them. I've been researching all def and abundaces. It looks like potasium def, but the sympoms are the same as nitrogen toxicity but red stems which indicates potasium def. I'm looking into everyone advice. Testing the soil ph too.

Hopefully this will help until you get some pics up.

View attachment 2363769

 

[nateman]

Thanks I've seen this. Great chart. It's what lead me to think potasium def. I think rollitup moble doesn't give the option to post pics. Thank you all for your knowledge. Does ph problems look like potasium def and nitrogen tox?

 

[a mongo frog]

i have one question. do your branches seem to be on the brittle side or a little weak?

 

[nateman]

Not the branches. They are soft. They would be brittle with k def wouldn't they? Leaves are crispy though.

 

[a mongo frog]

yes they would be. if u were to pry a branch down it should just snap or brake away from the main stalk. not that any plant would not, but it would be apparent to u that it broke pretty easy.
another thing u would notice is a yellowing on the ridges of some of the leaves.
potassium deficency can be a hard one to diagnose, because its mixed with deficencys of other nuitrients.

 

[nateman]

I can bend the branches 90 deg. without it breaking. So I have all the symptoms of k def but brittle branches, sounds like a ph problem more? or less?

 

[nateman]

I got some distilled water and put in a 1/2 gal before it came out the bottom 6.0 ph. I'll see if the indoor garden store will test the ec until I can a meter.

 

[nateman]

Ok I have a tds meter. The distilled water goes in 2ppm and comes out over 900 pmm with a ph 6.0. Commencing flush on 1 plant.

 

[nateman]

color is coming back, no new growth. i flushed all my plants and my 2nd plant is booming again, surpassed the oldest because it was the most far gone.
thanks everyone.

 

[keep it real.]

I would raise that ph a little I think that's your main problem mg soil will get very acid if lime is not added. 6.0 is very low when your putting 6.8 in ph is your problem your plants can't use the nutes they have. I hope this helps buddy