Deficiency or Lockout?

Hi again. One of my plants are getting rust on the edges of the leaf points. Not the tip of the leaf, the edge tips. Some leaves have brown spots. I assume it’s a deficiency, but not sure which one. I flushed my plants last week just to be safe so there’s no salt build up. The other plants are doing ok except for that one.
the leaves are still perky but there are a couple of fan leaves that yellowed out. I don’t know what’s going on. The buds are forming nicely and I don’t see any stress on the bud formation. I started using Dr. Earth flower girl 3-9-4 bud and bloom booster. Water is normally at 6.2-6.6 ph and I use unsulfured molasses. I even made banana water for the potassium and magnesium. Not sure what’s going on. Any help is greatly appreciated.

What nutrients are you giving it that needed to be flushed out? Did this problem start before or after you flushed and if before did it get worse after?
If your growing in organic soil you don't want to flush it unless your frying your plants with too much dry amendments

Looks like a slight case of nutrient lockout due to overwatering but it does seem slight. Flushing is not proven to do anything but starve the plants by leaching away its nutrients. I personally am always working towards a supersoil goal but in my last grow i had to add a lot of dry amendments. I feed plain water so that the plant will use much of its chlorophyll in its last weeks. This is the flavor component that people talk about when they mention flushing. So flushing or plain water watering(i use rainwater) does allow the plant to rid itself of alot of chlorophyll but studies show that there is no evidence of a “cleansing” action whereby the plants are washed of salts etc.
anyway any plain water during flowering may result in leaves yellowing or the emergence of signs of deficiency.the plants are using a lot of nutes especially recent strains which have been bred in a nutrient hot Medium. I would estimate Land race strains probably deal with deficiency better but i havent studied it so i cant be sure.

If you top dressed there should be nutrients available, so it's probably a lockout issue.

You mentioned molasses, tell us how you're using it. Molasses is really acidic, accumulates quickly in your pots and can cause pH issues leading to lockout.

youraveragehorticulturist said:

If you top dressed there should be nutrients available, so it's probably a lockout issue.

You mentioned molasses, tell us how you're using it. Molasses is really acidic, accumulates quickly in your pots and can cause pH issues leading to lockout.

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The old ph crash,molasses did it to me almost overnight.Haven't used it since.

I’ve been using molasses the entire time. Never had an issue with it. The deficiency started after the flush. I checked the PPMs and they were over 2000! That’s why I flushed. I use tap water and air pump it all day everyday to rid the chlorine. My water PPMs is roughly 450. That’s why I don’t use cal-mag.
I basically flushed the plant until the PPMs were down to 800 range. I used HP pro mix. The plants did great before flower. I use a teaspoon of molasses for every gallon of water. Since the pro mix really didn’t have nutrients, I added 5-5-5 dry amendments, water with molasses. Plants loved it. I use citric acid to lower the water PH Because I ran out of PH down. Plants had no problems.
after I flushed the plants, I started using the Dr. Earth 3-9-4 on top of the soil. Rubbed it in the soil and watered with water and molasses.
PH was around 6.4ish. Then I started to see the plant’s leaves browning on the edges and purple stems. One or two lower leaves turned yellow and wilted.
I can’t water or flush until the soil completely dries out but I’m afraid the plant will turn for the worse by the time the soil dries. I’m afraid to flush because of possible root rot. So I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.
as far as the strain, I made two of my own strains. 1. Jack herer and gorilla glue. 2. Blueberry kush and Jack herer. Originally were feminized seeds, photoperiods.

Those of us that use dry amendments dont check ppm of runoff or ph.Youll end up chasing something that was never really there.Im not sure what to do now,how much water did you flush with?

Also instead of molasses EWC is very popular with the peat/dry mix.Doesnt mess with ph and provides lots of microbes to chew down the dry fertilizer.

drewusmaximus said:

I’ve been using molasses the entire time. Never had an issue with it. The deficiency started after the flush. I checked the PPMs and they were over 2000! That’s why I flushed. I use tap water and air pump it all day everyday to rid the chlorine. My water PPMs is roughly 450. That’s why I don’t use cal-mag.
I basically flushed the plant until the PPMs were down to 800 range. I used HP pro mix. The plants did great before flower. I use a teaspoon of molasses for every gallon of water. Since the pro mix really didn’t have nutrients, I added 5-5-5 dry amendments, water with molasses. Plants loved it. I use citric acid to lower the water PH Because I ran out of PH down. Plants had no problems.
after I flushed the plants, I started using the Dr. Earth 3-9-4 on top of the soil. Rubbed it in the soil and watered with water and molasses.
PH was around 6.4ish. Then I started to see the plant’s leaves browning on the edges and purple stems. One or two lower leaves turned yellow and wilted.
I can’t water or flush until the soil completely dries out but I’m afraid the plant will turn for the worse by the time the soil dries. I’m afraid to flush because of possible root rot. So I’m stuck between a rock and a hard place.
as far as the strain, I made two of my own strains. 1. Jack herer and gorilla glue. 2. Blueberry kush and Jack herer. Originally were feminized seeds, photoperiods.

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What's with your fascination with flushing? Theres a good chance Your whole problem started because you flushed all your nutrients out of your soil(5-5-5). Now you want to flush it again?
Like everyone said your in organics flushing is useless. Flushing if your when your using salt based nutrients and you want to rid any salt that has built up in your soil , and even then I don't think you flush with straight water, you want a weak nutrient solution so you don't strip your plant of all nutrients and make the problem work.
Honestly your best bet might be bottled nutrients now, cause by the time your top dressing becomes available for uptake by the plants is going to be probably a week or two before it sees any benefit, and it more than likely need more of the 5-5-5 as it's still early in flower and still needs nitrogen.
Hope that helps

JustBlazin said:

What's with your fascination with flushing? Theres a good chance Your whole problem started because you flushed all your nutrients out of your soil(5-5-5). Now you want to flush it again?
Like everyone said your in organics flushing is useless. Flushing if your when your using salt based nutrients and you want to rid any salt that has built up in your soil , and even then I don't think you flush with straight water, you want a weak nutrient solution so you don't strip your plant of all nutrients and make the problem work.
Honestly your best bet might be bottled nutrients now, cause by the time your top dressing becomes available for uptake by the plants is going to be probably a week or two before it sees any benefit, and it more than likely need more of the 5-5-5 as it's still early in flower and still needs nitrogen.
Hope that helps

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I don’t have a fascination for flushing. The 5-5-5 was used during veg. When I flipped to flower, I gave the plant just water and molasses since it still had some of the 5-5-5 in the soil. I did a run off to check the PPMs and it was at 2000. I believe that’s very high which tells me there was either salt buildup or just too much nutrients. That’s why I flushed it and brought the PPMs down to around 800ish. When the plant was ready for a feeding, I added the 3-9-4 since it was in flower mode. I checked the PH of the water to make sure it was between 6.2-6.7 to avoid lockout. The PH of my tap water is 7.8 and the PPMs is roughly 450. I’m waiting for the pot to dry out completely. Since there’s still fertilizer in the soil, I’ll just use water. I was thinking of brewing the 3-9-4 and make a tea instead of throwing the dry in the soil, which I’ll probably do on the second feeding. dR. earth has instructions on making a tea with the dry amendments.

Runoff ppm,a certain percentage of the dry is water soluble.Could have been the water just passing through that to give you that reading.Im sure if I did a check on mine Id get a crazy high number also.But plants are happy so I dont do anything.
Theres a Gaia thread in organics,has dr earth stuff also.Good info in there.

What mostly is in your 450 ppm water?

drewusmaximus said:

I don’t have a fascination for flushing. The 5-5-5 was used during veg. When I flipped to flower, I gave the plant just water and molasses since it still had some of the 5-5-5 in the soil. I did a run off to check the PPMs and it was at 2000. I believe that’s very high which tells me there was either salt buildup or just too much nutrients. That’s why I flushed it and brought the PPMs down to around 800ish. When the plant was ready for a feeding, I added the 3-9-4 since it was in flower mode. I checked the PH of the water to make sure it was between 6.2-6.7 to avoid lockout. The PH of my tap water is 7.8 and the PPMs is roughly 450. I’m waiting for the pot to dry out completely. Since there’s still fertilizer in the soil, I’ll just use water. I was thinking of brewing the 3-9-4 and make a tea instead of throwing the dry in the soil, which I’ll probably do on the second feeding. dR. earth has instructions on making a tea with the dry amendments.

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Your obviously not getting what people are telling you, you are growing organically there is absolutely no reason to flush your plants unless they are getting fried because your soil is too hot,even then I wouldn't do it unless I thought the plant was going to die, because it will get used to the soil most likely(might take awhile)and thrive, but that's not the case here your plant was fine before you flushed it(flushing out all your nutrients) your ppms were high cause that was all the food you put in for your plant to eat you just flushed it all out and now your left with a pretty much unamended pot of promix hence me saying just use bottled nutrients, and your better off using your dry amendments in the soil than a tea, scientists are starting to realize teas aren't really very beneficial, it's better used in the soil as a amendment.
So like I said your not getting this so maybe just stick to bottled nutrients. That's the way you want to grow with all this flushing nonsense

myke said:

Runoff ppm,a certain percentage of the dry is water soluble.Could have been the water just passing through that to give you that reading.Im sure if I did a check on mine Id get a crazy high number also.But plants are happy so I dont do anything.
Theres a Gaia thread in organics,has dr earth stuff also.Good info in there.

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Interesting. I didn’t realize about the water just passing through. I learn something new everyday, especially as a new grower. Lol.
I tested my water to see what levels were the PPMs. It’s at roughly 450 from the tap. Ifibis the 450 from the 2000, I end up with roughly 1550 PPMs from the soil. I read during veg it should be around 6-700. And in flower it can go up to 1800, which is why I panicked and did a flush, even though they looked great prior to the flush. I think what I’m going to do once the soil is completely dry is, just give it water at around 6.2 ph, since there’s the dry in the soil. The next feeding I will add more dry and avoid the tea. Basically that will be its last actual feeding I’m assuming. Then it’s plain water until harvest. I’m at week four of flower. It seems as if it takes about a week for the soil to dry. So I assume by the third feeding I’ll be at week 8 or 9. Thanks for the input. I’ll check out that site and gather more data.

drewusmaximus said:

Interesting. I didn’t realize about the water just passing through. I learn something new everyday, especially as a new grower. Lol.
I tested my water to see what levels were the PPMs. It’s at roughly 450 from the tap. Ifibis the 450 from the 2000, I end up with roughly 1550 PPMs from the soil. I read during veg it should be around 6-700. And in flower it can go up to 1800, which is why I panicked and did a flush, even though they looked great prior to the flush. I think what I’m going to do once the soil is completely dry is, just give it water at around 6.2 ph, since there’s the dry in the soil. The next feeding I will add more dry and avoid the tea. Basically that will be its last actual feeding I’m assuming. Then it’s plain water until harvest. I’m at week four of flower. It seems as if it takes about a week for the soil to dry. So I assume by the third feeding I’ll be at week 8 or 9. Thanks for the input. I’ll check out that site and gather more data.

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Those ppms are for hydro or salt fed mediums not organic.The soil microbes take care of ph so most all water is fine no adjustment needed.Ive kinda stuck to 4-6 tbls of dry a week for my 10g sips with big plants.add ewc ea week also.Smaller plants 2-4 tbls a week in say a 5g pot.

drewusmaximus said:

Hi again. One of my plants are getting rust on the edges of the leaf points. Not the tip of the leaf, the edge tips. Some leaves have brown spots. I assume it’s a deficiency, but not sure which one. I flushed my plants last week just to be safe so there’s no salt build up. The other plants are doing ok except for that one.
the leaves are still perky but there are a couple of fan leaves that yellowed out. I don’t know what’s going on. The buds are forming nicely and I don’t see any stress on the bud formation. I started using Dr. Earth flower girl 3-9-4 bud and bloom booster. Water is normally at 6.2-6.6 ph and I use unsulfured molasses. I even made banana water for the potassium and magnesium. Not sure what’s going on. Any help is greatly appreciated.

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I'll tell you what you have going on there is Toxic Salts Buildup, (TSB). The leaves are beginning to burn up from the inside due to a build up of salts in their tissues. Hard water like yours contributes to this problem that usually doesn't rear it's ugly head until a few weeks into flower. All those minerals in your water are in the form of salts just like those in the nutes. I have similar tap water from a dugout on my property so only use RO water for my plants.

You can't fix this but can slow it's progression by flushing at least one pot volume of water thru each pot followed by properly pH balanced bloom nutes tho those ones you have are too heavy on the P in relation to K and that leads to the 'chem' taste in buds grown with too much P.

Plants go thru a big growth spurt during the stretch and can eat up to 4X as much as usual then that drops back to pre-flower feeding levels after the stretch but most still feed at higher levels than needed especially with high P ferts.

OldMedUser said:

I'll tell you what you have going on there is Toxic Salts Buildup, (TSB). The leaves are beginning to burn up from the inside due to a build up of salts in their tissues. Hard water like yours contributes to this problem that usually doesn't rear it's ugly head until a few weeks into flower. All those minerals in your water are in the form of salts just like those in the nutes. I have similar tap water from a dugout on my property so only use RO water for my plants.

You can't fix this but can slow it's progression by flushing at least one pot volume of water thru each pot followed by properly pH balanced bloom nutes tho those ones you have are too heavy on the P in relation to K and that leads to the 'chem' taste in buds grown with too much P.

Plants go thru a big growth spurt during the stretch and can eat up to 4X as much as usual then that drops back to pre-flower feeding levels after the stretch but most still feed at higher levels than needed especially with high P ferts.

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That’s what I was worry about, hence the previous flush. I’ll have to grab RO or Crystal Geyser water and stop using the tap. Maybe I should flush again or basically just give it water only. A couple of other plants are starting to burn at the edges. I’m just waiting for the soil to completely dry.

What "oldmeduser" said for the win.

drewusmaximus said:

That’s what I was worry about, hence the previous flush. I’ll have to grab RO or Crystal Geyser water and stop using the tap. Maybe I should flush again or basically just give it water only. A couple of other plants are starting to burn at the edges. I’m just waiting for the soil to completely dry.

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If you let the soil dry out then when you do flush it soak it to saturation then let it sit for an hour to soak up lots of salts before pouring thru more to get runoff. Check the ppm of the first part of the runoff and now and then as you put more water thru. If using your tap water don't forget to subtract it's ppm from what you get in the runoff for the actual nutrient ppm tho you are also flushing out mineral buildup from earlier waterings.

The plants still need something to eat so the last part of the flush should be some mild to medium level bloom nutes low on N and P if you have them. Don't wait for it to dry out again but pour that thru for the last part of the flush.

You caught it pretty early but you're still going to see leaf damage continue. Hopefully you'll see older fan leaves going yellow and soft near the end indicating that the plant is stealing mobile nutes from them. Leaves affected by the buildup go all yellow/orange/brown, feel thick and crispy and ugly as shit. When it's bad even the tiny bud leaves start doing it near the finish. Low humidity makes it worse and for a long time I thought I was overfeeding which I was for those conditions we have here. During the winter it can be 10% outside and only 20 - 30% in the grow room. Then the plants are drinking a lot more water and taking up more nutes than they can process so like people store fat they store the extra nutes in their tissues until TSB happens but it is building up all thru veg so aim lower with feedings the whole time to prevent that. I was running my DWC at 500 - 600 ppm instead of the usual 1000 - 1200 and getting great growth without the buildup.

myke said:

What mostly is in your 450 ppm water?

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The water alone is at 450ish. I just looked at the plant and the leaves are getting progressively worse. I have a soil meter and the soil is dry but I only have my dechlorinated tap water available. I’m going to have to buy some distilled or spring water. At least the spring water is low in PPMs. Roughly 50ppms.
should I give it just water the next couple times? First I’ll check the runoff and see where the PPMs levels are. I do have fox farm tiger bloom and bat guano. I decided to try dry this round but since the dry is very high in P, I can switch to the liquid. Not sure which route to take. My tomatoes, basil and cilantro are doing great with the Dr. Earth and tap water, just not my other plant.