First Time Grower: Encountering a Deficiency - Please Help!

Hey everyone, I decided to grow a plant for the first time this year.

Strain: Tropicana Cookies from clone (if that's even relevant)

Outdoor grow in Southeast Michigan using a "complete" soil in a 65 gallon fabric pot.

Specifically, I'm using this "water only" soil: https://detroitnutrientcompany.com/products/great-lakes-water-only-soil

I'm using plain PH balanced water (6.8-7.0)

I think I've been pretty good about not over watering to avoid washing out the amenities but it's hard to tell with the pot being on a rock bed. I use 5-10 gallons of water every other day. The plant will start to droop if I push it to 2 days.

I transplanted into this soil on June 7th. The growth exploded with nothing but green healthy leaves for 4-5 weeks. Then about a week and a half ago I started to notice yellowing of the edges on a few of the upper canopy fan leaves. A week and a half later, now nearly every tops fan leaves are starting to yellow on the edges and some tips starting to brown.

I'm getting conflicting information on this discord I'm in. I've been told that my lady looks healthy and vigorous but looks a bit hungry - soil is out of gas. But I have someone else who has doubled down from looking at the videos from then and now saying it's K excess and not to mess with it, that the yellowing isn't that bad (even though its progressing) and suggested maybe even watering to run off to help knock down the K levels.

My question is what am I looking at and how should I got about fixing it? I'd greatly appreciate any advice!

A week and a half ago:
And now:
Thanks!

Imo,it's hangry .Give a balanced feed and 1 teaspoon per gal Epsom salt.IMO

buckaclark said:

Imo,it's hangry .Give a balanced feed and 1 teaspoon per gal Epsom salt.IMO

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I'm a complete newbie, hence why I went with with an amended soil.

What would you recommend for a balanced feed?

A water soluble such as Jack's or Maxibloom .Balanced like 4-4-4 or 10-10-10 .And one tsp per gal Epsom salt.If you have to stay organic use Dr Earth veg for topdressing in the top layer of soil and water in,but will be slower acting and you need it now

I hit that link and that soil looks really expensive…you musta had $350+ just for that one 65G pot! I grow in the same pots.

I agree the plant is hungry for K and N after a real nice start. My 1st plant was much worse off then what you got going there…so hats off! GL.

buckaclark said:

A water soluble such as Jack's or Maxibloom .Balanced like 4-4-4 or 10-10-10 .And one tsp per gal Epsom salt.If you have to stay organic use Dr Earth veg for topdressing in the top layer of soil and water in,but will be slower acting and you need it now

Click to expand...

Damn, I was antsy to get something added to the plant so I went with this before I saw this reply: (picture attached)

I got it based on recommendation from a guy at a local grow store who's familiar with the soil I'm using. He basically told me the Great Lakes "water only" soil I'm using absolutely still needs to be fed after the initial 4-5 weeks.

And I already scratched it into the soil along with an inch of worm castings. But it's organic, so it's not going to be immediately available, correct? Can I still add a little of what you recommend and epsom to help the plant out immediately? Or would it be too much?

I'd prefer to stay as organic as possible, but it's personal use so there's no real requirement to stay organic.

Dalerjr94 said:

Damn, I was antsy to get something added to the plant so I went with this before I saw this reply: (picture attached)

I got it based on recommendation from a guy at a local grow store who's familiar with the soil I'm using. He basically told me the Great Lakes "water only" soil I'm using absolutely still needs to be fed after the initial 4-5 weeks.

And I already scratched it into the soil along with an inch of worm castings. But it's organic, so it's not going to be immediately available, correct? Can I still add a little of what you recommend and epsom to help the plant out immediately? Or would it be too much?

I'd prefer to stay as organic as possible, but it's personal use so there's no real requirement to stay organic.

Click to expand...

That's good man.Just put a tsp of unscented Epsom salts In your next watering,they will come around.

I think your fine to just water that in,next yr start top dressing one week after plant.I make a habit of every weekend adding in something.

ooof-da said:

I hit that link and that soil looks really expensive…you musta had $350+ just for that one 65G pot! I grow in the same pots.

I agree the plant is hungry for K and N after a real nice start. My 1st plant was much worse off then what you got going there…so hats off! GL.

Click to expand...

You know what, you may have just shed a little light on why it's running out of gas so soon and proving further that it's actually a deficiency.

The 65 gal pot isn't entirely amended soil.

Now that I think about it, I started the plant in a 25 gal pot that was plain soil and fed with liquid nutes until it was a teen. I unintentionally flushed before transplanting - in other words, I got lazy with the nutes so I only feed plain water for 2 weeks before transplant.

When I transplanted to the 65 gal pot, the 25 gal root ball took up the center of the 65 gal pot, top to bottom. So it only took 6-7 bags of the amended soil to fill the sides. By mass, that means after transplanting to the 65 gal pot was comprised of 39% regular soil/root ball and 61% charged soil.

The deficiency this soon kind of makes sense now.

To put it in perspective, this is how big I remember the root ball being (red) and the amended soil to fill the sides (blue) - it only costed me about $180 if I recall correctly.

For more soluble food hydrolized fish or even some salt nutes here and there wont do much damage.

Dalerjr94 said:

You know what, you may have just shed a little light on why it's running out of gas so soon and proving further that it's actually a deficiency.

The 65 gal pot isn't entirely amended soil.

Now that I think about it, I started the plant in a 25 gal pot that was plain soil and fed with liquid nutes until it was a teen. I unintentionally flushed before transplanting - in other words, I got lazy with the nutes so I only feed plain water for 2 weeks before transplant.

When I transplanted to the 65 gal pot, the 25 gal root ball took up the center of the 65 gal pot, top to bottom. So it only took 6-7 bags of the amended soil to fill the sides. By mass, that means after transplanting to the 65 gal pot was comprised of 39% regular soil/root ball and 61% charged soil.

The deficiency this soon kind of makes sense now.

To put it in perspective, this is how big I remember the root ball being (red) and the amended soil to fill the sides (blue) - it only costed me about $180 if I recall correctly.

Click to expand...

Was the “before” picture in the 25 gal pot of after transplant?

Dalerjr94 said:

Damn, I was antsy to get something added to the plant so I went with this before I saw this reply: (picture attached)

I got it based on recommendation from a guy at a local grow store who's familiar with the soil I'm using. He basically told me the Great Lakes "water only" soil I'm using absolutely still needs to be fed after the initial 4-5 weeks.

And I already scratched it into the soil along with an inch of worm castings. But it's organic, so it's not going to be immediately available, correct? Can I still add a little of what you recommend and epsom to help the plant out immediately? Or would it be too much?

I'd prefer to stay as organic as possible, but it's personal use so there's no real requirement to stay organic.

Click to expand...

This one would be better for veg, but that will work too. It's just a little high on the P. Dr Earths is cheaper usually.

Oh damn I forgot to add the link,

And if you want something to work faster until the top dressings broken down I'd grab a bottle of Neptune's Harvest. EWC tea would help too. You can also add in stuff like bokashi to help speed up decomposition too.

That looks more like K deficiency to me than Mg. But you could do a foliar with some Epsom and see if that helps. Epsom foliar will work way faster than trying to add it to the soil. I personally think there are better amendments for Mg, but I do ocassionally use Epsom.

Since you transplanted it grew great for a month and then had an issue. That means it isnt an excess, it is a deficiency. It is short on K.

Feed it a balanced feed for now. Relax. That bit of yellowing wont matter in another 2 weeks, it will grow right through it.

ComfortCreator said:

Since you transplanted it grew great for a month and then had an issue. That means it isnt an excess, it is a deficiency. It is short on K.

Feed it a balanced feed for now. Relax. That bit of yellowing wont matter in another 2 weeks, it will grow right through it.

Click to expand...

I've become a big fan of Langbeinite lately.