Help! My plants are in serious trouble. Possible Nitrogen deficiency?

I'm looking for knowledgeable opinions, I've already looked at all the threads discussing common plant problems and looked at photos, and I don't see anything that completely matches my symptoms based on what I've read. Nitrogen deficiency seems most likely based on the description, but the photos I've seen don't seem to completely match my symptoms, and this didn't start until shortly after flowering started, which from my understanding a Nitrogen def. is usually a veg problem.

Ok, first time grower, 5 Easy Ryder AUTOS, and 1 Onyx AUTO. Fox Farms Ocean Forest Soil, CFL (6500K Veg, 2700K Flower), tap water through a faucet mounted Brita filter, PH set to around 6.5 using a test kit and adjustment solutions. You can read ALL of the details with TONS of pics from every stage in my journal thread HERE. Did a ton of reading and research before I started growing, so I was as prepared as anyone could reasonably be.

My plants were ALL doing fantastic until about 10-12 days ago when I started to notice the very bottom set of small leaves on most my plants had turned yellow and died. I'm talking about like the first set of true leaves, which were literally at soil level and hidden completely underneath the plants (these are short plants) and thus always soaked every time I water. I got rid of them. A couple days later I started to notice that the large fan leaves at the very bottom of some of my plants were turning a lighter shade of green. Watched it for a day or two and they started to turn a little yellow starting from the end of the end and side of the leaf and working inward, and were kind of wilted, and I also started to notice similar behavior starting on all my Easy Ryders.

I thought maybe I was overwatering based on the symptoms even though that didn't make sense (I can explain all the reasons why, but I'd say just to trust me). Since I thought I'd overwatered a couple of my plants, I let them go an extra day before watering them again, but waiting an extra day caused them to start drooping all over and clearly they needed water. As soon as I watered them the drooping leaves all perked up, including the affected leaves. I even bought a soil moisture tester to confirm the plants weren't actually wet down deep but not near the surface, and they weren't.

Ok, so here's the bottom line. Plants are NOT being over watered I'm sure, and were doing GREAT until about 10-12 days ago, which was about a week after they started flowering (so the first month or so of an 8-9 week lifespan they were perfect). They have been grown in FFOF soil which is nutrient rich and perfect for growing. Water PH has been set to about 6.5 before every watering, and the soil PH is about 7 according to my tester. They pretty much ALL started exhibiting the same condition about the same time. The only additives/nutes I've given them at ALL in their lifetimes has been Hygrozome (just an enzyme product, no nutes), Pro-Tekt by Dyna-Gro which is just a Silicon solution with a tiny bit of Potassium (0-0-3), and once they started to flower I started giving them Liquid Bloom by Dyna-Gro (3-12-6). I stopped the Liquid Bloom immediately when I started detecting problems, because I also spotted (separately) some indications of possible nute burn on a few leaves, totally aside from the other issue, and I believe that I was giving them too much of it anyway. I have not given them ANY nutes since the problem started, and I even stopped the Pro-Tekt about 5 days ago so they're ONLY getting the enzymes.

The plants are continuously getting worse from the bottom up. The lowest leaves first start to become lighter green, then start to yellow at the outer edges and work their way in, and the leaf wilts. Within 5 days or so the leaf is dead. I've now lost most of my lower fan leaves, and the next thing to be affected will be the buds. Hellllllp! I've worked SO hard on these plants and they were doing PERFECTLY for so long. Can't believe I'm in danger of losing them entirely, when I'm only 3-4 weeks from harvest.


Here's a leaf on 9/22 (bottom left in the first and second pictures) and the same leaf on 9/28 in the 3rd picture so you can see a progression. The leaf is mostly yellow today 9/29, and will be completely dead in another day or two . The 4th picture is the same plant showing other lower leaves.


Two other plants in the first picture. The second picture is a close up of the discolored leaf on the left plant, and the third picture is a close up of the discolored leaf on the right plant.


Another plant, you can see discolored leaves at the bottom.

Actually since your into your flowering stage your plants lower fan leaves should start to turn yellow and fall off like that. Its the plant pulling nutes out of those leaves to feed the buds. I dont pull my yellow leaves off until there about ready to fall off otherwise if you pull them off early that just nutes your taking away from your buds. I use fox farms whole line up and per there feeding schedule during weeks 3 & 4 your suppose to give them a dose of veg food to help the plant get the extra nitrogen it needs so i say mix up some 3/4 strength veg food and give it that for 1 feeding one week and 1 more feeding the next week.

lower foliage yellowing fall off is not uncommon .


they are the lowest of all fan leaves .

you could supplement with some N here and there because flowering plants use up N like there is no tomorrow.

some people say to allow your plant to yellow during flowering

others say to keep it as green as possible all the way through.

i am by no means a pro and still class myself as a noob.


IMO i wouldnt worry about very bottom foliage if the stems turn purple or the whole plant takes on a paler green colour then try some extra N but dont over do it.


J

NateDizity1420 said:

Actually since your into your flowering stage your plants lower fan leaves should start to turn yellow and fall off like that. Its the plant pulling nutes out of those leaves to feed the buds. I dont pull my yellow leaves off until there about ready to fall off otherwise if you pull them off early that just nutes your taking away from your buds. I use fox farms whole line up and per there feeding schedule during weeks 3 & 4 your suppose to give them a dose of veg food to help the plant get the extra nitrogen it needs so i say mix up some 3/4 strength veg food and give it that for 1 feeding one week and 1 more feeding the next week.

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I'm still about 4 weeks away from harvest and at this rate the plants will be dead in 10-14 days, and there are almost NO fan leaves left at all at this point. This is definitely NOT the normal pulling of nutes from the leaves that we see in the late stages of flowering.

enonumus said:

I'm still about 4 weeks away from harvest and at this rate the plants will be dead in 10-14 days, and there are almost NO fan leaves left at all at this point. This is definitely NOT the normal pulling of nutes from the leaves that we see in the late stages of flowering.

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It does'nt look that bad in the pics. I'm just concerned with pic 7....looks like mold, burn or bugs have been eating away???

It looks like a in your root system. Try spacing them out or bulking them up by getting more oxygen to your plant through ventilation. Get a desktop or bedroom fan and try incorporating it into your system. You need to transplant them to bigger pots. That would mean a bigger light as well. Try the 400w Mh. Your system would still be a great first stage veg grow for the first couple weeks, but your plants need more than that.

enonumus said:

I'm still about 4 weeks away from harvest and at this rate the plants will be dead in 10-14 days, and there are almost NO fan leaves left at all at this point. This is definitely NOT the normal pulling of nutes from the leaves that we see in the late stages of flowering.

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Have you ever flushed out your medium??? With water only?

To me it looks like your plants are yellowing per the normal leaf habbits that happen during flowering. I use the FoxFarm line up and per there feeding schedule which I follow almost to a T, they tell you to feed your plant Veg nutes. for week 3 & 4 so that the plant can get that extra boost of nitrogen it needs for flowering. So if I was you I wouldnt worry to much about the yellowing of your leaves it only natural, but like i said Id give them acouple waterings of your veg nutes in week 3&4 so they can get that extra boost of nitrogen and that will probably hold off & help some of your yellowing problems. Hopefully this helps, just my two cents.