Leaves drying out. +rep for any & all help

Hi, I'm what you might call an advanced newbie. I'm on my first grow & I already found the right combination of Mycorrhiza to get bigger & better developed roots.

About 3 weeks ago, I started loosing a lot of leaves. Many of the leaves had some yellow in them so I assumed it was a N deficiency. Also, a lot of the damaged leaves looked a little different from each other so I may have had more deficiencies than just the one. (or more than just one problem)

So about 2 weeks ago I fed them with a full dose of FF Tiger Bloom and a full 1/4 cup of blood meal in their 10 gal containers. Then about 3 days later I watered with just plain water. I was still seeing yellow in the leaves so I then fed them about 3 days later with a full dose of Alaska Fish Emulsion & a full dose of FF Tiger Bloom.

I'm still loosing a lot of leaves, but I don't see much yellow anymore. A couple of leaves had some yellow, but only a couple out of over 100 leaves that I just lost off of one plant.

Also, about half the leaves I lost just fell off. Either when I was dragging the plant through the apartment, when I was reaching for a different leaf, or when I grabbed the leaf to Fan it (it just came off in my hand with little to no pressure). This part is brand new, very few leaves just fell off before today.

I'm pretty sure it's not because of an N deficiency. I thought maybe the petroleum oil (Bonide's All Seasons Oil Spray that I've been using to try to get rid of Broad Mites - very small infestation) might have been drying out the leaves since the leaves start drying out at the tip & edges of the leaves, and since some of the leaves had one half (left or right) that was dry while the other half wasn't. But I stopped using that spray about a week ago and I had to pull some leaves that didn't exist the last time I sprayed (they're brand new leaves). So now I have no idea what it might be.

Has anyone ever had a problem like this, or that looked like this?

Another idea that I had as a possible culprit might be the lights. I have two 400w HIDs on most of the time on a 24/0 schedule. If the plant doesn't get enough light, will it kill off leaves to adjust?

+rep for any & all help.

P.S. I should also explain that when a leaf starts to dry out it first gets darker & softer, almost like it's water logged. The tips then start to curl and then the tips start to dry out followed by the rest of the leaves.

I have my lights 12" above the tops of the plants so I don't think it's light burns. And I try to keep it between 72 & 80 degrees. The portable A/C turned off a couple of times this past week and the temp got up to close to 100, but only for short periods of time. So I don't think it's the heat.

Classic nutrient brun.
Flush your system. Just water for a days, back to 3/4 strength after that. Check you EC if you can -

My magic numbers
Grow = EC 1.6
FLOWER = EC 2.2 - 2.6 (depending on stage)

Your lights didn't do that.

LESS IS BEST !

eza82 said:

Classic nutrient brun.
Flush your system. Just water for a days, back to 3/4 strength after that. Check you EC if you can -

My magic numbers
Grow = EC 1.6
FLOWER = EC 2.2 - 2.6 (depending on stage)

Your lights didn't do that.

LESS IS BEST !

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Thanks for the help. +rep

I really don't think it's nute burn. I originally mis-diagnosed it as nute burn when it first started (about 5 weeks ago actually) and found out it wasn't nute burn when I fed 2 of the plants. The next time I cleaned them those 2 plants had by far the least ammount of damage. Plus, if the yellow wasn't from an N deficiency, then what's it from? And I also think I saw a MG deficiency in one of the leaves on a different plant that I haven't cleaned yet. And when this first started I thought it was nute burns so I flushed the soil and it didn't help at all.

Is there anything else it could be?

whats the room temp how close are your plants to the lights and whats your ph

I would have to agree with him as it looks like you are burning the hell out of them. I would flush with three times the amount of water to pot size and then hit it with half a dose of nutes.

its def heat stress ive had the smae thing happen to my plants

alesanarox said:

whats the room temp how close are your plants to the lights and whats your ph

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Room temp is normally around 80 degrees. It went up to almost 100 a couple of times this week when the portable A/C turned itself off, but not more than a half hour at a time.

The lights are about 12in from the tops of the plants.

I just bought an electronic pH tester so it's right at 6.3 now. I was using an aquarium pH tester and found out when I got the electric one that the aquarium one is really off badly. I was watering with water around 7.0 up until about a week ago and never realized it.

ahh the ph is bad but not super bad but the 100 deg temps eve for that long will do it it def looks like heat stress id raise ur lights a few inches if possible ive had thi happen befor the heat got in the 100s for a little while and it turned them yellow in the center of the leaves and dried them up

well if it went up to almost 100 degress i say thats what did it even if it was only for 2 hours i would say that did damage had to cause a bit of stress

just curious what lights and how many watts are you running?

bran1981 said:

I would have to agree with him as it looks like you are burning the hell out of them. I would flush with three times the amount of water to pot size and then hit it with half a dose of nutes.

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Thanks for the help. +rep

If I can't find a better answer, I'll probably flush on Tues. I called a friend who said he had something that's good for flushing. Flush-X or something like that.

But I really don't think it's nute burn. To explain why.....

When I started I took some bad advice and mixed blood & bone meal with FFOF and had minor nute burns for the first 3 weeks.

During the 3rd week the nute burns stopped and I treated the roots with Micorrhiza.

Around the 5th week the nute burns seemed to start again. I hadn't fed them, but I figured if the roots were getting bigger and more efficient then that may be the cause of the new nute burns.

Around week 6 I flushed them, but the damage that I thought to be nute burns didn't stop.

Around week 7 I fed 2 of the plants a small dose of FF Tiger Bloom and though the damage didn't stop all together, the two plants that I fed had a lot less damage than the other 5.

I water about every 3 days so from then till now..... 1 watering, 1 feeding with blood meal & FF Tiger Bloom, 1 watering, and the last feeding was with Alaska Fish Emulsion & FF Tiger Bloom.

At first the plants started looking better, then they stopped getting better. And after the last feeding they're worse than ever.

But because of all the yellow leaves I've seen in the last few weeks, and because I had misdiagnosed it as nute burn before, I'm really doubting it's nute burn.

Isn't there anything else that can cause this type of damage?

alesanarox said:

ahh the ph is bad but not super bad but the 100 deg temps eve for that long will do it it def looks like heat stress id raise ur lights a few inches if possible ive had thi happen befor the heat got in the 100s for a little while and it turned them yellow in the center of the leaves and dried them up

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Thanks for the help. +rep

I can't say that heat stress isn't part of it thanks to my portable A/C turning itself off a couple of times this week. But the damage was occuring last week too, and the portable A/C stayed on the whole time which kept it at around 80.

Also, the damage starts at the edges of the leaves, not the center. And as you can see in the first pic, the yellow is right behind the dry areas sometimes.

I've also recently pulled off leaves that were all yellow with some dry spots, but I haven't seen any of those types of leaves today. Probably because of the Fish Emulsion which would mean that I just fixed a N deficiency.

All this just isn't making any sense to me unless I burned it with one nute while I was making up for another deficiency or something. Or unless there's another explination for the damage.

Heat exhaustion is possible, and maybe that's why it's worse today than it was last week. But there's still something else causing some damage even without the heat.

Moochbuds said:

well if it went up to almost 100 degress i say thats what did it even if it was only for 2 hours i would say that did damage had to cause a bit of stress

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Moochbuds said:

just curious what lights and how many watts are you running?

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Thanks for your help. +rep

The heat only went up twice, and it was for less than a half hour each time. Like I said, the heat may have made it worse, but I was seeing the damage even before the heat problem.

I have three 400w HIDs (2HPSs & 1 MH) I usually have 2 running, but sometimes I have to drop it to 1 and sometimes I can run all 3. It mostly depends on the outside temp since that's where the portable A/C pulls it's air. I try to keep it right around 80 degrees. And with some help from a friend I'm about to upgrade the lights, probably on Tues.

you sure its not locked out or something its almost like its consuming the leaves like at the end of flowering maybe they arent pulling enough nutes out of the soil or cant for somereason not sure but maybe. what is your feding/watering schedule?

i dont know though kinda looks like over watered also with the tips curling and getting darker like that not sure probably just confusing you more

I dont know if you have looked up the specs on how far to keep the light away but i would try that as well just to make sure your height is right dont want to burn them and dry them out just a lil pointer but the temps sounds perfect bro i hope you can get it figured out and ill do some looking around as well maybe find some more info but what has been posted is all i can think of or have found out

for sure not an N def

growman09 said:

you sure its not locked out or something its almost like its consuming the leaves like at the end of flowering maybe they arent pulling enough nutes out of the soil or cant for somereason not sure but maybe. what is your feding/watering schedule?

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growman09 said:

i dont know though kinda looks like over watered also with the tips curling and getting darker like that not sure probably just confusing you more

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Thanks for the help. +rep

Well it's definately not over watering. I only water once every 2 to 4 days depending on how fast they drink the last watering.

I've only fed them twice. I guess my problem is that I treated the roots and now they're biger & and more effective (they break down nutes faster and help the roots absob them faster). Since I'm kind of breaking new ground, there's no one to turn to for advice.

About a month ago I started loosing leaves. At first I thought it was a nute burn, but the damage kept coming even though I wasn't feeding, and it was starting to get worse. So out of desperation I fed 2 of them and the 2 I fed started to look better. So I then fed all of them a full dose of FF Tiger Bloom and a 1/4 cup of blood meal. The next watering was just water and they were looking better though I was still loosing leaves. Still a lot of yellow leaves, so I fed them again about 5 days ago with a full dose of Tiger Bloom & Alaska Fish Emulsion.

The yellow leaves are all but gone, there were only a couple on the two plants I cleaned last night. Now most of the damaged leaves aren't mis-colored badly until they start to dry, and one leaf looked like it had an MG deficiency, but that was only 1 leaf.

Now I'm confused because if they're eating the N, then they should be eating everything else. It shouldn't be a deficiency.

I guess it could be a MG burn or something. You know, I caused a nute burn while taking care of a deficiency. But I've looked and can't find any nute burns that look like this.

I guess my only choice is flushing them one at a time starting tommorow and see what happens. The stuff my friend is lending me is supposed to reset the soil's pH & get rid of everything including the salts. I just hope it doesn't make things worse.

Straight up G said:

for sure not an N def

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Thanks for the help. +rep

An N deficiency is only one of my problems that I'm just getting done fixing. I only lost 2 leaves that were yellow on the first two plants I cleaned last night. But a week or so ago, most of the leaves that I lost were yellow.

They're loosing more leaves faster now, and there's no real discoloration till they start to dry. I can't find pics of deficiencies or burns that look like this so I'm really confused.

I guess I'm going to have to roll the dice and try a flush unless someone has any better advice between now & tommorow.

Moochbuds said:

I dont know if you have looked up the specs on how far to keep the light away but i would try that as well just to make sure your height is right dont want to burn them and dry them out just a lil pointer but the temps sounds perfect bro i hope you can get it figured out and ill do some looking around as well maybe find some more info but what has been posted is all i can think of or have found out

Click to expand...

Thanks again for the help. +rep

It's definately not the lights. Most of the leaves on top of the plants aren't damaged and those would be the first to get damaged if it was the heat or the lights. I keep my lights 12" to 18" away from the tops of the plants and I hang a thermomter under the lights at the level of the top of the tallest plant.

I'd appreciate any help because I can't find any answers. Let me know if you find anything.