Living Soil, Light Intensity, and LED’s

Running a coot’s mix under Progrowtech LED fixtures. Nothing but stressed plants and burnt tips over the 9 months I’ve been using them. Can’t run the fixtures anywhere near peak power and canopy distance without issues. Can’t even run the lights at low power, 3 feet from canopy without the plants getting pissy. Recently came across a fellow who had similar issues and it turned out his soil was imbalanced with too high levels of sodium. Is anyone finding living soil and LED’s don’t get along very well? My outdoor plants thrived in the same soil mix this summer.

I also recall a buddy of mine saying that he had to dial his DE1000 Gavita’s down to 600/750 when running coot’s mix. Is this mix known to be hot/nutrient packed to the point of needing to dial back lighting a bit?

Probably going to run a soil sample of my 2 4x8 beds and my pile outside to see what the deal is. Anyone have any insight? I’m ready to scrap the lights, my pile of soil, or both at this point.

I run LED in veg, no issues. Gavita DE HPS in bloom 1000W, no issues.

I am running some hot compost right now that is causing some issues even though I thinned it way down but only having issues on the autos. The regular plants are all fine on it.

I been growing I ROLS for some time and never heard of what you are describing. The soil being too hot is a thing that can happen. I don’t see how the lights really impact that. Sounds like you likely have an airflow issue. Possibly it is getting too hot near the light. The room may not be too hot but near the light it might be. Just a guess given that the description doesn’t really make a lot of sense. I am sure you are seeing something but pics would help. Pics would tell if it is a heat thing or a deficiency thing or an abundance thing. They all have very distinct symptoms.

Plants “having issues” and “getting pissy” are not really good enough symptoms to diagnose with. But the issues seen in cannabis are very obvious and easy to diagnose with some pics almost every time.

Here’s some pics. I’m running a soil analysis. Something isn’t right.

That is an abundance issue. I could be wrong but I am betting pho’s. Too much pho’s can cause lockout and or slow to no uptake of many other micronutes so it can take many odd forms.

The solution is to flush the pots but is a good living soil it may just come right back. It is important to dilute hot compost appropriately.

I learned from a horticulturist to flush cannabis proper take it to the bathtub and run water through it as fast as it will go without overflowing the pot for 15 min. Technically 3 to 5 times the pots size should work but it doesn’t hurt to over do it.

One good way in the future to keep thing lighter is to layer soils. I like to do a weaker compost blend up top and the heavy stuff at the bottom 1/5 of the pot so they don’t see the good stuff till bloom. I use a simpler blend of 1/3 each steer manure, some good bag soil and perlite for the top part which is all it needs for veg. Then the bottom of the pot has hot compost and it is all autopilot.

Best of luck!

Also when done flushing since it could be lockout run a bucket of pH’d water through.

It’s a coot mix with 1/3 castings, plus 5% by weight of biochar. Considering I’m in 4x8 beds, I don’t think I’m moving them into a bath tub.

That’s why redknecks made hoses.

Wy east renegade said:

That’s why redknecks made hoses.

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Right, so you want me to flood my rooms with hundreds of gallons of water? Not trying to be a dick, but flushing 240 gallons of soil is a tall task in a sealed environment. I’m going to send some soil samples to Logan this week and then see what needs to be done. More than likely, I’ll end up tossing this batch of soil outside and mixing a new batch and/or diluting what I currently have with a smaller new batch. I looked into buying the pre-mixed KIS stuff but it’s fucking outrageously expensive. I don’t see how they can justify the cost.

Yeah flushing is a tall task in some setups. I got a buddy who flushed every run at least once to remove rivulets in the soil (which I find not necessary with enough perlite).

Yeah if you broke the soil and don’t have the ability to fix it then I would throw it into the compost pile.

In general for an abundance issue or a toxicity issue (which is in many cases just extreme over abundance) flushing is the standard protocol. Not having a draining mechanism may also be the issue actually.

Many people water until 15% run off for a few reasons. The two primary ones are to remove build up salts and nutes at the bottom but also to prevent root rot and other issues that can happen in a stagnant base. It makes for much easier growing. No drain growing is much more difficult but not that hard just takes a bit more knowledge.

It could be you have too much build up at the bottom possibly for minor over watering... not too much for the plant but too much for the soil. No drain growing is more difficult and uses a lot less water. It could be just a bit overwatering if you don’t have a decent drain solution. That could cause the symptoms you are referring to. And unfortunately if what you have is toxic build up at the base all you can do is flush or start over.

Sorry bro...

Looks like a K deficiency to me. I would never flush a organic soil or water it to 15% run off. What is the PH of the bed? Might just be locked out.

I have never had a problem with running high powered LED(s), even over-powering them when using living soil. But I am not of fan of the coots mix. When I ran it on advice of a friend for 5 grows all my plants were always way to green during flowering and then they always seemed to get light stressed. And so much so that I had to run my lights at 50% most times, and that sucked big-time when it came to my final yield! And yeah, I did try to fix those issues by adjusting the mix but nothing seemed to work for me. And yeah it was that bad, that I even killed off my last grow of 6 plants when I was using that mix because I was so disappointed in how they looked at the end of 4 weeks into flower. But just so you understand, I blame my own self for that because the mix I came up with years ago was working fine for me, where i just had to water from start to finish, but I always felt like I could do better, so I hastily changed it up, and got myself and my babies burned for doing that! So the moral of my story is... don't try to fix what ain't broke!!!

What are you running your temps at? Are you above 80 and keeping that humidity up to stay in the ideal VPD range?

K deficiency. Coots mix is intentionally careful with K. Better to add a bit later than have too much to start. Also, most LEDs lack IR and don't have the same natural heating of the canopy that the sun or most other lights would. This, combined with high par causing the plant to want to photosynthesize more, leads to metabolic stress because the limiting factor is temperature. I'd recommend reading into this a bit. Most canopy temps are 10+F higher than ambient with HPS or the sun. Could easily be a lockout from PH or excess of something else, say ca or mg, as well. As Mavrick said, make sure VPD isn't too extreme as well.

HTH

N looks a bit high ( dark leaf ) ....
Note : N excess can induce smaller bud size due excess.

K def .... margin burn and tip )( looks like nute burn and is often confused with it )

Flowers want more K and less N.

Analysis complete.

Budzbuddha said:

N looks a bit high ( dark leaf ) ....
Note : N excess can induce smaller bud size due excess.

K def .... margin burn and tip )( looks like nute burn and is often confused with it )

Flowers want more K and less N.

Analysis complete.

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I concur.

I'm interested in buying some lights to put near my canopy to keep them warm to go with my HLG 288 rspecs and 4k's.
Anyone got any good ideas for adding some heat to the canopy without heating my house up ? My stuff all vents inside to my house but these LEDS run very cool, and I want to be able to follow the VPD charts and whatnot. I can control the humidity just fine

Nizza said:

Anyone got any good ideas for adding some heat to the canopy without heating my house up

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HPS? The infrared they generate is great for leaf surface temps. Maybe toss a tiny HPS in there with your LED.

yeah I was thinking about that , but I wasn't sure if there was a different type of light that would be better suited for warming up the canopy for the wattage to go with the LED's , maybe like a few warming strips or something

Nizza said:

maybe like a few warming strips or something

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Warming strips? I am not sure what you mean but you may as well get some light with your heat.

They make HPS lights as small as 70 watts.