My Leaves Are Looking Marbled and Discolored. Help?

coolguy122333 said:

The soil is fucked. Please help what do I do? Is it fungus? This has happened before is it mold? I think it's because the soil isn't getting much air hence why I need the fabric pots.

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You didn't specify much about your soil. The plant looks young, what "regular organic soil"? Many organic potting soils will feed for a while and may not even need nutrients. A lot of them also don't come with a lot of aeration material (perlite or rice hulls or such)
If you don't have much of this in your soil and you are watering to runoff you very well may be overwatering once again depending on what the soil has for retention and drainage. Most soils do "ok" at buffering ph, but if you are way off that will screw you too, but if you are using a decent mix it seems a bit early to me to be using nutes personally. Albeit I am not as knowledgeable about cannabis growing as many on here, I grow a lot of plants.

If you really are having soil issues, then you can up-pot into something better and use a better medium or add more perlite or drainage material.

Maybe top dress with some earthworm castings and water that in? I use the Rapitest soil test kit. Cheap and easy. Will give you a much better idea of what your soil needs. And they're usually available at the big box stores like lowes and home depot. Ive had good luck with earthworm castings from Tractor Supply.

dbz said:

You didn't specify much about your soil. The plant looks young, what "regular organic soil"? Many organic potting soils will feed for a while and may not even need nutrients. A lot of them also don't come with a lot of aeration material (perlite or rice hulls or such)
If you don't have much of this in your soil and you are watering to runoff you very well may be overwatering once again depending on what the soil has for retention and drainage. Most soils do "ok" at buffering ph, but if you are way off that will screw you too, but if you are using a decent mix it seems a bit early to me to be using nutes personally. Albeit I am not as knowledgeable about cannabis growing as many on here, I grow a lot of plants.

If you really are having soil issues, then you can up-pot into something better and use a better medium or add more perlite or drainage material.

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Soil is generic organic soil from home depot. Plant is about five or six weeks old. I need to start doing ferts ASAP and I'm not sure how to go about that. I own all the ferts I just need to know how to deal with the runoff or whatever. I think I'm going to add some perlite.

Also again, for the PH should I be buying a water pH meter or a soil pH meter?

coolguy122333 said:

The soil is fucked. Please help what do I do? Is it fungus? This has happened before is it mold? I think it's because the soil isn't getting much air hence why I need the fabric pots.

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You could try a neem oil watered in. But if it were me....

I might try to transplant it. But I would want to get as much of that soil off of the roots as possible.

Idk.

Wizzlebiz said:

You could try a neem oil watered in. But if it were me....

I might try to transplant it. But I would want to get as much of that soil off of the roots as possible.

Idk.

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So new soil? Should I order foxfarms?

coolguy122333 said:

So new soil? Should I order foxfarms?

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Thats up to you. There are alot of good soils out there. I personally use recipe 420 soil.

But I would move fast before that becomes a issue for the roots.

Wizzlebiz said:

Thats up to you. There are alot of good soils out there.

But I would move fast before that becomes a issue for the roots.

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Thank you. Will do I'm on it. As for the pH. Do i buy soil pH checker or water pH checker?

Any idea what the hell is wrong with my leaves? Lights are good. I got a fan for circulation. Should I test pH?

Have you started nutes, anything that was discussed...or just crossed yer fingers it would fix itself

BobThe420Builder said:

Have you started nutes, anything that was discussed...or just crossed yer fingers it would fix itself

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I started nutes before I posted but since then I've backed off BC i was doing it wrong. I'm transferring the plants into fabric pots tomorrow, then I'll start nutes again. I am pretty sure this is a problem with the soil since it's always wet and it's like a block of wet packed soil.

If you haven't changed anything you can't expect it to get better

Right

BobThe420Builder said:

If you haven't changed anything you can't expect it to get better

Right

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So for the nutrients. Just to make sure I'm understanding this right. I pour the 2 ml or whatever of each bottle into a gallon jug for that day of nutrients. Then I add half a gallon of water or so, then water the plant until I see some runoff? Correct? Thank you.

No

You mix 1-1/2 gallons of nutes if that's what you're plant needs to get 10-20% run off

BobThe420Builder said:

No

You mix 1-1/2 gallons of nutes if that's what you're plant needs to get 10-20% run off

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How do I measure run off? Just look and see if theres a puddle?

coolguy122333 said:

How do I measure run off? Just look and see if theres a puddle?

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One trick that may help you. As others have mentioned, getting a good wet/dry cycle helps prevent overwatering. In veg it also is good because it forces the roots to stretch to search for that last bit of water, which results in growth.

The challenge is that when your soil is dry it can become hydrophobic, which means it repels water. So try just barely wetting the top of the soil at first. Like a couple oz of water. Wait like 10 minutes, perfect time for a quick smoke break. Then come back and slowly water each plant a little, until you start to see water leaking out bottom of the pots. Wait a few more minutes and top them off. You should see a decent size puddle from under each plant. You dont need specifically 20% runoff, but its a safe amount to know you properly soaked the soil and allowed all the dry areas to wick up some water.

Regarding mixing nutes, the amount you mix per gallon is the manufacturer recipe. So if you need 1.5 gallons of water/nutes per feeding, then that is what you mix up. I tend to overshoot it, so like I would probably just mix up 2 gallons so that I have anough in case the plants were extra thirsty that day. Whatever is left I just feed to the plants and flowers in the garden outside.

Last thing, I would stick with 5 gallon buckets. Fabric pots are hyped up imho. They are a lot messier, and its a lot easier to get dry spots in your soil.

ilovereggae said:

One trick that may help you. As others have mentioned, getting a good wet/dry cycle helps prevent overwatering. In veg it also is good because it forces the roots to stretch to search for that last bit of water, which results in growth.

The challenge is that when your soil is dry it can become hydrophobic, which means it repels water. So try just barely wetting the top of the soil at first. Like a couple oz of water. Wait like 10 minutes, perfect time for a quick smoke break. Then come back and slowly water each plant a little, until you start to see water leaking out bottom of the pots. Wait a few more minutes and top them off. You should see a decent size puddle from under each plant. You dont need specifically 20% runoff, but its a safe amount to know you properly soaked the soil and allowed all the dry areas to wick up some water.

Regarding mixing nutes, the amount you mix per gallon is the manufacturer recipe. So if you need 1.5 gallons of water/nutes per feeding, then that is what you mix up. I tend to overshoot it, so like I would probably just mix up 2 gallons so that I have anough in case the plants were extra thirsty that day. Whatever is left I just feed to the plants and flowers in the garden outside.

Last thing, I would stick with 5 gallon buckets. Fabric pots are hyped up imho. They are a lot messier, and its a lot easier to get dry spots in your soil.

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What is a wet dry cycle?

My manufacturer recipe doesn't say anything. I have the general hydroponics trio so I'm not sure how much water I should be using.

Also Are you sure about the five gallon buckets? The soil seems to be the biggest issue. The soil is always soaked and there's zero oxygen getting to the roots. I'm going to swap them into the fabric pots and if that doesnt work then I'll swap back to the five gallons in a week or two.

IMO you need to get that plant out of that packed soil and into something light and airy. Get a decent soil and add perlite, maybe 2 parts soil and 1 part perlite. Get the $15 ph pen for measuring water ph. If you want 1 tsp / gal, add 1 tsp to a gallon and mix well (start around 1/2 strength nutes). Then check and adjust ph to around 6.5. Water until you get some drainage out the bottom. Remove that water that drains, don't leave your plant sitting in it. Then, let the pot dry until it's nice and light. Repeat and tweak as needed.

SheeshM said:

IMO you need to get that plant out of that packed soil and into something light and airy. Get a decent soil and add perlite, maybe 2 parts soil and 1 part perlite. Get the $15 ph pen for measuring water ph. If you want 1 tsp / gal, add 1 tsp to a gallon and mix well (start around 1/2 strength nutes). Then check and adjust ph to around 6.5. Water until you get some drainage out the bottom. Remove that water that drains, don't leave your plant sitting in it. Then, let the pot dry until it's nice and light. Repeat and tweak as needed.

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Thank you. This is exactly what I needed to hear thanks so much. Ok I bought the pen. I ordered fabric pots and will replant the plants tonight.

coolguy122333 said:

What is a wet dry cycle?

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You should really start by reading Grow Weed Easy end to end. Here is a page on watering.

In general, you want to properly water/drench your soil. However you need to allow it to properly drain and dry a bit. Not completely bone dry bc that is bad too. But enough to cause the roots to search out that last bit of water. Then you water again. Dont go by numbers or specific days. It is hard to explain but you will get a feel for it. Just takes practice.

coolguy122333 said:

My manufacturer recipe doesn't say anything. I have the general hydroponics trio so I'm not sure how much water I should be using.

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You mix it according to their instructions per gallon. You water them until you get 20% runoff using the technique I mentioned above. If you aren't sure mix up 1 gallon at a time. I tend to make more than I need per batch and just toss the rest into the flower bed outside (I use organics and compost teas tho, not sure if u wanna toss GH outside) Hotter days they will drink more, so this is not an exact number.

coolguy122333 said:

Also are you sure about the five gallon buckets? The soil seems to be the biggest issue. The soil is always soaked and there's zero oxygen getting to the roots. I'm going to swap them into the fabric pots and if that doesnt work then I'll swap back to the five gallons in a week or two.

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Its my experience that fabric and airpots suck. Lots of other people like them, to each their own. There are hundreds of ppl on RIU using 5 gallon plastic pots so I doubt they are your problem. I missed in your original post what soil you were using, but like @SheeshM just said, the soil itself is most likely the issue bc it doesn't have good drainage.

Lots of options there. I would suggest BuildASoil premixed soils. They are living organic soil so you can rerun them multiple times with some basic ammendment between rounds. I just bought a bunch of their Light Soil and my plants love it. My buddy uses their Olly Mt fish LOS and he swears by it.