Need help. Purple leaves.

Its obvious that my plant has a nutrient deficiency. I am currently growing a mandarin cookies. The plant is in fox farm salamander soil and I'm feeding a tea. It's a combination of dragonfly earth medicine, worm casting, molasses and a teaspoon of cal/mag. Only feeding half gallon every 4 days. Humility is around 60% and temp stays around 72° F. I am currently in week 4 of flower and 75% of my leafs are turning purple.

the only def i know of that cause that are micronutrient deficiency, like copper or molybdenum, not usually true def but caused by pH imbalance or a lockout from overabundance of another nutrient.

1/2 gallon every 4 days? what size container? do you get runoff? does soil get completely dry after 4 days? have you used this nutrient recipe before and had any problems?

This will be my second time using a tea. I brew my tea for up to 48 hours. After 4 days my pot is fairly dry. I don't really have much run off. The plant is in a 3 gallon smart pot sitting on a tray. I do remember having this problem with the last plant. My ph meter broke so I have not used it since I switched to teas. The leaves were light green before they turned purple. I did not feed it for a week before the leaves lighted in color. I had to leave town and had no one to care for it. The new growth looks really good as well as the flowers.

Four weeks into flower

IndoorMadness said:

Its obvious that my plant has a nutrient deficiency. I am currently growing a mandarin cookies. The plant is in fox farm salamander soil and I'm feeding a tea. It's a combination of dragonfly earth medicine, worm casting, molasses and a teaspoon of cal/mag. Only feeding half gallon every 4 days. Humility is around 60% and temp stays around 72° F. I am currently in week 4 of flower and 75% of my leafs are turning purple.

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Some other dude recently had a problem with that salamander soil he ended up taking the plants out and transplanting them and eventually they started growing, when I remember the thread I'll come back and post it in case it helps you, good luck

well overall the plant looks good, i agree!

since the new/top growth looks good, doesn't seem like copper def/lockout
old growth yellowing/purpling could be molybdenum lockout caused by low pH in the root zone. how long ago was the last transplant?
it could also just be a genetic trait of your plant!

was it the same strain that did this last time? have you ever grown any other strains with this nutrients?

Beachwalker said:

Some other dude had a problem with that salamander soil he ended up taking the plants out and transplanting them and eventually they started growing, when I remember the thread I'll come back and post it in case it helps you, good luck

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Thanks bud! I'm new to the soil as well. Wanted to try something new that held water better. I was using a sealed box so I could use controlled co2 but my soil would release to much moisture and cause the humidity to be outrageous. This soil helped it out. I'm not using co2 on this grow and it's not sealed.

pulpoinspace said:

well overall the plant looks good, i agree!

since the new/top growth looks good, doesn't seem like copper def/lockout
old growth yellowing/purpling could be molybdenum lockout caused by low pH in the root zone. how long ago was the last transplant?
it could also just be a genetic trait of your plant!

was it the same strain that did this last time? have you ever grown any other strains with this nutrients?

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The only other plant that I have grown with these notes was purple trainwreck. It came out phenomenal. I'm really liking the tea. I'm pretty sure my problem was the no feed or water for a week. The only transplant I've done was right after it popped out of the soil. The grow is a scrog. I haven't been stressing it out that much though.

IndoorMadness said:

The only other plant that I have grown with these notes was purple trainwreck. It came out phenomenal. I'm really liking the tea. I'm pretty sure my problem was the no feed or water for a week. The only transplant I've done was right after it popped out of the soil. The grow is a scrog. I haven't been stressing it out that much though.

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yeah the nutes look very nice from their website.
that soil on the other hand has mixed reviews.

my guess on the pink leaves: could be genetic, or since it's been a while since you transplanted its possible the dolomite lime pH buffer in salamander soil has been depleted and your root zone has become slightly acidic causing a micronutrient lockout. on the next grow consider a transplant to fresh soil one week before flowering to ensure enough pH buffer to last the grow.

https://www.growweedeasy.com/molybdenum-deficiency-cannabis

They’re hungry ...

They sucked what little nitrogen it stored ... the tea wasn’t enough. Salamander is mostly coco , somewhat of a precharged coco ... however it STILL NEEDS to have the right ph introduced to perform ... ph between 5.5 to about 6.3 . You mentioned that your pen broke . So you are not ranging the ph of all liquids ( water / teas ) and there is the issue.

By this time the doll lime probably has exhausted and is why it is imperative to LOCK ph.
You stated you are in 4 weeks of flower ... you are now past the stretch phase ( around first two weeks ) where some of that needed nitro would have been used for stretch and branching.

You need to give a complete bloom nute for your plants. The moly issue is from the other LACKING elements is trying to get. This early in flower , the fans should still be relatively green.

I would give it a VEG type feed to at least have some nitro available.

If you're using a medium that is mostly coco you're going to want and need to pH your tea. Coco is relatively inert. It's going to take on the pH characteristics of your feed. If your feed / tea pH is highly acidic or basic, your coco is going to be the same and if that's the case, your plants aren't going to be happy. You're going to need to get a handle on your pH friend, otherwise you're shooting in the dark. Also keep in mind, purple leaves are not 100% correlated to an issue, especially once you're in flower. You've shortened the days, your plants think it's Fall or the end of their season. They are like many other plants and trees in our world...as the days grow shorter, the green chlorophyll gives way to other less dominant pigments, which end up being the reds, yellows, purples, etc that we see in Fall foliage and in many times, in our girls.

Definitly molybdenum deficiency.

I added some of my veg nutes and it fixed everything. Thanks for all the help

Colder temps thru the night will cause purple leaves, glad you got it fixed