Organic grow...ph problems? calcium deficiency?

Hello,

I was posting in Organic. Couldn't figure this out.

I am in 7G fabric pots. 3 plants. LED light. Temps are mid to high 70's RH around 50-55. just entering 5th week of flower.
Organic grow. Soil was either FFHF/OF mix with EWC and humus, or 1 plant(with worst symptoms) black gold organic with EWC and humus. A bit of extra perlite
My water is well water with 7.0 PH, low calcium(around 75PPM hardness).

Right when I flipped I top dressed with EWC, kelp meal, fishbone meal, and Dr Earth Flower girl. Plants did great for first few weeks. About 2 weeks ago I put 2 spikes of Jobes organic in each pot. I was doing an aeratedEWC tea with kelp and molasses once a week.

I noticed some brown tips which i figured originally were from the light increase. I had put my 2nd 200W LED up for flower, putting my 3x3 area with 400W LED, so big increase.
Anyway, plant started getting spots that looked like calcium def to my untrained eye. On advice I stopped doing the teas. I watered with recharge. Gave it some time to improve. things continued to progress. I waited to water until my plant was just starting to droop(3 days). When i tested the runoff on the worst plant it was 7.8 coming out.
My last watering I added some calmag pro to my water and PH'd it down to 6.3 to try to see what I could do to bring it down. that was 3 days ago. It seems that it is continuing to yellow and lots of fan leaves are going that way. There are leaves under the canopy that seem to be staying mostly green(another reason I am suspecting calcium)

Any thoughts? I have another 5-6 weeks to go, and am worried that this plant won't make it unless I figure it out

Tex

Potassium lockout ... your mish mash of several elements PLUS bloom feed , teas and whatever else.

Sometimes the simplest shit is all cannabis needs .... think about it ..... what other plants would you EVER do the same kind of feeding ?

Believe it or not ... you could have just run a top dress of FFOF to them. Not only do you feed them with a simple “ recharge “ to host medium BUT you are using the SAME ratioed NPK amounts as original mix. It also bumps the ph buffering since has oyster shell already in it. I also use only KELP in water for cytokines and hormones to aid flower instead of synth boosters.

Antagonistic issues from blending this and that for feed. One element can be skewed by other elements.

Budzbuddha said:

Potassium lockout ... your mish mash of several elements PLUS bloom feed , teas and whatever else.

Sometimes the simplest shit is all cannabis needs .... think about it ..... what other plants would you EVER do the same kind of feeding ?

Believe it or not ... you could have just run a top dress of FFOF to them. Not only do you feed them with a simple “ recharge “ to host medium BUT you are using the SAME ratioed NPK amounts as original mix. It also bumps the ph buffering since has oyster shell already in it. I also use only KELP in water for cytokines and hormones to aid flower instead of synth boosters.

Antagonistic issues from blending this and that for feed. One element can be skewed by other elements.

Click to expand...

Thanks. This all makes sense, and some of it was probably inevitable since it was my first grow in a while and my first organic indoor grow ever.

So you think it’s a lockout because of too much stuff? What can I do outside of trying to pull ph down in the soil? The runoff was more in line last water. Closer to 6.8

What would you do?

Run it as a water only grow for about a week or so ... ph appropriately .
Give kelp in water. Then just use EITHER more FFOF as top dress or use flower girl only scratched into top layer. Water in.

This way your “ feed “ is not so crazy and heavy handed. Let plant come around on its own , by just water as needed it will work thru excess. Which in turn re balances it.


BUT .... and this is a RARE comment from me , you can consider a flush. It is designed for this kind of over the top feed problems ..... i a few gallons thru ( no additional stuff just water ) , no runoff check either. All you trying to do is LEACH some of the excess out so plant can work thru a much more diluted amount of feed. Once done , just leave it alone til next watering however long that is.

Nwtexan said:

When i tested the runoff on the worst plant it was 7.8 coming out.
My last watering I added some calmag pro to my water and PH'd it down to 6.3

Click to expand...

This is where it went wrong: 7.8PH coming out=Alkaline... Cal/mag is Alkaline!! Even with 6.3 PH w/ cal-mag added, its still alkaline. You locked out phosphorus and other micronutrients in your soil buffers. P is best uptake'd in lower acidic PH values.

Budzbuddha said:

Run it as a water only grow for about a week or so ... ph appropriately .
Give kelp in water. Then just use EITHER more FFOF as top dress or use flower girl only scratched into top layer. Water in.

This way your “ feed “ is not so crazy and heavy handed. Let plant come around on its own , by just water as needed it will work thru excess. Which in turn re balances it.


BUT .... and this is a RARE comment from me , you can consider a flush. It is designed for this kind of over the top feed problems ..... i a few gallons thru ( no additional stuff just water ) , no runoff check either. All you trying to do is LEACH some of the excess out so plant can work thru a much more diluted amount of feed. Once done , just leave it alone til next watering however long that is.

Click to expand...

I agree with the flush and bringing PH to wet set levels. I suggest a flush of 5.8-6.0. Then water with 6.2-6.6 while floating in that range. And fox farns is an adequate top dress for about 5 weeks. Then more PH issues.

My opinion is lobster kelp fert. Nothing else until your burn or def stops. Plenty of food in soil of high 7 run off.

And yes. Crazy concoction for feed. Also please don't use fert sticks.

Phosphorus bonds to calcium. More calcium=less phosphorus

More PH means less food.

Budzbuddha said:

Run it as a water only grow for about a week or so ... ph appropriately .
Give kelp in water. Then just use EITHER more FFOF as top dress or use flower girl only scratched into top layer. Water in.

This way your “ feed “ is not so crazy and heavy handed. Let plant come around on its own , by just water as needed it will work thru excess. Which in turn re balances it.


BUT .... and this is a RARE comment from me , you can consider a flush. It is designed for this kind of over the top feed problems ..... i a few gallons thru ( no additional stuff just water ) , no runoff check either. All you trying to do is LEACH some of the excess out so plant can work thru a much more diluted amount of feed. Once done , just leave it alone til next watering however long that is.

Click to expand...

Nwtexan said:

Thanks. This all makes sense, and some of it was probably inevitable since it was my first grow in a while and my first organic indoor grow ever.

So you think it’s a lockout because of too much stuff? What can I do outside of trying to pull ph down in the soil? The runoff was more in line last water. Closer to 6.8

What would you do?
[/QUOTE

Budzbuddha said:

Run it as a water only grow for about a week or so ... ph appropriately .
Give kelp in water. Then just use EITHER more FFOF as top dress or use flower girl only scratched into top layer. Water in.

This way your “ feed “ is not so crazy and heavy handed. Let plant come around on its own , by just water as needed it will work thru excess. Which in turn re balances it.


BUT .... and this is a RARE comment from me , you can consider a flush. It is designed for this kind of over the top feed problems ..... i a few gallons thru ( no additional stuff just water ) , no runoff check either. All you trying to do is LEACH some of the excess out so plant can work thru a much more diluted amount of feed. Once done , just leave it alone til next watering

Click to expand...

Thanks. It sounds like ano

Click to expand...

Budzbuddha said:

Run it as a water only grow for about a week or so ... ph appropriately .
Give kelp in water. Then just use EITHER more FFOF as top dress or use flower girl only scratched into top layer. Water in.

This way your “ feed “ is not so crazy and heavy handed. Let plant come around on its own , by just water as needed it will work thru excess. Which in turn re balances it.


BUT .... and this is a RARE comment from me , you can consider a flush. It is designed for this kind of over the top feed problems ..... i a few gallons thru ( no additional stuff just water ) , no runoff check either. All you trying to do is LEACH some of the excess out so plant can work thru a much more diluted amount of feed. Once done , just leave it alone til next watering however long that is.

Click to expand...

Thanks. I'm gonna try the just water approach. That's pretty much what I've been doing. I did put a small amount of calmag in the water. I was getting a ton of different advice, and figured that with my low mineral content in my water as is, it would be a bit of a neutral move either way; if it helped, awesome. So, to clarify, while just watering, you would still be adding a bit of kelp as well?

I'm out of FFOF. I have a bunch of EWC. Would it make sense to use that?

MICHI-CAN said:

I agree with the flush and bringing PH to wet set levels. I suggest a flush of 5.8-6.0. Then water with 6.2-6.6 while floating in that range. And fox farns is an adequate top dress for about 5 weeks. Then more PH issues.

My opinion is lobster kelp fert. Nothing else until your burn or def stops. Plenty of food in soil of high 7 run off.

And yes. Crazy concoction for feed. Also please don't use fert sticks.

Click to expand...

It's a live and learn situation. I was recced to use the sticks. Could you clarify your statement about the FF causing more PH issues down the line? I'm actually making my own soil for the next run, so will not be doing FF

MICHI-CAN said:

More PH means less food.

Click to expand...

what do you mean? Adjusting the PH means less food or there is less food because of the higher PH? IF it's the latter, I understand and am trying to correct

Highlife42 said:

Phosphorus bonds to calcium. More calcium=less phosphorus

Click to expand...

Thanks. I've read that, My thinking was that since i have such a low Calcium content in my water to start with that the amount i was using(bringing PPM up to 125 or so) would put it to a nominal amount, and significantly less than average non RO water that people here are using

Budzbuddha said:

Run it as a water only grow for about a week or so ... ph appropriately .
Give kelp in water. Then just use EITHER more FFOF as top dress or use flower girl only scratched into top layer. Water in.

This way your “ feed “ is not so crazy and heavy handed. Let plant come around on its own , by just water as needed it will work thru excess. Which in turn re balances it.


BUT .... and this is a RARE comment from me , you can consider a flush. It is designed for this kind of over the top feed problems ..... i a few gallons thru ( no additional stuff just water ) , no runoff check either. All you trying to do is LEACH some of the excess out so plant can work thru a much more diluted amount of feed. Once done , just leave it alone til next watering however long that is.

Click to expand...

Is there a specific ppm range an organic grow should be in ? I can't seem to find an answer for this question. I measured my runoff once and my ph was 6.8 and my ppm was above 4000.

Highlife42 said:

This is where it went wrong: 7.8PH coming out=Alkaline... Cal/mag is Alkaline!! Even with 6.3 PH w/ cal-mag added, its still alkaline. You locked out phosphorus and other micronutrients in your soil buffers. P is best uptake'd in lower acidic PH values.

Click to expand...

The calmag was only added well after the problem had started.

From what I understand about PH, alkalinity generally follows it. I don’t think you can have a low 6 PH that is still alkaline

OK. I've been watering with straight water, PH'd to around 6.3 for a week or so. I think things are leveling off, but having a hard time telling for sure. Water is coming out in mid to high 6, so i feel like I am probably not getting nutrient lockout any more. I never used any salt based fertilizers, so hoping any lockout was more of a PH issue.
The plant that is struggling the most with what looks like calcium deficiency to me, is a G13 strain. I know now what probably caused it, but regardless would like to give it it's best shot to finish. If it goes it's full length, we're talking another 4 weeks.

I top dressed almost 6 weeks ago with fishbone meal, kelp meal, and some flower girl. I put 2 jobe AP organic spikes in 3 weeks ago and was doing some EWC tea. I now know this was too much, and won't go overboard next time. I know those spikes are supposed to last for 6 weeks. They should have pretty good amounts of calcium, as well as potassium(the other leaf issue i was seeing) so I am having a hard time seeing that i would still need to add anything.

With this in mind, do you guys think just keep it straight water from here on out?

Potassium deficiency

hotrodharley said:

Potassium deficiency

Click to expand...

That's what I was thinking too.

PadawanWarrior said:

That's what I was thinking too.

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So in that case it wouldn’t be a ph issue, yes? It looks like potassium is available anywhere my soil would be ph wise.

If that’s the case, I’ve got those Jobe organic spikes. They are 4-4-4 and should be good for quite a while. How would I still be having a nutrient lockout? I haven’t added anything to my soil for over 2 weeks, and then it was the ewc aerated tea. My dry amendments were 6 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago I had a small amount of calmag in a watering, but even then it was only pulling my mineral content of my water up a teeny bit(to around 125 ppm)
Ideas?

Nwtexan said:

So in that case it wouldn’t be a ph issue, yes? It looks like potassium is available anywhere my soil would be ph wise.

If that’s the case, I’ve got those Jobe organic spikes. They are 4-4-4 and should be good for quite a while. How would I still be having a nutrient lockout? I haven’t added anything to my soil for over 2 weeks, and then it was the ewc aerated tea. My dry amendments were 6 weeks ago. 2 weeks ago I had a small amount of calmag in a watering, but even then it was only pulling my mineral content of my water up a teeny bit(to around 125 ppm)
Ideas?

Click to expand...

Did the problem start before or after you started top dressing?

PadawanWarrior said:

Did the problem start before or after you started top dressing?

Click to expand...

I top dressed on 1/25. I started seeing some “burnt” tips and first symptoms on 2/25. After my top dress was a really good growth period. Things looked really healthy.

I put the spikes in probably mid feb and did 2 aerobic ewc teas feb 7 and 14. It had to have been something with those. I think I was overwatering a bit. It seemed that the pots were dry, but I pulled that back to every other day max. If let them go once to a third day and the plant was pretty droopy