Plant Dying Please Help!!

Greetings Fellow Growers,

Today I started noticing my leaves turning yellow and brownish and dying. My main hypothesis at the moment is : Due the fact I've ONLY have watered my plants each Monday and Thursday and NEVER UNTIL IT DRIPS. The medium got too dried and the leaves started NUTE burning because of the Roots, By the roots hitting the unwatered soil underneath the pot, it caused some damage. so from now on, I'm starting to water the pot until the water start dripping. ( I USUALLY DO THIS BUT HAVEN'T DONE IT ON THIS GROW). Like i said, That's only my hypothesis. I haven't checked PH levels because I'm using DOLOMITE LINE with MAG and is only the 5th week of veg from seed. so, the dolomite still should be keeping PH levels adjusted. Does anyone have any recommendation and a way to fix this problem?

Grow info
PER 5 GALLON Air POT

Fox Farm Ocean Forest Potting Soil: 35%
Black Earthworm Casting: 30%
Volcanic Lava rock: 30%
Dolomite Lime: 5 Table Spoon
Blood Meal: 5 Table Spoon
Bone Meal: 5 Table Spoon
Kelp Meal: 10 Table Spoon
Rock Phophate: 10 Table Spoon
Alfafal Meal: 10 Table Spoon
Rock Dust / Azomite: 10 Table Spoon
Crab Meat : 10 Table Spoon

That's an awful lot of lime in a 5g container- not sure all you put in your mix was needed if it was FFOF fresh out the bag. Did you cook these amendments into your mix? They need time to break down; FFOF soil is fine pretty much the way it comes. If you just added all this to it & dropped you plants in it could be the cause of the burn. I would start by mulching the top layers of your containers & then giving straight water for awhile to see if this gets worse.

Richard Drysift said:

That's an awful lot of lime in a 5g container- not sure all you put in your mix was needed if it was FFOF fresh out the bag. Did you cook these amendments into your mix? They need time to break down; FFOF soil is fine pretty much the way it comes. If you just added all this to it & dropped you plants in it could be the cause of the burn. I would start by mulching the top layers of your containers & then giving straight water for awhile to see if this gets worse.

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I cooked these amendments for 2 weeks before dropping the transplants from a party cup to the 5 gallon. Two days ago they were fine. Also, I've only water them with water nothing else. What you mean mulching?

A couple weeks still may not be long enough to break all that down- you really need a soil ph meter to see if your mix is too hot. If it's lower than 6.5 that could be your issue. I always wait 30 days to cook my recycled mix but I also amend the soil much lighter than this- 10 tsp of anything in a 5g pot seems like too much. You can always cut your mix down with some perlite & coco

Richard Drysift said:

A couple weeks still may not be long enough to break all that down- you really need a soil ph meter to see if your mix is too hot. If it's lower than 6.5 that could be your issue. I always wait 30 days to cook my recycled mix but I also amend the soil much lighter than this- 10 tsp of anything in a 5g pot seems like too much. You can always cut your mix down with some perlite & coco

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yeah overfert, and not enough cook time for sure. you have OVER 3 cups of NPK amendment per 5 gal of soil... that's more than recommended, which is 2-3 cups per cuft. (1 cuft = 7.5gal)

not watering enough had nothing to do with it man. I dont water my plants to the point of run off and have no problems, even when feeding with vegamatrix.

richard is right is saying cut the mix. add some more base to it if you have more sitting still.

ShLUbY said:

yeah overfert, and not enough cook time for sure. you have OVER 3 cups of NPK amendment per 5 gal of soil... that's more than recommended, which is 2-3 cups per cuft. (1 cuft = 7.5gal)

not watering enough had nothing to do with it man. I dont water my plants to the point of run off and have no problems, even when feeding with vegamatrix.

richard is right is saying cut the mix. add some more base to it if you have more sitting still.

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There's no more space on the top of the pot unless I take out about 2 inches from the top. But if I do that, won't I damage the roots ?

lxrsd said:

There's no more space on the top of the pot unless I take out about 2 inches from the top. But if I do that, won't I damage the roots ?

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Just turn the pot upside down & tap out the root ball. Place a garbage bag or similar plastic vessel under the root ball temporarily. Then dump the contents into another container like a tote bin or something & add some coco & perlite to cut down the mix & replant. This is a good time to sprinkle mycorrizea on the roots & hole if you have it on hand. The only other option is to keep watering regularly & hope for the best. Most organic burn is recoverable in time - it's not even that bad, actually, I've done much worse using regular chem nutes....

Richard Drysift said:

Just turn the pot upside down & tap out the root ball. Place a garbage bag or similar plastic vessel under the root ball temporarily. Then dump the contents into another container like a tote bin or something & add some coco & perlite to cut down the mix & replant. This is a good time to sprinkle mycorrizea on the roots & hole if you have it on hand. The only other option is to keep watering regularly & hope for the best. Most organic burn is recoverable in time - it's not even that bad, actually, I've done much worse using regular chem nutes....

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Thanks a lot bro... I appreciate, I've extra soil so what I'm going to do is what you said. Is a air pot so, the pot opens sideways. Once it opened I'm going to take out the soil it had inside and add regular clean fox farm soil. Thanks a lot I'll keep you posted. If you have anything else that you recommend the me know.

Why do you have three topics of this?

lxrsd said:

Thanks a lot bro... I appreciate, I've extra soil so what I'm going to do is what you said. Is a air pot so, the pot opens sideways. Once it opened I'm going to take out the soil it had inside and add regular clean fox farm soil. Thanks a lot I'll keep you posted. If you have anything else that you recommend the me know.

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Yeah ok but that could make it stronger not weaker- you need to cut it down with something that has no fertilizer- OF is fairly stout mix on its own but might work I dunno

Richard Drysift said:

Yeah ok but that could make it stronger not weaker- you need to cut it down with something that has no fertilizer- OF is fairly stout mix on its own but might work I dunno

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Lmao ... i threw out my coco at the beginning of last month.. smh, I'll go to home depot and see what i can find NON-FERT.

lxrsd said:

Lmao ... i threw out my coco at the beginning of last month.. smh, I'll go to home depot and see what i can find NON-FERT.

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they should have straight perlite, and straight peat there. be sure to wet the peat before you mix into the soil. it's very hydrophobic, and requires moistening by hand and watercan/hose. i use a 5gal bucket to do mine.

Extrome said:

Why do you have three topics of this?

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It's pretty common man, he is probably freakin out a lil.

lxrsd said:

I cooked these amendments for 2 weeks before dropping the transplants from a party cup to the 5 gallon. Two days ago they were fine. Also, I've only water them with water nothing else. What you mean mulching?

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airpots are pretty crappy man, I hate em.
Reason being is it's hard to water thoroughly, which may be contributing to your problem.
Blood meal is rather soluble, and if you don't age it or water right, it'll coagulate your roots in a nice bloody mess..
I bet if you did water to the point of runoff it'd look rather funky...
Use a different container, and "dilute" your entire soil mix with another 50% of an UN amended mix.

greasemonkeymann said:

airpots are pretty crappy man, I hate em.
Reason being is it's hard to water thoroughly, which may be contributing to your problem.
Blood meal is rather soluble, and if you don't age it or water right, it'll coagulate your roots in a nice bloody mess..
I bet if you did water to the point of runoff it'd look rather funky...
Use a different container, and "dilute" your entire soil mix with another 50% of an UN amended mix.

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Thanks man. I literally thought they were good since they let air from the side. I hate when I water the pots and water start dripping from the sides though. What pot you recommend??. Also, What exactly do you mean by *"DILUTE" your entire soil mix with another 50% of an UN amended mix* ???

lxrsd said:

Thanks man. I literally thought they were good since they let air from the side. I hate when I water the pots and water start dripping from the sides though. What pot you recommend??. Also, What exactly do you mean by *"DILUTE" your entire soil mix with another 50% of an UN amended mix* ???

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what you made is an "amended" soil. you have added food sources to it.

you need to make an "un-amended" soil. this is just a base mix of peat/coco, drainage material, and EWC/compost. Equal parts ration 1:1:1 This mix will dilute your hot soil that you've created. you have a high concentration of nutrients in your soil mix, so if you add a mix that has little or no nutrients to it, will dilute the concentration of nutes in the overall mixture. you follow?

ShLUbY said:

what you made is an "amended" soil. you have added food sources to it.

you need to make an "un-amended" soil. this is just a base mix of peat/coco, drainage material, and EWC/compost. Equal parts ration 1:1:1 This mix will dilute your hot soil that you've created. you have a high concentration of nutrients in your soil mix, so if you add a mix that has little or no nutrients to it, will dilute the concentration of nutes in the overall mixture. you follow?

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Perfectly follow... Very simplistic . Thanks bro. I'm heading to the Home Depot to get some NON-Fert soil.

ShLUbY said:

what you made is an "amended" soil. you have added food sources to it.

you need to make an "un-amended" soil. this is just a base mix of peat/coco, drainage material, and EWC/compost. Equal parts ration 1:1:1 This mix will dilute your hot soil that you've created. you have a high concentration of nutrients in your soil mix, so if you add a mix that has little or no nutrients to it, will dilute the concentration of nutes in the overall mixture. you follow?

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Good man!
I had already gone home for the evening.
Couldn't have said it better.
Another thing that may help is by using whatever you plan on diluting it with, with something with a relatively high CEC, sorta will help "leach" away anything extra, peat, coco, vermiculite, or if you can get leaf compost.
Things i'd avoid would be perlite, volcanic rock, or things of that nature, while they are EXCELLENT in providing aeration, that's not the goal, you want to add organic material, namely a humus source, to "dilute" it

greasemonkeymann said:

Good man!
I had already gone home for the evening.
Couldn't have said it better.
Another thing that may help is by using whatever you plan on diluting it with, with something with a relatively high CEC, sorta will help "leach" away anything extra, peat, coco, vermiculite, or if you can get leaf compost.
Things i'd avoid would be perlite, volcanic rock, or things of that nature, while they are EXCELLENT in providing aeration, that's not the goal, you want to add organic material, namely a humus source, to "dilute" it

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How do you feel about mixing the soil with Pro Mix?. I'm leaning more towards Richard and your recommendation which is Peat Moss.

lxrsd said:

How do you feel about mixing the soil with Pro Mix?. I'm leaning more towards Richard and your recommendation which is Peat Moss.

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not a problem at all, and it's basicly inert, so it's a good thing.
keep in mind there is a good amount of perlite in it, which is fine, but it does take up some of the space.
a 1/1 ratio would be fine though, may want to add a lil oyster flour if you plan on re-using the soil, the d-lime in the promix isn't longlasting ph control