Please help out my girl. Week 5 of flower. Potassium deficiency?

Hello All, I'm having an issue with my best plant. It is turning yellow with brown spots. I tried flushing it and it just made it waaay worse. It started at the middle leaves and has moved up to the leaves around the bud. It's even worse than in the pics now and flowering may be slowing a bit. I imagine it may be rootbound too, but it's my first grow and I didn't realize I probably should have transplanted it before 12/12. I always have feed between 1/4 to 3/4 of recommended schedule for heavy feeding, almost every feeding since flowering. Last 2 feedings have just been at 1.4 strength. Also, my room may be a little bit crowded. Have 4 topped plants in 3x2 closet. Here's the rundown: Indoors, 400w hps Happy frog soil, 2 gal pot, runoff ph 6.6 General organics bloom , bio bud, CaMG+ for nutes. Been ph'd to 6.5 or so. Has been in 12/12 for 5 weeks I'm not sure if I should back off feeding at this point or feed more. It looks like maybe a potassium deficiency but I'm wondering if it could have been caused by too much of something else locking it out? What do you recommend that I do? How close to being done does it look?

Porridge said:

Maybe the addition of extra calcium and magnesium and the fact that you're tinkering with the PH even though you're in soil, has caused you these problems. Really you want to keep it as simple as possible.

Far as them being done, they've got at least another few weeks left.

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hmmm, that's what most ppl do, as far as I can tell. If I didn't ph it, the nutrient solution would be really, really acidic. It would be around 5.2 or so. That's one reason I am switching to promix; no more guessing how many nutes are already in the soil etc. I tried one plant and didn't ph anything, using promix, and it seemed ok for the month or so that I grew it. I never bothered to flower it though because I had no room. Was just an experiment basically. Maybe I'm making it too complicated? I thought about the CaMg but I'm using reverse osmosis water and thought I needed it. Maybe not since the soil already has some?

RO water needs some cal/mag your right and keep pHing your ferts, no harm in it. If someone can help with your problems id say you got 4 weeks min till harvest. Peace

Kingrow1 said:

RO water needs some cal/mag your right and keep pHing your ferts, no harm in it. If someone can help with your problems id say you got 4 weeks min till harvest. Peace

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Thanks man, that's what I was afraid of. I don't know if she'll live that long at this rate! Does one ever have to pull early just to not have things be a total loss? I hope I don't have to do that. This plant smells hella dank for bagseed and is crystal-ling up pretty well. I have strawberry cough and blueberry sprouts going now too in the veg room. I Need to get this whole flowering scenario dialed in and figured out!

had a similar problem with brown spots on leaves around this time in flower and my advice wud to be grow on coz even wiv my brown spots n severe yellowing of leaves at 5 weeks inn she rearly deliverd so dont pull it early i had 2 in that condition i pulled one 2 weeks early and the other flowerd on for 3 more weeks to produce gr8 results for a spotty lookin plant 4 ounces of dry killa bud off the one that went the distance/ and 2 and a half dry ounces of decent bud strengh wise from the other one, so my conclusion was i shud not of pulled her sister out earlier, unless u absoloutly think u must then my advice is DONT! coz the diference in wieght n strenghis so so much better, good look man !!

blindguardian420 said:

Hello All, I'm having an issue with my best plant. It is turning yellow with brown spots. I tried flushing it and it just made it waaay worse. It started at the middle leaves and has moved up to the leaves around the bud. It's even worse than in the pics now and flowering may be slowing a bit.

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Flushing made it worse basically means it was wanting nutes in the first place.

I imagine it may be rootbound too, but it's my first grow and I didn't realize I probably should have transplanted it before 12/12.

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Dont fret it, rootbound dosent mean it wont grow, i personally transplant one week before 12/12 into final pots, all my plants seem rootbound when at harvest time.

I always have feed between 1/4 to 3/4 of recommended schedule for heavy feeding, almost every feeding since flowering. Last 2 feedings have just been at 1.4 strength. Also, my room may be a little bit crowded. Have 4 topped plants in 3x2 closet. Here's the rundown: Indoors, 400w hps Happy frog soil, 2 gal pot, runoff ph 6.6 General organics bloom , bio bud, CaMG+ for nutes. Been ph'd to 6.5 or so.

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At first i though maybe calcium deficiency but i see you got that covered in the cal/mag so im just gona have to say micros and more nutes. Youd hope the micros would take care of the brown spots on the bud leaves and extra nutes stop the yellowing of the leaves. Micros i use are liquid seaweed.

Looks a bigish plant with some serious big buds at only half way through flowering and dosent look like you have burnt her with too much nutes yet.

Has been in 12/12 for 5 weeks I'm not sure if I should back off feeding at this point or feed more. It looks like maybe a potassium deficiency but I'm wondering if it could have been caused by too much of something else locking it out? What do you recommend that I do? How close to being done does it look?

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4 to 5 weeks if you get her growing good again but if you dont some drag on for a while forcing an early harvest. Recomend dont listen to my advice as i dont want no one coming back and telling me i killed their plant!lol!

blindguardian420 said:

Thanks man, that's what I was afraid of. I don't know if she'll live that long at this rate! Does one ever have to pull early just to not have things be a total loss? I hope I don't have to do that. This plant smells hella dank for bagseed and is crystal-ling up pretty well. I have strawberry cough and blueberry sprouts going now too in the veg room. I Need to get this whole flowering scenario dialed in and figured out!

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At the least she should stay alive for an early harvest, weak weed with a good dry and cure isnt too bad but that said if you harvested her now you would get no high whatsoever. Good luck.

f1bud said:

had a similar problem with brown spots on leaves around this time in flower and my advice wud to be grow on coz even wiv my brown spots n severe yellowing of leaves at 5 weeks inn she rearly deliverd so dont pull it early i had 2 in that condition i pulled one 2 weeks early and the other flowerd on for 3 more weeks to produce gr8 results for a spotty lookin plant 4 ounces of dry killa bud off the one that went the distance/ and 2 and a half dry ounces of decent bud strengh wise from the other one, so my conclusion was i shud not of pulled her sister out earlier, unless u absoloutly think u must then my advice is DONT! coz the diference in wieght n strenghis so so much better, good look man !!

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Thanks for the words of experience F1. I'll soldier on!! It looks like she's still budding, just slowed a little. Some of the lower branches buds are definitely getting bigger still. This plant has 5 main colas and is freakin massive!

Kingrow1 said:

Flushing made it worse basically means it was wanting nutes in the first place.

Looks a bigish plant with some serious big buds at only half way through flowering and dosent look like you have burnt her with too much nutes yet.

At the least she should stay alive for an early harvest, weak weed with a good dry and cure isnt too bad but that said if you harvested her now you would get no high whatsoever. Good luck.

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Thanks Kingrow! She is very bigish. Somehow I ended up with 5 main colas and I had to lst the 2 biggest in an x pattern criss-crossing each other so that they would not outgrow my space vertically and that made the lower branches go nuts and start getting huge too. I will take everyone's advice and keep 'er going. Will give her some nutes now and see how she does. I may go get some micronutrients as well tomorrow.

I think this could be my issue (See below), too much sodium locking out K, or else to much Ca locking out K. I have to use a shed ton of PH up and I'm using the organic stuff from viagrow, which I think is basically fancy looking baking soda. I also have given her about a tsp of epsom salt every 1.5 weeks since she started to flower 5-6 weeks ago..hmmm


"Potassium - Too much sodium (Na) displaces K, causing a K deficiency. Sources of high salinity are: baking soda (sodium bicarbonate "pH-up"), too much manure, and the use of water-softening filters (which should not be used). If the problem is Na, flush the soil. K can get locked up from too much Ca or ammonium nitrogen, and possibly cold weather."


source - http://www.greenmanspage.com/guides/plant_abuse.html

blindguardian420 said:

I think this could be my issue (See below), too much sodium locking out K, or else to much Ca locking out K. I have to use a shed ton of PH up and I'm using the organic stuff from viagrow, which I think is basically fancy looking baking soda. I also have given her about a tsp of epsom salt every 1.5 weeks since she started to flower 5-6 weeks ago..hmmm


"Potassium - Too much sodium (Na) displaces K, causing a K deficiency. Sources of high salinity are: baking soda (sodium bicarbonate "pH-up"), too much manure, and the use of water-softening filters (which should not be used). If the problem is Na, flush the soil. K can get locked up from too much Ca or ammonium nitrogen, and possibly cold weather."


source - http://www.greenmanspage.com/guides/plant_abuse.html

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Yes very possibly contributing to the problems. get better water and screw the water softening stuff of, certainly too much sodium i think and will affect all other nutes, calcium is a passive uptake nutrient generally so any lack of water uptake or ferts will inhibit calcium.

Dont get too involved just make the relevant changes, messing with single nutrients is a big no no most times just get better water and start a nute program off again.

Stop pH'ing water and ferts, learn to use lime in the soil instead, thats what i do as it dose the same job. Peace

Kingrow1 said:

Yes very possibly contributing to the problems. get better water and screw the water softening stuff of, certainly too much sodium i think and will affect all other nutes, calcium is a passive uptake nutrient generally so any lack of water uptake or ferts will inhibit calcium.

Dont get too involved just make the relevant changes, messing with single nutrients is a big no no most times just get better water and start a nute program off again.

Stop pH'ing water and ferts, learn to use lime in the soil instead, thats what i do as it dose the same job. Peace

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Ya, that was kind of what I was shooting for in the future and why I started off my new plants in promix (a soil-less mix), that I added extra lime to. It seems no matter what ph I put in for those plants, the ph comes out around 6.6. I guess the lime's doing it's job! Hopefully next grow will be more problem free. I've already learned a ton. All the seeds I started this time germed and are growing great. All the last clones I took rooted well too. I just have to get the flowering process down. I hope to have the new babies clonable by the time the current flowering plants are able to be harvested, and then do a sea of green...or blue...since the new plants are mainly blueberry lol.

Yer dude all my runoff is always 6.5 and after a while you get bored checking it and the pH meter just starts to collect dust. I gave up pH'ing water and ferts a long time ago when i realized the right amount of lime would give me a trouble free grow.

Now you got the pH sorted just make sure you get some good runoff every time you water and feed and your soil should stay cool the whole grow. At this point its just getting the levels of ferts right.

I want to grow the blueberry from dutch passion, heavy indica plant and seems like good yeilds. Peace

Kingrow1 said:

Yer dude all my runoff is always 6.5 and after a while you get bored checking it and the pH meter just starts to collect dust. I gave up pH'ing water and ferts a long time ago when i realized the right amount of lime would give me a trouble free grow.

I want to grow the blueberry from dutch passion, heavy indica plant and seems like good yeilds. Peace

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Mine came from guruseeds, so I hope they're still good. The strawberry cough is dutch passion though.

I amended the soil with some lime yesterday, 2 tsp, so hopefully this will help. It just keeps turning more and more yellow on the bud leaves though. Even with that issue, they still keep fattening up though, weird. I hope this baby finishes out!

Possibly more ferts then and micros, lets just hope she finishes. Peace

wow tose are some cool pistals

well, she's survived thus far, still not the healthiest looking plant but still budding. She is now exactly at 8 weeks. What is y'alls opinion on how ready she looks? I have a pocket magnifier but it really sucks, it's hard to tell how the trichomes look, though they look to be mainly clear. I do see some of the white hairs turning red, which you can see in the pics.

I know this is an old thread but I just wanted to put it out there I am having the exact same problem with the GO line. I'm pretty sure it is because the nutes have gone bad. They are only like 6 months old, but I think they may have gotten too hot during the summer. I'm pretty sure its the bt bloom that is the problem. I have since switched to maxi and the problem has stopped progressing. I'm hoping they still finish ok.