Potassium deficiency or lock-out? FFOF organic grow

If it's in the ground you would not be able to flush the available nitrogen away. And the plant in the ground would grow, mature and be ready for harvesting in it's own time. You can't really, "flush" it all away from the medium (unless it's some type of hydro) in containers either. The nitrogen is still there. All.of the other nutrients that were present are still there too. You will dilute them and inhibit the plants ability to use them by inundating them with water. But you can't wash them all away.

Here's the score with the plant taking nutrition it has stored in the leaves back out. They do it because there's not enough left for them to use in the soil or other medium they are growing in, the leaves are old and/ or shadowed out (which new people always seem to worry about), you have over fed and pissed the plant off,, or the plant has decided it is time to use them because it's nearing the end of its life cycle. The last reason being the way I personally believe is the way it should be allowed to be.

My plants always have enough nutrition in the soil they live and die in. After a plant is harvested, I can just drop another plant in the same soil and it will grow just fine. It may not do quite as well without amending the soil a little, but it will complete its life cycle.

I let the plants keep going until they are done. And they, not me,, decide when that is.

That is not to say I don't give my plants a little extra at certain times, I do. But I grow in some pretty rich soil to begin with and I don't try to upend nature buy drowning my plants roots because I want them to be, or think they should be done. I just keep feeding the soil and watering as normal until the plants are ready.

These plants used the stored nutrition in there leaves before I harvested them.
I didn't force them too... They had a plan that is older than humanity and knew what to do without anyone else forcing them too.

Besides they aren't just taking in raw fertilizer and parking it in different parts of themselves. They metabolize everything they take in just as every other organism on earth, dose with what they consume. If there were (God forbid) heavy metals in what they had to work with, there will be some amount of heavy metals in the plant near harvest. And dumping water through the root zone won't wash the heavy metals back out of the plant tissue. You can dump water on the plant to the point of killing it. But the heavy metals will still be in that plant material after it's dead.

Instead of people trying to wash away what they have overdone, maybe they should just not try to do as much.

And honestly, why is anyone using any substance to grow a plant they intend to consume that would have to be removed to make it taste better or even safe to ingest? Maybe it's greed....maybe it's gullibility.... maybe it's just some misguided herd mentality. I don't know.

I do agree with not giving supplements to plants near the end of flower. A couple of weeks before the grower thinks they ought to be done just give them the water they need and let them do the rest.

In the end each person is growing their own plants and will do what they want with them. But the plant is going to do what it does too. It's already done it. And drowning the plant won't help fix the growers mistakes.
Good luck friends!

Ok well if you were vegging fine in ffof, i would top dress with more ffof as long as you're in veg (up-potting will have the same effect as top dressing since you're essentially top dressing when you do and roots are expanding into new soil around as well). Do this as soon a you notice a deficiency because it'll take a lil while to break down. Try to use one top dress mix for flower (as often as needed). That should simplify things significantly. Then if the way dry amendments work is just a pain in the ass and you'd rather use have immediate nutes then use teas. You can really work without teas though if you want to. As far as flushing you really shouldn't need to because one of the main aspects of organic is that the soil retains nutrients and water within it (through bacteria, Archaea and fungi) so idk how you'd flush that out, furthermore it's difficult to nute burn a plant in organic because the plant feeds itself through the rhizosphere in a way so it knows when it's full. Not saying it's not possible but better to keep things simple. Don't wanna overcorrect. If you see yellowing do your amendment and let it do its thing even though it might look like it's not doing anything, if your amendment is legit it'll come back gracefully more often than not. As far as veg amendments, if your plant was growing fine in ffof and the ffof is depleted then just top dress and/or transplant with that.

You have to water with a wet dry cycle. Yes it is living soil but especially in veg, plants want a cycle. It's not hydro.

You are adding too many things and making it too hard to keep in control. If you use FFOF, simply topdress with that.

If you do not water properly, nothing else matters. You dont wet all the soil the roots in that dry soil die back. Water the whole pot, to the slightest runoff. Record how much you watered, and water in small increments. It takes me an hour or 2 to water the first few times after transplant.

You want to water so slow you know it is spreading around the pot. As you water in increments, it will slowly reach the bottom. By using smaller increments esp at the end, you can run to slight runoff.

Watering is king for cannabis soil grows. All the amendments, teas etc are pretty useless if the water cycle is off.

ComfortCreator said:

You have to water with a wet dry cycle. Yes it is living soil but especially in veg, plants want a cycle. It's not hydro.

You are adding too many things and making it too hard to keep in control. If you use FFOF, simply topdress with that.

If you do not water properly, nothing else matters. You dont wet all the soil the roots in that dry soil die back. Water the whole pot, to the slightest runoff. Record how much you watered, and water in small increments. It takes me an hour or 2 to water the first few times after transplant.

You want to water so slow you know it is spreading around the pot. As you water in increments, it will slowly reach the bottom. By using smaller increments esp at the end, you can run to slight runoff.

Watering is king for cannabis soil grows. All the amendments, teas etc are pretty useless if the water cycle is off.

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thats what i finally figured out and my plants love me for it i only water every 4th day until slight runoff which is 2 gallons in a 7 gallon pot

osowhom said:

thats what i finally figured out and my plants love me for it i only water every 4th day until slight runoff which is 2 gallons in a 7 gallon pot

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Excellent! Remember to see what the plant needs, it may take that much every 2 or 3 days at peak flower!

Once someone sees how they grow at the end of a dry cycle and then the boost after watering...it proves itself, doesnt it??

ekillah said:

Thanks for checking in man. So overall i think there was some potassium or magnesium deficiency. If you wanted my opinion, i think its related to transplanting to a bigger pot, and mobile nutrients are leaving to help ROOT growth.
I’ve seen this happen with my indoor house plants, everytime i transplant it to a new pot, some of the smaller leaves seem to yellow off and die. Theres never any new leaf growth happening for a week or two. When you do start seeing new growth and look at the bottom of the pot, the root has reached the bottom holes.

As of right now I am in day 28 of flower! Everything is looking good. Right now trying to learn a bunch of controversial things and seeing which tactic I will end with (my first grow btw). Couple things on my mind are:
1) how long to feed dr earth dry amendment for in flower, when do i stop
2) flushing or not
3) whether i should decrease the light intensity of my LED light in the final two weeks to decrease temperature and mimic fall such as in nature or maybe even increase night time ie. 11 on/12 off

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Or it could be uppotting saved it, the damage had already started when you decided it needed more root space

In the end each person is growing their own plants and will do what they want with them. But the plant is going to do what it does too. It's already done it. And drowning the plant won't help fix the growers mistakes.
Good luck friends!
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Excellent advice.. I messed up my first proper grow by giving too many nutrients, so it took ages in curing for the organic matter to mutate, or whatever it does. But leaves were too green. Tasted like smoking cabbage leaf when it was dried first, and jars stank of hay with overpowering scent of fox urine. I gave it the full biobizz dosage for all plants, instead of each plant individually. I use peat compost, biobizz light. I know it's soil, but applies to all substrate/growing media -what you put in, you can't get back out, as I found to my cost. Half nutes til the plant says otherwise. Good luck with your grow OP.

ekillah said:

What about when to stop feeding? I think thats what a lot of people mean by “flushing”, and just continue with water. Dr earth flowergirl has nitrogen in it and i dont want to give nitrogen until the end do i? Thus why i considered it flushing, but really letting the plant take nitrogen from its leaf instead

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Nitrogen is STILL important during flowering- its just not needed in the amounts it would be when it was making branches and leaf. Nitrogen is still part of keeping leaf healthy / pigmentation/ cell health and working photosynthetic processes.