Various kind of spots...ph lockout?

Data:

Indoor
400W HPS
25L pot
RQS Northern Ligjs clone
Day 26 of veg
Hesi nutrients; grow, bloom, phosphorus plus and booster
Week 3 feeding: 700-750 ppm
Week 4 feeding: 900pmm (Hesi manual says that there is a part of organic N that the TDS meter cant read)

On day 21 some spots that looked somehow like calcium def and yellowing and falling of lower leaves happened.
Also some leaves looked more pale.

I was being careful with nutrients dosages, i was at 60% before first sympthons and hit 80% last feeding, which also had the extra phosphorus plus, given at 40%.

The thing is that spots on leaves continued to appear and are not the same.
Checking pictures and articles i identified a few deficiencies.

But Hesi is pretty complete and almost everyone seems to never reach the maximum dose.

So i thought of ph lockout and what could case it, and i remembered and realized two things:

1) My soil has rabbit humus, i transplanted the plan to this pot with rabbit humus 5 days before switching to 12/12
2) By recomendation of the guy who makes the soil, i changed my watering style:
It was about 2-3x week with 10-20% runoff, it was about 8L each watering
Now its every other day, 5L per watering

So im thinking that humus nutrients are now available for the plant, and i ran into salt built up with the no runoff watering strategy. Or an excess of P or K, since i understand rabbit humus is rich on both.
And i believe i see signs of overfertilization in curled up new growth.

What do you guys think? I am thinking of watering for a 10-20% run off, and check ph and ppm of first runoff sample.

I leave pics of various leaves and a general take of the plant.

Thanks!

Poor poor advice on watering IMO. Runoff pH is useless. Runoff PPM is not. Have you supplemented calcium yet? You’re in the window for calcium deficiency.

Thanks man. I will buy some calcium supplement, at first it thought it was being covered by the base nutrients.

My plan is no to flush heavily, but water for a 10-20% runoff
Would you do that with water with calcium or on the next feeding?

Also, would you go back to the first watering style?

JHake said:

Thanks man. I will buy some calcium supplement, at first it thought it was being covered by the base nutrients.

My plan is no to flush heavily, but water for a 10-20% runoff
Would you do that with water with calcium or on the next feeding?

Also, would you go back to the first watering style?

Click to expand...

Frequent watering leaves less aeration to the roots. Overdrying of medium is not good for the plant but it’s better than saturation. My nutes have calcium and magnesium and I water with tap water but find it necessary early in flower to supplement the two. I’ll suggest aerating and cultivating your medium. Use something long enough to reach the bottom of the container. Pierce the hell out of the medium everywhere. Including multiple times through the hardened root mass under the plant. It absolutely will not hurt the plant. By flower our medium is really compacted. Especially the lower portion of the container. By piercing it you create paths for water and you aerate the medium.

Keep forgetting that compacting or sifting that causes fine absorbent material to collect at bottom of container. Perlite floats and is extremely buoyant also and migrates to the surface over time. Thank you for the remind.

hotrodharley said:

Frequent watering leaves less aeration to the roots. Overdrying of medium is not good for the plant but it’s better than saturation. My nutes have calcium and magnesium and I water with tap water but find it necessary early in flower to supplement the two. I’ll suggest aerating and cultivating your medium. Use something long enough to reach the bottom of the container. Pierce the hell out of the medium everywhere. Including multiple times through the hardened root mass under the plant. It absolutely will not hurt the plant. By flower our medium is really compacted. Especially the lower portion of the container. By piercing it you create paths for water and you aerate the medium.

Click to expand...

Pricelss info man, thanks!
My soil is supposed to be very aireated, and when i used to water for a runoff it didn't have drainage problems, but it's true that nowadays seems more compacted, i will pierce it.

Update:

Watered with half the volume of the pot. 12L and got a runoff of 50%.

Soil was easy to pierce.
For my surprise, pot started to drain very easily. I mean, faster that when i used to water to runoff. It's true that today i did it faster/heavier, but i never drenched the pot.

I put the pot on a tray, collected water for a minutes and measured ppms. First lectures were around 1700ppm. Then they were about 2300-2600, with a peak on 2700ppm.
By the end of the first 8Ls, lectures were around 2500ppm.

After that i gave the plant 4 more liters of water; lectures were about 1500ppm average. At this point water was coming out faster. Althought last sample measured was about 1800ppm.

I then collected all the runoff and measured it for a 2000ppm lecture.

Sometimes the rhythm or flow rate of how the pot drained had variations, i guess it's related to the compacted soil.

I did another thing:
I ran water through a fresh soil mix (this includes rabbit humus) another pot. Runoff was 1100-1300ppm, can't remember. Input tap water was 180ppm.
I have a question about this: of this lecture, what % can i estimate is from macro nutrients.
I mean: if i read 1300ppm after running water through my soil, it's the same/similar as having 1300ppm of nutrient solution with it's NPK, micros, etc?

24hs update:
Plant now looks really overfed, like shit i would say lol. Will give it water and see how this goes. At least its something to learn from.

Don't panic and try too many different solutions without time to see effects as you will confuse the shit out your plant and yourself. Sometimes it’s best to get the hell away from your plants and let them recover.

By giving it water i meant i will water when needed until she recovers, will keep updated

Bad signs seems to have stop progresing, or at least today i didn't see it worse.
I'll leave some pictures. I cut a damaged leaf to picture it under another light for reference, i would say that every cola has, at least 1 leave like that. They can be seen in the pictures, but they look more green than in person. Buds seem a little more fat than the day i flushed.

I also removed/pierced a little more the medium, it didn't dry yet but it seems it will be needing water in no more than 48hs, which would be the same frequency i used to water before switching to lower volume and more frequence.

If you have any reccomendation on what to do with the damaged leaves i'll appreciate it.

About next watering:
My plan is to repeat what i did last time, water until a 50% runoff. I'll be checking PPMs, at least for same reference. What should i expect here? Maybe achieve only 20-30% runoff if they are not high? And if they are high or very high: would something like Flawless Finish work? I can get a dose for flushing if needed. I don't know how the chelated magnesium thing they offer works, but if it can help i could use it. Anyways i think the best would be to use just water.

calcium deficiency yes.
what is the conductivity of your base water before you add the nutrients ?

Around 0.3-0.4ms/cm - 150-200ppm.

Would you add calcium on the next watering?

New log:

Watered until 50% runoff.

Took various samples, first one were about 1500-1700ppm.

After that, the soil was already full and water started flowing quicker; and it's alto true i gave it with more emphasis.
Average runoff once the trays under the pot started filling up faster was about 1000ppm.

It was good to see because i detected some spots where the pot didn't drain as much although i watered equally on the top; i pierced those zones with good result.

After giving the last 1,5L (1,5L of 18 total liters), the pot started to drain slower. Last 3 samples were around 1700-2000ppm.

Peak reading last flush was 2500, today 2000. I don't know if this are accurate numbers, but at least some kind of data.

What should i do? Repeat the process in a few days? Or don't wait and tomorrow just run lots of water and get those ppms down as soon as possible?

yes there is a big buildup in your medium
thats probably why you have calcium blocked ... there is antagonism between K and Cal, so the excess of one block the other

it can also be a ph problem ... surely it is. if you check your runof it will be low ph because much salts acidify the medium, so maybe it blocked calcium assimilation too .

i would keep watering normally with your bloom solution around 1.2ms, until you get runoff under 1.3 ms.

i dont know your tap water composition, but i wouldnt add any calmag supplement, it causes more harm than good. 0.4ms out the tap is enough calmag

Should i try to get that ec of 1,3 on the next watering? Or just get a 50% runoff every watering until i reach that 1,3 value?

i think you could water heavily next time, until the runoff comes around 1.5 ms
but your plants are already at the half of bloom, so the game is played ..

Yes. What would you expect from the plant? You think it will be able to fat up those buds? Or yield and or quality is already very affected?

yes but dont wait for a miracle

Well, today when lights went on, i recollected the last sample from the tray under the pot. Lecture was 3500ppm!

Then i proceed to gave the plant the 16-18L i had 24hs on buckets, plain pH.

Most of runoff was about 1000ppm. Last sample, when it drains slower, was about 1500ppm.

My question here would be:
If ppms are as high as 3500 is it imperative to get them down as soon as possible, right?
And tomorrow there will be the last of today's runoff on the tray for me to measure.
I didn't keep on with the flush today because i ran out of the water i had with evaporated chlorine. Guess i'll have to use what i have if i need to flush asap.