what is this purple tinting in the margins of my leaces?

I first noticed this a couple of days ago on my white widow plant. It seems to be happening to leaves about halfway up the plant, which kind of rules out a couple of things:

-It doesn't seem to be something like light burn, which would mostly affect the top
-It doesn't seem to be old or new growth (being in the middle) so its hard to tell whether its a mobile element or not

Then tonight I notice it happening to one of my plants that I've done a bunch of stress training to. Here's a few pics of poor old Larry. He went through a lot of tough times when my grow room hadn't been dialed in yet, so he's about a month old despite his small size. I decided a week or so ago to just tie him down and cut off all of his tops so he would stop growing taller and put all of his effort into his branches so that I can hurry up and get a plant into flower.

On top of LST'ing him by tying him down, I've also super cropped him at the base of his branches. Again, I know the plant is small but it is mature and its stock is like wood. I super cropped about 3 days ago and lost 1 branch that day, but all of these others seem like they will recover fine, hopefully with big knots at the base that will help each branch become a fat cola. So here she is:

I'm picking up some decent snips tomorrow so that I can clean up some of those leaves; my 400 watt mph bulb does decent but it doesn't have the penetrating light power of a 1000 so I'm thinking taking off some of the lower leaves on those branches might help light get through. I know I'm only budding the "low sucker branches", but I'm hoping since they are the only branches it has that they will be decent. I'm gonna let each branch get about 6" tall and then put it in flower, hopefully get 12 ten inch branches with fat 6-8 inch colas.

Anyways, I noticed some discoloration of one of the leaves after super cropping. It was getting yellow patches, instead of starting from the tip or the base and I figured it was being affected by the damaged vascular system of the plant. Now, tho, I'm noticing this purple tint:


While I'm at it I'm gonna put up a shot of what I did with my super cropping. From what I've researched, as long as the internal phloem is still intact it should be able to provide water and nutrients to the extremity. Some of them are pretty damaged, but damn this is a resilient plant BC if it hasn't killed the branches yet then I don't think it will.

maybe a little to much to soon, its important to have a safe word during training and bondage. i like to use cinnamon!!

Haha, yeah. I definitely pushed a lot of my plants. But even still, if the leaves are going to slowly die like this, then you should be able to tell which nutrients are having a hard time getting to the leaf, ya know.

I mean if they were going to die it seems like they would die. Plus, like I said I also have a white widow plant that's doing this, and it hasn't had any type of training at all.


I have them in like an 80% ffof, 10% ancient forest 10% perlite mix. I feed with advanced organics Buddha grow, and also a little calcium nitrate or Epsom salt every couple of weeks. I don't really use the Epsom salt any more BC now I put a teaspoon of lime in my soil, but sometimes I still feed with a little calcium nitrate.


I know I'm pushing it as far as running hot nutrients, do you think I might be locking something out? I'll have to check my run off when I feed tomorrow, BC I do have a good amount of lime in my soil, probably a tablespoon per gallon of soil, or maybe even a little more lime than that. I used to put pH minus in my water until I realized how low my nutes take it. The pH is like 4.5-5 of my water and nutes going in, but the run off usually turns the pH solution more yellowish orange (still seems a little low). But I figured the lime in the soil is non-soluble so even tho the run off doesn't reflect too high of a pH rise, I'm sure its still relatively buffered in the soil.

I have been dealing with slow growth tho, and have heard that if you have really healthy plants, but they still seem to grow slow that its probably a pH thing. Seeing as how I'm running soil instead of hydro, not to mention with lime, I just don't see how that could be a problem..

PH all water that goes in. Included with nutes added.

Not sure what the prob is. Purp stems are no issue, but I haven't seen it on leaf like that.

Also sounds like you need to chill a little and let her be.

Good luck!

I have read that the purpling is a nutrient shrotage but not one to worry too much about but someone will step up who knows about it I am sure here is a good link to peruse https://www.icmag.com/modules/Tutorials/PlantTrouble/Merged.htm

Word, yeah I have J.C. Stitches "Marijuana Garden Saver" that I picked up at books a million. It basically goes over pests, toxicities/deficiencies, disease and whatnot. More of a go-to for problems then it is a book about growing in general.

Anyways, I was looking at some pictures, and it had a picture with some kind of deficiency beside a picture of a healthy plant, and I swear to god it looked like the healthy plant had the same type of coloring.

And also, I know it seems too soon but that plant is like 5 weeks from seed, maybe closer to 6. It is small but its definitely more mature than it looks.

But its definitely bouncing back from its earlier problems. I've only had It tied down for about a week (and 2 days including the super cropping) and it was finally starting some vigorous growth.

I probably did super crop too early, especially seeing as how I wanted this thing in flower as soon as possible. I just didn't want it to spend time in flower repairing itself and figured if I wanted to lock more nutrients in the branches then the sooner the better, as long as I didn't kill it.

And growindad, a question about pH-- I use the color solution to determine pH. It comes out of my tap teal (7.5-8.something) which is definitely not the greenish yellow (6.5) that I want. When I pH my water after adding nutes, the solution turns red (around 4.0) and so what should I do, add pH plus to my water and take it up to 6.5?
Even though I have a good bit of lime in my soil?

Also, when I check the pH of my runoff, its like a yellow color, almost like pee which according to the color chart means around 6. Do you think my pH is too low in my runoff?

Magnesium..

J brown, you mean magnesium toxicity? I had a mag def a few weeks ago and treated with Epsom salt. That's when I bought the lime and top dressed but I've since then transplanted into soil mixed well with lime.

Get yourself a ph pen, much easier.

You shouldn't be using nutes every time you water. So i would ph down to 6.5 when water alone and ph up to 6.5 when adding nutes. Whatever goes in should be around 6.5. I don't ph my runoff peronally.

OK, yeah I'm on a feed, feed, water schedule and I have great drainage so I flush about once every other week.

Also, I've been wondering about the pH of my runoff. It seems like if I took it up to 6.5 after mixing my nutes then it would be way too high by the time it went through the plant. Obviously (seeing as how my nutes are organic and thus mostly non- water soluble) some of the nutes that take my pH down are being "filtered" or "strained" by the soil, and so whatever takes it down stays in the dirt.

What are your night temps?

how much water is going through each feed?
i have a buddy who wont accept hes pouring in too much water, constantly ends up with plants looking the same as yours and always cries at harvest time!

Holy fuck iron man. Your in way over your head man. You need to turn down the A D D a little bitski. I noticed your posting in newbie central and wondering why your supercropping, LST ing, topping, foliar feeding, adding lime to your soil, feeding calcium cyclotrate or whatever and god knows what else i forgot. Reeefucking lax bro.
First off, ffof should have enough food to get whatever plant you have provided its in the right sized container, to grow four feet tall in veg and stay greeeeen.
Dont break your plants, just stop supercropping.
LST works, it works when theres somthing that your trying to accomplish with it. Usually its trying to fill a horizontal space and minimize vertical gain.
Foliar feeding is the number one problem ive seen from people who have leaf discoloration problems with no reason for it.

Do this. Next time you do a run, run ffof with maybe one feeding of low nutes in veg and then use grow nutes at the flip for a few times. Then switch to flowering nutes and never feed over 700 ppm. FwwwFwwwF. Ffof will burn and give you lockout with heavy feeding to the roots causing all your leaves to yellow and dry off. If you need to save space top her at the third or fourth node and lst her down, or dont, thats easier and safer with your hands on knowledge. Doing nothing is much more successfull than doing everything. Fuck ph, gimmic tricks, foliar feeding, fuck everything except ffof, light feedings, and practicing not overthinking it. If you want to tweek somthing, tweek how big you let them get id have four plants in different stages under that 400 but three most of the time good luck iron man

Ninjabowler said:

Holy fuck iron man. Your in way over your head man. You need to turn down the A D D a little bitski. I noticed your posting in newbie central and wondering why your supercropping, LST ing, topping, foliar feeding, adding lime to your soil, feeding calcium cyclotrate or whatever and god knows what else i forgot. Reeefucking lax bro.
First off, ffof should have enough food to get whatever plant you have provided its in the right sized container, to grow four feet tall in veg and stay greeeeen.
Dont break your plants, just stop supercropping.
LST works, it works when theres somthing that your trying to accomplish with it. Usually its trying to fill a horizontal space and minimize vertical gain.
Foliar feeding is the number one problem ive seen from people who have leaf discoloration problems with no reason for it.

Do this. Next time you do a run, run ffof with maybe one feeding of low nutes in veg and then use grow nutes at the flip for a few times. Then switch to flowering nutes and never feed over 700 ppm. FwwwFwwwF. Ffof will burn and give you lockout with heavy feeding to the roots causing all your leaves to yellow and dry off. If you need to save space top her at the third or fourth node and lst her down, or dont, thats easier and safer with your hands on knowledge. Doing nothing is much more successfull than doing everything. Fuck ph, gimmic tricks, foliar feeding, fuck everything except ffof, light feedings, and practicing not overthinking it. If you want to tweek somthing, tweek how big you let them get id have four plants in different stages under that 400 but three most of the time good luck iron man

Click to expand...

Thanks for the input man, and yes I'm very ADD.

I'm also a biochem major, and my brother graduated with a double Chem/physics major and works with one of the worlds leading genetic researchers, my aunt. But I'm just throwing that one in there to brag, nyuck nyuck.


Just BC I openly admit that I'm a newb doesnt ran that I haven't been using my time learning as much as I can about how plants work, and again I'm not trying to brag but I really am one of the fastest learners I know. I was a foreign exchange student on two different continents btly the time I was 16, and I speak 3 languages. I got into my college on SAT scores from when I took the test the summer between 7th and eighth grade. I could go on about class president, etc but I'll shut up and put my cock back in my pants.

Anyways, long story short I'm not your average newb. I don't give my plants ANYTHING that I don't research first, and honestly environmental controls have given me more problems then feeding. My night time temps can get a little low, so I have some heating pads on timers under my tray that run a half hour at a time over night. My low temps were causing a phosphorus lockout early on and I almost lost my plants. Plus I suffered a cal/mag deficiency (mostly magnesium) and foliar fed ONE time with the calcium nitrate (not cyclocate) which is nitrate, one of the two forms that a plant can use to uptake nitrogen. The only other ingredient is calcium. But i cant see how 1 foliar feeding would turn 1 leaf out of 200 purple two weeks after the feed. I also was watering with espom salt BC I couldn't afford cal mag. I added lime BC it works as great soil pH buffer and provides calcium and magnesium over time, so i haven't had to use the Epsom salt or calcium nitrate since.

And the reason I LST'd Larry there is for size purposes. I am trying to get a couple of other plants to catch up with him for flower, and he was way ahead of the others so I tied him down. Plus it keeps my canopy more even. He kept gerting ahead so I topped him and then cut the tops to stop his (now) horizontal growth.

Once the leaves underneath started getting all that light it started to explode and really started outgrowing the others, so I figured it would be a good time to learn how plants react to supercropping. Plus, it seemed like a great pause button for my plant while some of the others caught up. So I researched why super cropping works, and that it was all about controlling the plants vascular system and how it delivers nutrients, or doesn't take them away I guess in this case. So I took a razor knife and damaged only the xylem around the base of the branches, careful not to damage the phloem. I actually didnt damage the xylem as much as I could have by just breaking the branches, but i didnt want to go full on with the super cropping BC of the size. Plus, just by exposing the xylem to the outside air allows it to dry up and keeps nutrients and water from returning down the branches.

But yeah, I've only been growing a month and with mostly bag seed and ghetto rigged equipment, but I've read and listened and practiced being patient as much as I can. Hoping for quality above anything else, which I wasn't expecting to much from Larry the shwag seed anyways.



I get what you're saying about slowing down, but honestly I can't just sit idlyby and not learn anything, and the only way gonna get this all down is by getting a little hands on. The super cropping is healing nicely, and hopefully my second time around with it I'll do better.

PS, and your advice about having plants in different stages, I have 2 in the big stage, 3 in my next stage, 3 younger than that and two seedlings. A lot of my stuff is going outside if I don't have space, which hopefully I won't but my two big ones went through painfully slow growth in the beginning while I was getting the environment dialed in.

The next set has been doing great, which are my good seeds that I ordered.

Edit: BTW, the purple tint on the leaves was definitely from some sort of deficiency, no doubt from the damage done by the super cropping. Its been four days now, the leaves are still wilted but I'm gonna water later and just keep an eye on the leaves and use them as an indicator as to whether or not the branches will make it. It seems to me tho that if they were going to die they would have done so by now, or at least shown signs of necrosis or something

I believe is a deficiency of one possibly Mag, or Potassium..given of course your monitoring your PH, Purpling leaves can be in the strain but not like this, What are you Feeding her and what Medium are you using?

Ok, so its apparent that you have a brain inside that helmet of yours although i dont know if the helmets big enough to encapsulate your newb ego, there will be a day that you realize what your doing right now lol..... Now the only thing you have to do is figure out what works and what doesnt. I read once that theres three types of new growers. The kind that buys a base nutrient mix and some calmag, then theres the guy that buys a base mix and a couple additives and soil ammendments, then theres the mad scientist that buys a nutrient lables whole line up and puts a little of this and a little of that in there until his plants die from a the ultimate attack of the claw.
I myself am rather newbish. My first venture was DWC. I ran an entire grow with an advanced nutrient base nutrient pair and calmag. One nine oz plant and one 12 oz plant. Simplicity. Then after i ran the simplicity grow i knew what needed to change in order to advance my technique.
My next venture was with dirt with what id learned from hydro guiding my path along with some not so good information i learned on here. The bottom line is that my plants werent happy with what i was doing to them because i fed them too much in rich organic soil. The good thing about that grow was that i knew exactly what went wrong. By having as few variables as possible you can actually trouble shoot your problems more effectively. Now i look at your question, to me it sounds like, "ive done thirty things to this plant that ive never done before, whats wrong with it?" To me it apears the answer is in the question.
After reading and growing through a few very successful grows, and watching friends fail miserably ive realized a couple things. The more simple your plan the better and diligence pays off.
I have a feeling that im wasting my time and yours by tring to teach you some stuff because everybodies saying the same thing....too much son, too much. Unfortunately i think you already know it all. Someone replies and you defend your position in a lenghtier retort. Theres no point in asking for advice if you know it all already.
I do applaud you for trying everything that you are trying and im looking forward to seeing what you can accomplish with that swollen cranium of yours. Your reading books and learning, trying new stuff and learning about all sorts of ways to try and grow. I just know that people learn more from expirience than anything and if you modify a simple procedure before youve even seen the result of its simplest outcome, whos to say that it needed modifying in the first place?

Heres a picture of a bud i harvested from ffof soil, sensi base nutes 700 ppm max, calmagic, FwwwFwwwF, mycorrhizae, pearlite. No nutes until the plant reached three feet tall. Take it or leave it, youll figure it out.

I was gonna try quoting some of your stuff but I didn't feel like chopping it all up, but anyways..
..yeah, definitely a lengthy retort. That happens when I get defensive, I get defensive when I get pissed off, and it pissed me off to see you jump on here and say I'm in "way over my head" BC I have 10 plants, and one of them I tried to practice super cropping on. I actually did this bc a friend wanted to super crop BC he hasn't had as much luck with me as far as diagnosing problems and keeping his plants healthy. I needed to put Larry on pause anyways, so it felt like a win win. Somewhere in your quote is a statement saying "the only way you'll learn is if you get hands on". I don't expect to do anything right the first time. But you can bet your ass that when I do it the second time, I do it right because I learn from my mistakes.

You obviously are definitely newbish, especially if you haven't heard of using calcium nitrate and epsom salt as a quick home remedy for cal mag. Magnesium is a fundamental component of the chlorophyll molecule, so if my plants have a magnesium def. I'm definitely going to feed it.

Other than that tho, yeah I'm basically running the same set up as you. Ffof and I had only fed them a couple times up until recently when I started kicking it up a notch.

Believe me, I understand where you're coming from with the "less is more" approach. My mom had a super green thumb, and I learned long ago that all you need to do is give the plant a chance to take care of itself and it will. I haven't "done 30 things to my plants". Well, not these anyways. I used to have 40 seedlings altogether, 37 of them were bag seed and I started them all out as controls and got all the "do 30 things to a plant" out of my system by doing those 30 different things to 30 different plants. But I did one thing to two or three plants at a time so I could try and keep extraneous variables out.

That cola looks nice. My friend has about 8 of those on every plant he has, and that's what I'm going for. He does 30 things to his plants tho and I'm not quite there yet. Sorry for the big helmet, I try not to give out too much personal shit on here but it kills me when the "high and mighty" step in and try and make it like someone not only has no idea what they are doing, but that they "are in way over their head". I mean shit do you want me to just give up and quit?! I'm sorry, but too many people on here make rush judgments about how other people are handling their grow. For example, a lot of people might tell you that by staying under 700 ppm, your buds are only churning out half of the quality they could have, even if the quantity is there. But generally its people who think that just BC they have a couple decent grows under their belt, that they know everything and so they troll the newb section looking for the next guy to make them feel like their shit is better.

I'll send you a centerfold of Larry, it'll make you feel great!

and for the record, I'm not any one of those three types of growers. Or maybe I'm all three. I started out with Buddha grow and (cheap easy form of ) cal mag. Then i got some soil amendments (humus, perlite, lime [which is calcium and magnesium]), and just yesterday I bought the roots organics master pack (I can't wait it has like 30 things in there for me to try). But I'm also the type of grower who starts 40 plants his first time so he can TRY and do shit wrong, expedite his errors, and learn from them quicker than he would by sitting around and waiting for something to fuck up. Plus it gives me a great excuse when I fuck something up on accident.

Looking at my picture, if you wanted to do a friend a favor and try and learn something along the way, which plant would you have super cropped? Let me guess, none of them, right? Don't be afraid to learn now instead of later. That's what Larry's are for. Thank you for your input. I realize Larry is getting "too much too soon". I knew that before everyone jumped on here stating the obvious.

I was gonna try quoting some of your stuff...
..yeah, definitely a lengthy retort.

You obviously are definitely newbish, especially if you haven't heard of using calcium nitrate and epsom salt as a quick home remedy for cal mag. Magnesium is a fundamental component of the chlorophyll molecule,so if my plants have a magnesium def. I'm definitely going to feed it.
I belive when you want to do somthing you should do it right, not half assed. I have calmagic, its cheap and its what people who arent tring to half ass it use. By all means, if you feel like spraying shit all over their leaves go right ahead. See where it gets you.
Other than that tho, yeah I'm basically running the same set up as you. Ffof and I had only fed them a couple times up until recently when I started kicking it up a notch.
i just got done explaining to you that you dont need to kick anything up a notch, i dont understand what your not getting about this. Ffof will grow plants up to three feet tall with nothing except a big enough container.

go Believe me, I understand where you're coming from with the "less is more" approach. My mom had a super green thumb, and I learned long ago that all you need to do is give the plant a chance to take care of itself and it will. I haven't "done 30 things to my plants". Well, not these anyways. I used to have 40 seedlings altogether, 37 of them were bag seed and I started them all out as controls and got all the "do 30 things to a plant" out of my system by doing those 30 different things to 30 different plants. But I did one thing to two or three plants at a time so I could try and keep extraneous variables out.
40 seedlings huh? And you messed with all of them? This is what im trying to get through to you. This above paragraph is a contradiction from the word go.

That cola looks nice. My friend has about 8 of those on every plant he has, and that's what I'm going for. He does 30 things to his plants tho and I'm not quite there yet. Sorry for the big helmet, I try not to give out too much personal shit on here but it kills me when the "high and mighty" step in and try and make it like someone not only has no idea what they are doing, but that they "are in way over their head". I mean shit do you want me to just give up and quit?! I'm sorry, but too many people on here make rush judgments about how other people are handling their grow. For example, a lot of people might tell you that by staying under 700 ppm, your buds are only churning out half of the quality they could have, even if the quantity is there. But generally its people who think that just BC they have a couple decent grows under their belt, that they know everything and so they troll the newb section looking for the next guy to make them feel like their shit
your damn right that colas nice and i have 8 of those on every plant, aaand i just told you how to do it and i get "high and mighty"? No, i dont want you to quit or i would have said quit, you suck at life, kill yourself. Instead i said that i cant wait to see what your doing after a couple grows. That 700 ppm is not the only thing your plant is taking up. Theres lots of naturally occuring fertilizer in the soil you are using. Remember that when you go pouring nutes into the mix. 1100 ppm with ffof will burn your plants WILL on a ffwffw system like your running. Do it, id love to see you burn them so you have first hand expirience of what burnt is. Im not trying to make you feel like shit. I wouldnt have replied to you if i thought you were a moron, i think youve got alot of potential kid, im just trying to tell you that your eagerness is going to be what makes you fail if you do fail. Well that and that you already know everything of course.

and for the record, I'm not any one of those three types of growers. Or maybe I'm all three. I started out with Buddha grow and (cheap easy form of ) cal mag. Then i got some soil amendments (humus, perlite, lime [which is calcium and magnesium]), and just yesterday I bought the roots organics master pack (I can't wait it has like 30 things in there for me to try). But I'm also the type of grower who starts 40 plants his first time so he can TRY and do shit wrong, expedite his errors, and learn from them quicker than he would by sitting around and waiting for something to fuck up. Plus it gives me a great excuse when I fuck something up on accident.
you are not all three, you are the mad scientist, you are the one who claws the plant to death claiming that a deficiancy killed it. Roots master pack? 30 things youve never used? Great, so now you need another fourty plants to fuck somthing up on to see what too much is?

That's what Larry's are for. Thank you for your input. I realize Larry is getting "too much too soon". I knew that before everyone jumped on here stating the obvious.

So when i said too much too soon and everyone else did you took offence? Why? You already knew it was. Your asking for help and then when expirienced growers say what you know to be true already we become blow hards?
you can trust me or not man but at the end of the day i dont like spending twenty minutes adding this that, and the other thing to my water in order to feed. I buy good nutrient rich soil to save myself that headache, let it pay for itself in veg, then start adding nutes in flower to get the kind of results that work without having to spend more money, and time than needed. If you jump right into that roots grand master im jesus pack without even growing one plant from start to finnish your going to be runnin all over RIU sayin its the way to go but youll have no idea because you never tried doing it without it now did ya? Get it?

Heres a friend of mine holding one plant of my simple base nutes plus ffof, plus calmagic, FwwwFwwwF at low ppms. Good luck and i hope you took somthing away from this besides blahblahblah, ninjas a blowhard
Shit, you cant even see my buddy behind that plant lol