What's going on here?

I went to top my gigabud today and the lower leaves have that weird brown thing going on.. She's about two weeks from seedling. I've been watering to try and get my ph to 6.5, soil is about 7.2 ph now. I've got two other strains that I already topped and they are not having this problem. Any ideas?

May I ask, how are you testing your soil pH?

I'm just using a two probe ph analyzer

Bump

For starters, not all strains respond well to being topped. I don't think that's your issue though.

It would help to know what strain(s) you're growing.

Some folks might disagree but in my personal experience high humidity can cause leaves to do exactly what I see in your picture. Why is it all the way up to 58%?

Also, if it's 58% now just wait until the plants are flowering with buds full of water and plenty of water in the soil. You'll be in the 60%+ range and that's when a lot of problems can begin with mildew & mold.

IMO you need to get a handle on your humidity or you will face a long / difficult grow.

Good Luck.

Strains are gigabud (sick) growing along side g13 pineapple express 2, and dinafem blue Thai. Blue Thai and pineapple are the only ones topped right now. As for humidity it's a new setup and I'm still adjusting , I need to get a dehumidifier to cure the moisture problem in general. Do you think that's all the problem is with the rusty leaves? Thanks for all the help!

Yeah, I think that's your culprit. Some strains can handle it, some can't.

It's impossible to know for sure though.. Just get the humidity down, wait about a week and if the problem doesn't progress you'll know for sure. It needs to come down anyway for reasons I stated previously. Good Luck.

To be honest, I wouldn't put much thought into it. The plant was just reallocating some nutrients. It may not be any problem at all, except that to continue the current rate of growth, the plant needed stored nutrients to continue. If all of your leaves start doing that, or fresh growth appears that way, then I would start trouble shooting, otherwise, keep going and see what happens. i wouldn't try to adjust my water to my soil pH. Those sensors can be highly inaccurate. To be on the safe side, always water with a 6.1-6.3 pH. The soil is a natural buffer, and is probably all over the place in pH on a smaller local root level.

IMHO, it seems to me that you are growing your plant faster than it is ready to. Too much light and not enough roots to uptake the nutrients needed. Back your light off 8"-12" and see how the plant responds. You may be forcing the main meristem to grow ahead of the roots, in which case, I would recommend some Mycorrhizae inoculate like Great White or OregonismXXL

a plant can't be grown faster than it's ready to. they grow at their own pace. moving the light away reduces the intensity and will cause stretching. a light that's too close causes shortening. it's difficult to know which distance is best. reggae1017 please provide more info. what soil, what ferts, how often? air temp? that discoloration isn't normal typically. almost looks like too much phosphorus but that's impossible to know unless you give more info. this can help stop the guessing game.

how to say, you are flooding it with light. the plant will grow faster with stronger light. there isn't enough nutrients there to support that growth, so it is calling upon the stored nutrients in the leaves.

the plant will stretch to get more light only if necessary, not automatically. there are five key factors in the plants growth, a chain so to say, light-water-food-oxygen to roots-CO2. It's only as strong as it's weakest link. If everything is ready to go but the food isn't there, brown spots on your leaves appear. Our job as growers is to make sure that the plants can eat as much as possible. Not, get as big as possible, or green as possible, but eat. We want big flowers, unfertilized seed sets as the end result. That's what all plants do. They eat in order to be able to create a seed set to proliferate. All of those five factors are key to eating, and the plant is feeding on itself because the food is not there for it, or it is unable to eat that food do to lockout or whatever reason.

Excerpt from the thread "Plant Moisture Stress" found on this site

2. High Heat - the plant is losing water via it’s leaves faster than what can be replaced by the root system. The leaf responds by leaf margin cupping or rolling (up or down) in order to conserve moisture. A good example is reflected by the appearance of broad-bladed turf grass on a hot summer day, high noon, with low soil moisture levels - the leaf blade will roll in and the grass will take on a dull, greyish-green appearance. Upon sunrise when moisture levels have returned to normal, the leaf blade will be flat. Lower the heat and concentrate on developing a large, robust root system by practicing sound plant culture. An efficient and effective root system will go a long way to prevent heat induced leaf dessication and leaf margin curling by supplying sufficient moisture for good plant health. One short episode of high heat is enough to permanently destroy leaf tissue and cause a general decline in the leaves affected, which often occurs to leaves found at the top of the plant located near HID lamps. The damaged leaf (usually) does not recover, no matter what you do. Bummer in the summer. One can only look to new growth for indications that the problem has been corrected.

3. High Light - yes, it’s true, you can give our faves too much light. Cannabis does not receive full sun from sunrise to sunset in its natural state. It is shaded or given reduced light levels because of adjacent plant material, cloudy conditions, rain, debris and dust collection on the leaf surface, twilight periods of early morning and late afternoon, and light intensity changes caused by a change in the seasons. Too much light mainly serves to bleach out and destroy chlorophyll as opposed to causing leaf cupping, but it often goes hand-in-hand with high heat for indoor growers. Again, back off on the light and concentrate on developing/maintaining an efficient and robust root system. Keep in mind that all but equatorial material receive less light during flowering than during the vegetative stage.

I apologize. I just realized i posted like five or six messages in the wrong thread
sorry bro