Yellowing Too Early in Flower? - Orinoco

Hi everyone, I'm having some concerns with one of my latest grows I'm hoping to get help with.

I started getting yellow lower center leaves at about three weeks into switching to Flower. I may have switched to Bloom nutes too early, about 1 week into switching lights, so about 4 weeks into flower I fed with some Grow nutes in case it was a Nitrogen deficiency. But then I started to get claw leaves making me think too much Nitrogen, and I don't think I was over watering as I'm using fabric pots with fast draining soil mix. About 3 days ago I did a flush using 3-gallons of water only. I'm at 5 weeks flower now and although the buds are looking healthy, as is the outside of the plant, I'm concerned that the center is still yellowing and moving up towards the top. Pictures were taken just now and I noticed brown spots on leaves as well, which I did not notice over the past couple weeks when the yellowing first started.

She wants more nitrogen... Many of them want more nitrogen than expected in flower....

Sorry about multiple posts, I keep getting a message about a sneaky URL...

Orinoco seed
3 gallon fabric air pot
Fox Farm Ocean Forest with extra perlite and clay balls added.
3 Mars 300W LEDs
75 degrees, low 15 to 25% humidity, could this be the problem?
Consistently 6.5 runoff

The room is somewhat sealed and there is a carbon filter venting air outside but nothing to bring fresh air into the room. Although I open the door every night when the lights turn on for 3 to 6 hours. I use a moisture meter and often water every two or three days, switching between water and feed each time. I mix the nutrients at either 50% or 75% from recommended. The brand of nutes is a well respected local store home brew that just has GROW and BLOOM written on them so don't know composition, each with two parts to be mixed with water.

Does anyone have any ideas what I'm doing wrong? I know some yellowing is normal at the end of flower but I think this is happening too early and the brown spots are new and worrisome. Also, the humidity in the room is very low, usually around 20ish percent. My last grow was closer to 50% but I'm assuming winter months with heat on in house is causing lower numbers. Thoughts? Should I just keep going forward as is, adding Bloom nutes and watering? I'm guessing 4 weeks max left until harvest.

Thanks!

Wow ANC, that was fast response. I posted more info in a few posts as I was getting a SNEAKY URL warning. I don't think it's Nitrogen, but I could be wrong. Thoughts after more info?

The plants in the center seems more effected, check your light distance, increasing light distance while stress help plants to heal more quickly, also the humidity is too low. hang some wet towels there. It will increase humidity. First make sure the position of your light, if it is not caused by lights, then think about adding more nutes, otherwise u may get into another problem like nute burn etc

That's one plant and the yellowing started from the bottom center and took 2 weeks to move up. Wouldn't light problem start from top? The three LED Mars 300W lights are all about 14" from top buds.

Add little more nutrients, if u r using coco with R.O water, then cal-mag supplement is a good choice . Don't add nitrogen it will affect ur bud size and remember when u r progressing towards flowering, yellowing leaves (look like nitrogen deficiency) is normal. I think give them little cal-mag, it won't hurt ur plants. Search for cal-mag deficiency.

This happened to me once when I started growing. Turned out to be my ph stick was defect. Also, have a look for bugs.

So after a week or trying a few things, the problem isn't getting better and it may actually be getting worse. To recap, two weeks ago when first saw the yellowing I tried adding nitrogen, got clawed leaves, so did a flush next watering with 3 gallons water only. After flush I ran both bloom and grow nutes in very amounts (25% recommended dose for each).

Last week I added 5ml/gallon cal-mag and very low quantity of bloom nutes (again 25% recommended). The leaves continue to yellow and get brown spots and it's almost accelerating. ph out is consistently 6.5

Latest pics attached. Many leaves have fallen off so most of these yellow leaves were green last week. Many leaves are clawing now.

What should I try next? Flush again? Am I getting nute burn? Should I keep running cal-mag? Thoughts?

I just checked the buds under a microscope and there are already some amber trichomes. Mostly clear and cloudy, but some amber. Is this normal at 6-weeks? I've never seen amber so soon. Maybe I can harvest early if this plant gets too unhealthy. Thoughts anyone?

With low humidity nutrients are moving into the leaves faster.

I’d raise humidity. Back the light off a few inches too. Notice how it’s the big fan leaves that are yellowing? They do the most photosynthesis.

I had the same issue last run and I never fixed it.

I know a high p/k ratio can cause early senescence, you did switch early to bloom.. as did I.
Low humidity burned my leaves, 45% worked well for me.

Something is competing with your N. Either Copper in your water or too much K..

troutfarm said:

I just checked the buds under a microscope and there are already some amber trichomes. Mostly clear and cloudy, but some amber. Is this normal at 6-weeks? I've never seen amber so soon. Maybe I can harvest early if this plant gets too unhealthy. Thoughts anyone?

Click to expand...

If the plants are in stress they finished the flowering process early than the expected date, but i have noticed amber early in my plants but i didn't harvest early, i let the buds to swell more but i did compromise with quality and high of the buds. Also sugar leaves started burning too. U should wait for more suggestions! Ask the experts, don't follow everybody's opinion, just decide urself, u may earn experience with what u did and then what u get

troutfarm said:

Hi everyone, I'm having some concerns with one of my latest grows I'm hoping to get help with.

I started getting yellow lower center leaves at about three weeks into switching to Flower. I may have switched to Bloom nutes too early, about 1 week into switching lights, so about 4 weeks into flower I fed with some Grow nutes in case it was a Nitrogen deficiency. But then I started to get claw leaves making me think too much Nitrogen, and I don't think I was over watering as I'm using fabric pots with fast draining soil mix. About 3 days ago I did a flush using 3-gallons of water only. I'm at 5 weeks flower now and although the buds are looking healthy, as is the outside of the plant, I'm concerned that the center is still yellowing and moving up towards the top. Pictures were taken just now and I noticed brown spots on leaves as well, which I did not notice over the past couple weeks when the yellowing first started.

Click to expand...

troutfarm said:

I just checked the buds under a microscope and there are already some amber trichomes. Mostly clear and cloudy, but some amber. Is this normal at 6-weeks? I've never seen amber so soon. Maybe I can harvest early if this plant gets too unhealthy. Thoughts anyone?

Click to expand...

I didn't follow the thread but the title sounded like something a new White Rhino × is doing on me right now but mine is different, I dropped the nitrogen too soon but she actually pruned herself really quickly and saved me some time LOL! To fix it I'll just feed the next run differently

When I saw yours I was thinking they're almost done, I wouldn't sweat it too much, they look nice and frosty overall, and I suspect some of that is natural die-off anyway, next time maybe reassess your feeding and nutrient program?
-good luck

It's a mobile nutrient issue at the very least.

Out of curiosity have you checked the ppm of the run off to see if that's a salt build up? Example: You put in 700ppm and get 1500 out.

Pretty sure you are not gonna stop that sheet this late. I have seen this before and it gets worse.

Magnesium is your friend all ways.

If you are getting purple's and it's not a purple strain it's P related.

46-53% rH is the zone. 15% is way low.

#Random

Great, thanks for all the tips and info everyone!

I will get the humidity up right away and see if that helps. I'll look into the light height again, but as mentioned, this problem started at the bottom and slowly moved up towards the top so my very limited knowledge tells me that a light problem should start damaging leaves at the top, closest to the light.

I don't have a PPM meter, but I just ordered one from Amazon so I'll be able to get that data shortly.

I think I may have more info on what caused this problem and hopefully an expert can help explain if I'm right or wrong on this. This is my first grow checking ph, my mistake was only checking the runoff. I've been consistently getting 6.5 out, which I thought was almost perfect... but I just checked my water in (tap water left out for 24+ hours), and it's all ph 8.0. I thought as long as the runoff was in range, I was good. Could I have caused nutrient lockout with my high ph in? Is this normal to put 8.0 in and always get 6.5 out? If this was my biggest mistake, what's the best plan of action at 6 weeks flower to minimize damage?

When you increase humidity that late into flowering you got to be aware of molds and such, you want to keep lots of air moving 24/7

I just saw what you said about pH, yeah you want to pH adjust your water or nutrient mix before you feed it from now on. Don't worry so much about what comes out right now

Actually it's kind of amazing they look that good considering. Now that you know imagine how much better you're going to do going forward..!
-good luck

Excellent, thanks Beachwalker!

I got my AquaPro AP-1 PPM meter today and just used it... and the news probably isn't good. I adjusted the ph in from 8.0 to 6.5 (using 0.2ml ph-down, 85% Phosphoric Acid). The PPM in of just the water and ph-down was 200 ppm. The runoff was ph 7.0 and 2050 ppm, which I assume is WAY too high? I just used the meter out of the box without calibration (as I don't have calibration solution), but even if it's off a bit, I'm sure that is buildup of something. So between my bad ph-in over the weeks and this high ppm, now what?

Is it safe to assume that at over 6-weeks flower that I'm best to just use ph water for the rest of my feedings to try and flush this out? Or should I do one big flush with ph water and then re-test ppm?

troutfarm said:

Excellent, thanks Beachwalker!

I got my AquaPro AP-1 PPM meter today and just used it... and the news probably isn't good. I adjusted the ph in from 8.0 to 6.5 (using 0.2ml ph-down, 85% Phosphoric Acid). The PPM in of just the water and ph-down was 200 ppm. The runoff was ph 7.0 and 2050 ppm, which I assume is WAY too high? I just used the meter out of the box without calibration (as I don't have calibration solution), but even if it's off a bit, I'm sure that is buildup of something. So between my bad ph-in over the weeks and this high ppm, now what?

Is it safe to assume that at over 6-weeks flower that I'm best to just use ph water for the rest of my feedings to try and flush this out? Or should I do one big flush with ph water and then re-test ppm?

Click to expand...

If it were me, I would use water and Epsom salt @ 3-5gr per gallon for the next 3-5 waterings or use about 600ppm of feed. More likely would do the water first then transition into the feed again.

Get the run-off out of the trays as soon as it comes out, don't let the plant sit in that sheet.

#IMO

Thanks Cx2H, this may be a silly question... I've never worked with Epsom salt. Are you recommending that for the magnesium, the sulphur, or both? The reason I ask is I have Cal-Mag, so if it's mostly the magnesium the plant needs am I ok to just run the Cal-Mag instead of Epsom salt? I'm of course fine with getting Epsom salts, I'm more trying to learn with this question.