Plants looking lackluster and burnt

[Live Canna]

Hey All,

So I have 3 plants in my main tent at the moment and they all seem to be showing similar issues (although the one not as bad). I had this issue on the previous grow on one plant, but I am just not 100% sure what this is. Leaves seem to burn and yellow, and curl...its been multiple signs. On the previous run I was hit with Thrips and Fungus gnats, but this seems to me to be more of a nute problem?

I am growing indoor, organic (Freedom Farm soils, and recently on the repot some of my own organic soil I made from a base of coco and then added a bunch of items). Bio Bizz nutes with compost teas when I get around to it. I usually ph my watering to 5.8-6.2 as per FF and BioBizz, but with my soil mix have basically aimed for the same.

I did recently re pot the RQS Sherbet queen (big one and the small one) and the lucky packet seed I have got (other big more sativa like plant on the back left).

Leaves seem to vary in colour from top top bottom. I was also away for a few days, but I gave them a nice compost tea before I left.

The prdominent issue I had before and I feel am still seeing, is that some areas/blotches of a leaf would burn and die. Normally on the sides of the leaf.

Thanks for any help in advance.

[420SA]

Your plants are looking hungry. That "burnt" look is actually the result of a def. A sure sign of a def is when the leaves start yellowing from the bottom upwards.

Possibly a lockout. How often are you watering/feeding? Also, do you let the pots sit in those runoff buckets after you water?

[PsyCLown]

We'd need a bit more info.

 

So FF soil, bio bizz nutes and some teas.

So what biobizz are you feeding them and at what dose and how often - also what do you put in your teas and how often do you feed the teas?

 

I assume you do not PH your feeds at all?

[Prom]

Not easy... need some more information. 

How much and what exactly you give on BB nutes when you feed.

How heavy are those pots, i asume you let them dry? Very droopy the indica. I tend more to underfeeding... digesting itself... combined with to much watering

[Prom]

i see...  we all hang over those pictures at the same time

[Live Canna]

Hey peeps, thanks for the rapid response.

I agree with you all  ....been reading finally now that I had a gap, and also feel like I am overwatering and not feeding enough. I also thought deficient at first, that is why I made a quick tea before I went away.

In all honesty, work has just been really bad, so I have neglected them. If I try to remember correctly, I think this meant I was watering less often, but a lot more....so overwatering and with gaps in between where I did not have time. So I think they lost nutes in between, got over watered and also nutes washed out maybe. Bad grower, bad!!  ....I will try and get back on track this week. The small Sherbet queen is definitely looking the best so far.

Nutes: So I am feeding BioBizz Grow (and later bloom) at the recommended 1ml per 1l of water. Using RO water and PH to 5.8-6.2.

Teas: (I know they are probably not grand, but still learning on that front. I put a good tablespoon or 2 for feed, 1-2 cups of different compost of what I have on hand. And then 1-2 cups of worm castings. I also sometimes add kelp flakes (a lot more recently). I do not typically PH my teas, but feed as is.

I do let the pots dry. I usually don't water with lots of run off, if any, so the trays/bowls are more there to catch a few drops and keep things organized.

 

Its odd how you can have great grows, and then the next one falls off the rails...although I definitely believe this is 100% my fault and work/busy related 

 

[Prom]

1ml/l with every feeding?

[Live Canna]

2 minutes ago, Prom said:

1ml/l with every feeding?

Well...  Normally yes...not when work is crazy. I left a lot of them out and just gave PH'd water. So...I think there is definitely a nugget there in terms of where I went wrong   I need to give them more love.

I was worried it may have been overfeeding now, so I am glad I checked, thanks all!

[Prom]

Give them a 2ml/l feeding once decent dry. then stick to your feeding cycle. You might want to add a shot of calmag (if you use nitrate based, only 1ml Grow per liter) or epsom salt. Will take 2 weeks to bounce back. As they are in a bad state, take your time to check how wet they are before you feed.. they use less now, as they stopped growing. The small one and the left one should easy come back.. the right, not doing to well. Root system is weak, is very yellow already.

Is like in real life.. if you don't give your lady enough attention, she comes over and kicks you in the nuts 

 

Edited April 29, 2021 by Prom

[420SA]

Be careful of not wetting all your soil each watering. You don't want your soil to dry out completely in between waterings/feeds. It prevents the uptake of nutrients and reduces your micro life

FF soil is quite airy if I'm not mistaken so don't be afraid of getting it too wet during a watering. You actually want some runoff to ensure thorough "wetting" IMO, unless you water your plants very slowly... drippers are a different story.

When did you transplant into those pots? If they haven't been in that soil for long I can't see how a lack of feeding would lead to your plants looking the way they do at the moment. They would still look decent, even with very little feeding. 

Quoting FF's website below

"The nutrients in the soil should be adequate for approximately 2-6 weeks before additional nutrient applications are required."

So this still points to a lockout issue for me, either due to PH, lack of thorough wetting, or perhaps your teas.  Your watering PH sounds fine though so let's maybe look at your compost teas. How are you making them and do you smell the teas before giving to your plants? What kind air pump you using for how much water?

[Live Canna]

37 minutes ago, Prom said:

Give them a 2ml/l feeding once decent dry. then stick to your feeding cycle. You might want to add a shot of calmag (if you use nitrate based, only 1ml Grow per liter) or epsom salt. Will take 2 weeks to bounce back. As they are in a bad state, take your time to check how wet they are before you feed.. they use less now, as they stopped growing. The small one and the left one should easy come back.. the right, not doing to well. Root system is weak, is very yellow already.

Is like in real life.. if you don't give your lady enough attention, she comes over and kicks you in the nuts 

 

Thanks, will definitely give that a go. I have epsom salts here, so will give that a go on the next feed.

 

33 minutes ago, 420SA said:

Be careful of not wetting all your soil each watering. You don't want your soil to dry out completely in between waterings/feeds. It prevents the uptake of nutrients and reduces your micro life

FF soil is quite airy if I'm not mistaken so don't be afraid of getting it too wet during a watering. You actually want some runoff to ensure thorough "wetting" IMO, unless you water your plants very slowly... drippers are a different story.

When did you transplant into those pots? If they haven't been in that soil for long I can't see how a lack of feeding would lead to your plants looking the way they do at the moment. They would still look decent, even with very little feeding. 

Quoting FF's website below

"The nutrients in the soil should be adequate for approximately 2-6 weeks before additional nutrient applications are required."

So this still points to a lockout issue for me, either due to PH, lack of thorough wetting, or perhaps your teas.  Your watering PH sounds fine though so let's maybe look at your compost teas. How are you making them and do you smell the teas before giving to your plants? What kind air pump you using for how much water?

100%, I have also always been of the opinion not to let it dry completely, much more vital for organic I find where you are trying to nurture the microbes.

So yeah I do use a sprayer and water very slowly and properly. I think this is really just due to neglect and over watering, but watering less often. With having skipped nutes a lot, I think that is why it ended up like this. In hindsight now re your query on the transplant, it was about a week ago. And they were looking bad before already (work has been bad for a while  ) so yeah. The 2 main ones here were actually an experiment for a mini seedling area I was running under a floodlight. I gave them even less attention before hand as I was finishing off my main grow. So my thoughts are this problem has been there a while, I have just not had the time/put in the effort.

Teas - Happy to learn more there, so what I do is, I use the above ingredients. Usually use around 3-5 litres depending on the qty of plants I want to water. I use a small air pump from the pet shop (all I could afford at that point), but it makes about half of the surface water churn with bubbles. I do smell them before hand, don't ask me what it smelt like now as I forgot. Although I must say they always smelt earthy. Then I used BioBizz Grow in there at some point and the smell was more "off" to me, so I stopped doing that.

[Bos]

If I may ask as well, how did the transplant go? Sometimes you get the plant into the new pot with almost zero disturbance(best case), sometimes it goes rough and the roots take a knock.(bad stunting) My plants usually perk up after a week or 2.

With AACT's you need plenty air and movement. One fishtank pump might be too little. Tried it and it didnt work, I now run a dual air pump and fountain pump together(for air and agitation) in a 25lt bucket for only 18-24hrs, longer than that I get funky smells, the good aerobic bacteria deplete the food supply and die off, then the anearobic bacteria take over.

Not saying that is what happened but there may be a risk.

[PsyCLown]

1ml/L is quite low, I'd say 2ml to 3ml/L, although those plants seem to be on the smaller side and are not happy so perhaps  2.5ml/l and bump up to 3ml/l once they are recovered. I assume those are 20L pots?

 

You could even do a foliar feed, cannot remember if its Grow or Fish Mix which is recommended for the foliar.

Feeding with just plain water is fine if you are in a pinch, but long term it is a no no! If life is busy, give the plants a little bit of water to keep them alive and prevent them from drooping (perhaps 1L per pot) and then later that day or the next day do a proper feed with the usual 2L to 3L of feed per 20L pot.

 

As mentioned, it is important to properly water your medium to prevent it from drying out too much - which would affect the microbes but more importantly will make it difficult to rehydrate the soil properly again. Even with coco, which is much better at absorbing liquid compared to soil, it can be a slow and difficult process to fully saturate the medium again and prevent the feed from finding channels and running through the medium as opposed to wetting the entire medium.

 

Overwatering is a thing, but IMO seldom happens. If anything I feel most growers end up underwatering as they get scared off by people on forums always telling them to not overwater. Don't water your plants if the top of the soil is still wet basically, unless you know what you are doing, and you should be fine.

[Live Canna]

11 minutes ago, Bos said:

If I may ask as well, how did the transplant go? Sometimes you get the plant into the new pot with almost zero disturbance(best case), sometimes it goes rough and the roots take a knock.(bad stunting) My plants usually perk up after a week or 2.

With AACT's you need plenty air and movement. One fishtank pump might be too little. Tried it and it didnt work, I now run a dual air pump and fountain pump together(for air and agitation) in a 25lt bucket for only 18-24hrs, longer than that I get funky smells, the good aerobic bacteria deplete the food supply and die off, then the anearobic bacteria take over.

Not saying that is what happened but there may be a risk.

Thanks Bos, some nice points there. Agreed, I could do with more aeration and water flow/agitation also. Will need to invest some more there.

Transplant wise it worked out fine. In actual fact the smallest plant was the "worst" as the roots were not holding the medium fully yet, but she perked up and barely flinched. Rest I think had more issues with what was there already.

[Marzcanna]

Diffinatly looks like a mobile deficiency, what's your PH reading?

[Live Canna]

4 minutes ago, PsyCLown said:

1ml/L is quite low, I'd say 2ml to 3ml/L, although those plants seem to be on the smaller side and are not happy so perhaps  2.5ml/l and bump up to 3ml/l once they are recovered. I assume those are 20L pots?

 

You could even do a foliar feed, cannot remember if its Grow or Fish Mix which is recommended for the foliar.

Feeding with just plain water is fine if you are in a pinch, but long term it is a no no! If life is busy, give the plants a little bit of water to keep them alive and prevent them from drooping (perhaps 1L per pot) and then later that day or the next day do a proper feed with the usual 2L to 3L of feed per 20L pot.

 

As mentioned, it is important to properly water your medium to prevent it from drying out too much - which would affect the microbes but more importantly will make it difficult to rehydrate the soil properly again. Even with coco, which is much better at absorbing liquid compared to soil, it can be a slow and difficult process to fully saturate the medium again and prevent the feed from finding channels and running through the medium as opposed to wetting the entire medium.

 

Overwatering is a thing, but IMO seldom happens. If anything I feel most growers end up underwatering as they get scared off by people on forums always telling them to not overwater. Don't water your plants if the top of the soil is still wet basically, unless you know what you are doing, and you should be fine.

Thanks, I will up the nutes a bit on the feed tonight then and see how it goes. Yeah 20l on the big ones and a 10 at the front as she was popped later. Will end all in a 20 most likely. Thanks for the advice re foliar, I will look that up. I do do that with my teas always (more as a guard as I have heard that is good for pests).

Yeah agreed, and sadly only I am at fault there   The plan was always to feed properly the next day/night...but the day never came

I definitely overwatered in the beginning when I was learning (well...learning much bigger chunks, now its the small bits that kill me ). But yeah, I see that as a common thread of advice. I think my "assumption" of my horrible watering scheme these last weeks makes sense.

Improvements coming!!  

[Live Canna]

26 minutes ago, Marzcanna said:

Diffinatly looks like a mobile deficiency, what's your PH reading?

I don't have a soil PH meter that is reliable. Could check run off I guess. Watering PH as per above messages 5.8-6.2

[Marzcanna]

36 minutes ago, Live Canna said:

I don't have a soil PH meter that is reliable. Could check run off I guess. Watering PH as per above messages 5.8-6.2

Pump it up a bit, 6.5 -6.7, and as mentioned above use a cal-mag, although i don't see any signs of a immobile nute  deficiencies yet, with LEDS there's now studies that LEDs effect calcium, so it is advisable to supplement it regardless, Im gona go out on a huge guess and say due to the low ph levels of your run off, your plants isn't able to uptake the nutes efficiently, coco does well in the ranges of 5.8 - 6.3 while soil does better in ranges of 6.5 - 6.7 im going out on a guess again and say that it looks like a lack of nitrogen. I will have to read through the rest of the replies

Edited April 29, 2021 by Marzcanna

[Live Canna]

3 minutes ago, Marzcanna said:

Pump it up a bit, 6.5 -6.7, and as mentioned above use a cal-mag, although i don't see any signs of a immobile nute  deficiencies yet, with LEDS there's now studies that LEDs effect calcium, so it is advisable to supplement it regardless, Im gona go out on a huge guess and say due to the low ph levels your plants isn't able to uptake the nutes efficiently, by the looks im going out on a guess again and say that it looks like a lack of nitrogen. But thats just a guess will have to read through the rest of the replies

Thanks appreciate it and the insight. I am going to get out of my rut first and give my plants some love before changing bigger things like PH. I had no issues on previous runs, so as said I think this is purely me and the lack of attention I gave them, or more so shitty attention  But thanks, will definitely consider that as another step to take. I may actually try that PH range with my custom soil (which I think is here too), can't remember what I planted where, I will need to check. But for FF the recommendation from them is within my range. It didn't give me any troubles, but who knows

[Marzcanna]

9 minutes ago, Live Canna said:

Thanks appreciate it and the insight. I am going to get out of my rut first and give my plants some love before changing bigger things like PH. I had no issues on previous runs, so as said I think this is purely me and the lack of attention I gave them, or more so shitty attention  But thanks, will definitely consider that as another step to take. I may actually try that PH range with my custom soil (which I think is here too), can't remember what I planted where, I will need to check. But for FF the recommendation from them is within my range. It didn't give me any troubles, but who knows

I would also invest on a PH and TDS pen. TDS not so much for soil, but its always good to know your EC/PPM when you run into issues. All the best with your grow.

Edited April 29, 2021 by Marzcanna

[PsyCLown]

with LEDS there's now studies that LEDs effect calcium, so it is advisable to supplement it regardless.

You got a link for this?

Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk

[The_StonedTrooper]

I have heard that coco is Calcium deficient and will first absorb a certain amount of Calcium, before there is any available to your plants, but not yet about the LED, and only know that LEDs usually will give you purple stems.

[Marzcanna]

7 minutes ago, PsyCLown said:

https://www.dutch-passion.blog/growing-cannabis-with-led-grow-lights-differences-between-growing-cannabis-with-led-and-hps/

That one doesn't quite explain it in depth, but will post one or 2 more links when i get home. I read a good study on it must just search for it.

You got a link for this?

Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk
 

 

 

Edited April 29, 2021 by Marzcanna

[Live Canna]

12 minutes ago, Marzcanna said:

I would also invest on a PH and TDS pen. TDS not so much for soil, but its always good to know your EC/PPM when you run into issues. All the best with your grow.

Thanks man  Yeah always been keen to get the TDS pen also. But first on the wish list is a proper soil ph pen (blue lab)   I love having numbers and stats, PH, TDS, EC, PPM anything  Just a pity they are all so expensive (or at least the proper ones. 

[Marzcanna]

1 hour ago, PsyCLown said:

 

 

Quote

 

You got a link for this?

Sent from my Redmi Note 7 Pro using Tapatalk
 

 

https://www.ilovegrowingmarijuana.com/nutrients-deficiency-calcium/

There's a few around, I can't seem to find the proper study I read, will come across it eventually. But I also like the above one, say LEDs offer a smaller spectrum of light. Certain wavelengths the plant requires to generate calcium are absent

Edited April 29, 2021 by Marzcanna