Nute deficiency or lock out

[Tee_Aitch_See]

Hey growmies, 

Been quiet for a while working on improving my setup and craft. I started some Liberty Haze seeds from Barney's Farm 3 July and it's been a struggle from the start due to very low Temps. So excuse the stunted growth. 

I've ran into a bit of an issue this week and thought perhaps some of the experienced growers in this forum could advise. 

My medium pH seems to be high. I'm thinking it could be nute lock out and/or a build up in the soil because of the high pH. 

I'm using Jamie's living soil but I've amended it using coco, worm castings, humigrow and a bit of molasses. 

Been watering with aerated tap water pH 6.2 to 6.5 and feeding weekly using biobizz bloom, heaven, grow, top max and every second feed I add a bit of worm tea as well. 

I've also just been spraying foliage with plain aerated tap water daily. 

Lights - 130watt 3500k growopz + 75watt 3500k growopz. 

I'm also struggling with height so I'm considering adding some blue and red spectrum that I think may help with this. 

[CreX]

whats up man!!

so at a glance, i would say you may have over done it a bit along the way. but lets dig in and see what we can find.

38 minutes ago, Tee_Aitch_See said:

I'm using Jamie's living soil but I've amended it using coco, worm castings, humigrow and a bit of molasses. 

That sounds strange as the soil is ready to use as i understand it?

how much coco and worm castings did you use and what coco did you use? buffered or unbuffered? 

38 minutes ago, Tee_Aitch_See said:

Been watering with aerated tap water pH 6.2 to 6.5 and feeding weekly using biobizz bloom, heaven, grow, top max and every second feed I add a bit of worm tea as well. 

all at the same time? grow is for veg, the rest is for flower i believe? @Prom what is your opinion?

You should also be lowering the dose A LOT if you are mixing them all together and you can go a bit higher with the PH for a soil grow. 6.8 is the go to for soil.

what are you adjusting and measuring your Ph with?

43 minutes ago, Tee_Aitch_See said:

I've also just been spraying foliage with plain aerated tap water daily

i would stop this - only foliar for a purpose... we dont need rain on the leaves  

ie, epsom spray or fulvic spray or pest management sprays and not just plain water...

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

Hey bud, hope you are well  

That plant can easily be saved still no worries, let's see what we can do!

Just 3 quick questions, first one, you got a EC or PPM pen? can really save you right now!!

And then explain a bit more the watering regime? The tap water gets bubbled and sits at 6.2 to 6.5 and then you add the nutes? Or do you bubble it untill you mix the nutes and then ph before giving to the plants? 

Last one, what ml/L of those biobizz products you giving?

6.2 to 6.5 ph for living soil is 100%. won't lock out anything in that range.

Although, I do think you might be looking at lockout, but from nutrient toxicity. 

Your medium EC will tell you what to do right now. Living soils are already loaded with food, then you ammended with wormcastings, humigrow and molasses and you're giving all those biobizz products. EC for that size plant should be 0.3 to 0.6 and I think you might have gone a little above that with all those nutes. 

just my guess, but depending on how you ph your water before giving to the plants and how much ml/L you used of the biobizz stuff could possibly change my guess

[Tee_Aitch_See]

Thanks for the response bro. 

I used 1:1:4 ratio coco:worm castings:living soil 

The coco was in brick form which I soaked and added a teaspoon of espom salt. Mixed it together and left it to stand for about 2 weeks before potting. This was however like a month ago and I haven't had any other issues until now. 

I've tried to follow the freedom farms biobizz feeding chart. A buddy of mine did, and I was impressed with his results. 

I use pH up and pH down solution to adjust and I use a pH pen to check. I use tap water that I aerate with a pump and airstream for roughly 10 to 15 minutes. 

I'll pull back on the foliar spray. 

I noticed roots popping through the fabric pot and the topsoil as well so I'm considering a repot to a 30litre. But I do have some scope to just increase the volume of the 20 litre pot because, as you can see, I've folded the top over twice to help hold the ties. But I no longer need the fold so I can increase the volume to give it the full 20 litre. 

[Tee_Aitch_See]

6 minutes ago, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

Hey bud, hope you are well  

That plant can easily be saved still no worries, let's see what we can do!

Just 3 quick questions, first one, you got a EC or PPM pen? can really save you right now!!

And then explain a bit more the watering regime? The tap water gets bubbled and sits at 6.2 to 6.5 and then you add the nutes? Or do you bubble it untill you mix the nutes and then ph before giving to the plants? 

Last one, what ml/L of those biobizz products you giving?

6.2 to 6.5 ph for living soil is 100%. won't lock out anything in that range.

Although, I do think you might be looking at lockout, but from nutrient toxicity. 

Your medium EC will tell you what to do right now. Living soils are already loaded with food, then you ammended with wormcastings, humigrow and molasses and you're giving all those biobizz products. EC for that size plant should be 0.3 to 0.6 and I think you might have gone a little above that with all those nutes. 

just my guess, but depending on how you ph your water before giving to the plants and how much ml/L you used of the biobizz stuff could possibly change my guess

So I don't have an EC or PPM pen. Just a pH pen. 

I bubble the tap water, then add nutes and allow it to adjust then I adjust the pH and leave it for a few minutes to makes sure it doesn't change. 

In terms of the quantities of nutes, I'm using up to 2ml per litre of each besides the bloom. Just 1ml per litre of the bloom. 

[Tee_Aitch_See]

I think the issue may be in the medium.

I have a younger plant where I'm using less coco and worm castings. Just Jamie's soil with humigro. 

Different training techniques also applied to this one. High stress training. 

But she's pretty much on the same schedule as the wonky one. 

Both the same strain as well

[PsyCLown]

So I think your issue lies with the amendments you did - the coco and/or worm castings.

 

The coco in brick form needs to be buffered. So you would expand the coco then soak it in a solution of CalMag (higher strength as well - way more than a teaspoon. I recall you want an EC of at least 0.8 if not higher after adding the CalMag).

Let the coco soak overnight to allow for the cation exchange to take place. If the coco is not buffered then it can leach calcium and magnesium from your feed & soil and leave a deficiency and the high amount of salts which get pushed out in the cation exchange will sit in your medium.

At the same time, the worm castings could be throwing things out of whack in terms of nute levels or even PH and could be causing a lockout of some sort.

 

I feel the fact that the other plants in the same soil with less / no amendments is happy and healthy.

 

I am not 100% sure where exactly the issue lies though, is it with the coco or is it more with the worm castings?

If it is the coco, then you would want to add calmag to your feed and pushing a bit of extra feed through to the pots to help get rid of the salts from the coco cation could be good too... This could also help dilute the strength of the worm castings a little in the soil mixture though. 

What colour are the stems of the unhappy plant?

[CreX]

1 hour ago, Tee_Aitch_See said:

Thanks for the response bro. 

I used 1:1:4 ratio coco:worm castings:living soil 

The coco was in brick form which I soaked and added a teaspoon of espom salt. Mixed it together and left it to stand for about 2 weeks before potting. This was however like a month ago and I haven't had any other issues until now. 

I've tried to follow the freedom farms biobizz feeding chart. A buddy of mine did, and I was impressed with his results. 

I use pH up and pH down solution to adjust and I use a pH pen to check. I use tap water that I aerate with a pump and airstream for roughly 10 to 15 minutes. 

I'll pull back on the foliar spray. 

I noticed roots popping through the fabric pot and the topsoil as well so I'm considering a repot to a 30litre. But I do have some scope to just increase the volume of the 20 litre pot because, as you can see, I've folded the top over twice to help hold the ties. But I no longer need the fold so I can increase the volume to give it the full 20 litre. 

okay, not terrible by far.

you should have added a calcuim source aswell to the coco for your buff, but that likely isnt your issue in the ratio you used (1:1:4) - just a note for next time

the worm castings should also be fine - where did you source them from? store bought? or home made? if store bought... you went in fairly heavy... but it shouldnt be an issue if it was store bought ... home made tends to be crazy high in nutes and could possibly be causing kak in the pot now.

if the other plants are happy with less, i think you have your answer  

potting up to 30l with only the organic soil should help the most

[Tee_Aitch_See]

3 minutes ago, CreX said:

okay, not terrible by far.

you should have added a calcuim source aswell to the coco for your buff, but that likely isnt your issue in the ratio you used (1:1:4) - just a note for next time

the worm castings should also be fine - where did you source them from? store bought? or home made? if store bought... you went in fairly heavy... but it shouldnt be an issue if it was store bought ... home made tends to be crazy high in nutes and could possibly be causing kak in the pot now.

if the other plants are happy with less, i think you have your answer  

potting up to 30l with only the organic soil should help the most

To be honest, I forgot to add cal mag to my mix. That was my bad. 

The worm castings I usually buy from hydroponic.co.za in brackenfel. 

I'm hoping after the flush she got yesterday that she's recovering but I'll be repotting into just plain Jamie's soil and I think that should help. 

Thanks for the advice bro. Much appreciated. I'll post an update in a week or so.

Below was what she looked like last week. 

[Tee_Aitch_See]

12 minutes ago, PsyCLown said:

So I think your issue lies with the amendments you did - the coco and/or worm castings.

 

The coco in brick form needs to be buffered. So you would expand the coco then soak it in a solution of CalMag (higher strength as well - way more than a teaspoon. I recall you want an EC of at least 0.8 if not higher after adding the CalMag).

Let the coco soak overnight to allow for the cation exchange to take place. If the coco is not buffered then it can leach calcium and magnesium from your feed & soil and leave a deficiency and the high amount of salts which get pushed out in the cation exchange will sit in your medium.

At the same time, the worm castings could be throwing things out of whack in terms of nute levels or even PH and could be causing a lockout of some sort.

 

I feel the fact that the other plants in the same soil with less / no amendments is happy and healthy.

 

I am not 100% sure where exactly the issue lies though, is it with the coco or is it more with the worm castings?

If it is the coco, then you would want to add calmag to your feed and pushing a bit of extra feed through to the pots to help get rid of the salts from the coco cation could be good too... This could also help dilute the strength of the worm castings a little in the soil mixture though. 

What colour are the stems of the unhappy plant?

Hey bro,

Stems are green and looks healthy. Just very stocky. I don't want to give up on her because I struggled through an ice cold winter with her and she pulled through so letting her go would be very sad. 

I didn't add any cal mag to my soil mix. I don't know how and why I forgot and I think that could be the issue. 

Do you think that it would have taken this long to show? She's been in the amended soil for atleast a month now. 

[PsyCLown]

16 minutes ago, Tee_Aitch_See said:

Hey bro,

Stems are green and looks healthy. Just very stocky. I don't want to give up on her because I struggled through an ice cold winter with her and she pulled through so letting her go would be very sad. 

I didn't add any cal mag to my soil mix. I don't know how and why I forgot and I think that could be the issue. 

Do you think that it would have taken this long to show? She's been in the amended soil for atleast a month now. 

I am thinking possibly leaching over time.

 

Potting up and using just the plain soil I reckon will be an easy way to get her right again.

[GGG]

Welcome back stranger , That soil is made to not feed basically , should/could last a while grow from veg to flower , might be to much stuff you added, just give plain water and a microbe inoculant

Sent from my Hisense Infinity H50 using Tapatalk

[SkunkPharm]

Why would you amend store bought soil like that? Orgasoilux, Organics matter and freedom farms are made not so that you don’t have to do anything. You basically just give some essential microbes and water. If you want do fix all your issues that is what I would do from this time forward. Microbes and plain water. Microbes maybe once a month. Water for the rest of it. With organics less is more.

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

I see you getting your stuff from the Brackenfell Hydro store, so I am assuming you from cpt area? Depending on where you are I could possible swing by with my EC pen. 

First follow what was said, plain water from here on. 

if you repot, the new soil will also be loaded with nutes, so I would say, leave her in the pot she is for now and just give plain water to rehabilitate her to where she is actually able to form new roots and uptake nutes. (this will be when you see new healthy looking green growth on top) she's still in shock now and repotting into more nutritional soil will only shock her even more.

If a week or two goes by and the girl still not looking good you may need to flush her. Then I will come over and help you flush her to the right EC.

[Marzcanna]

21 hours ago, PsyCLown said:

So I think your issue lies with the amendments you did - the coco and/or worm castings.

 

The coco in brick form needs to be buffered. So you would expand the coco then soak it in a solution of CalMag (higher strength as well - way more than a teaspoon. I recall you want an EC of at least 0.8 if not higher after adding the CalMag).

Let the coco soak overnight to allow for the cation exchange to take place. If the coco is not buffered then it can leach calcium and magnesium from your feed & soil and leave a deficiency and the high amount of salts which get pushed out in the cation exchange will sit in your medium.

At the same time, the worm castings could be throwing things out of whack in terms of nute levels or even PH and could be causing a lockout of some sort.

 

I feel the fact that the other plants in the same soil with less / no amendments is happy and healthy.

 

I am not 100% sure where exactly the issue lies though, is it with the coco or is it more with the worm castings?

If it is the coco, then you would want to add calmag to your feed and pushing a bit of extra feed through to the pots to help get rid of the salts from the coco cation could be good too... This could also help dilute the strength of the worm castings a little in the soil mixture though. 

What colour are the stems of the unhappy plant?

Spot On

[Tee_Aitch_See]

Hi guys, 

Thanks all for the valuable input. I went with the amendments my buddy suggested and just thought I'd try it out. 

I did the repot in plain Orgasoilux yesterday, gave plain water at pH 6.3 after calibrating my pH pen and this evening she is looking much happier. 

[Tee_Aitch_See]

This girl is resilient. 

Thanks again for the help, guys. 

[Naughty.Psychonaut]

she's already looking much better remember all the new soil is jam packed with nutes, so keep the water pure till she's settled atleast or even till she starts asking for food. that's much easier to diagnose  and rectify than overfeed.

that's a moerse pot how big is it? you could possibly fill that whole space with just one plant in that size pot! 

I would still recommend checking the EC though, if your ph is in check and you get that EC in the 0.8 - 1.2 range your plant will literally explode with new growth.

[Tee_Aitch_See]

On 10/6/2021 at 9:40 AM, Naughty.Psychonaut said:

she's already looking much better remember all the new soil is jam packed with nutes, so keep the water pure till she's settled atleast or even till she starts asking for food. that's much easier to diagnose  and rectify than overfeed.

that's a moerse pot how big is it? you could possibly fill that whole space with just one plant in that size pot! 

I would still recommend checking the EC though, if your ph is in check and you get that EC in the 0.8 - 1.2 range your plant will literally explode with new growth.

It's a 30cm pot. I don't know exact volume but I intend to get the others growing outdoor soon and just have her in there. 

I'll start her scrog soon and probably flip in a 2 or 3 weeks. 

I'll see what I can do about checking the EC. Should probably invest in an EC pen soon

[Tee_Aitch_See]

[SkunkPharm]

What a recovery!!!!!!

[Tee_Aitch_See]

A very happy girl. 

Day 22 of flower