PH....Bounce back?

[2Supra4U]

Hey all,

I recently started my first grow (5-6 weeks ago) and I just bought a cheap (6.99) ph water test pool kit to check my water/soil ph yesterday, as when i came back from my x-mas break I had yellowing lower leaves/dying leaves (plants were taken care of while I was gone). It looked to me like simple N def. so I just got some general purpose 20-20-20 (as im waitng for proper nutes, etc to arrive). I fed the plants, but I have not seen much improvement in many days. So I bought the cheap ph kit, along with a hygrometer/thermometer and a heavy duty timer (for my hps coming soon). ANYWAYS, I tested the boiled water I had been using to water the plants (and the same water used while I was gone) and it registered the colour that goes with around 8.0. I was shocked to see this and right away i got rid of all water and switched to bottled. I checked it as well and its around 6.8-7.0 so its OK, its at least better then what I was appearently using lol. So i figured since the ph was so high, the plants have NUTES locked out, so me feeding them possibly could harm them more (cuz they might not need the nutes cuz there may be plenty in the soil being locked out). So what I did was I have flushed the plants out with 4 or 5 bottles of water each and let them all drain on a rack into buckets and made sure they were as drained as possible before i put them back in my grow area. I just wanted to know if anyone could tell me how long I should expect the plants to show signs of change from what I have done. I checked some runoff a while after I flushed and the since the flush I got a reading of 6.8-9ish. So hopefully they should kick back within a few days since I have lowered the ph back down to acceptable levels no?

I have 4 Skunk#1 plants, the biggest is 1ft, two are 7-8inches last is 4-5(it was a mutated plants from sprout, but is looking good now). It looks like to me the growth of all these plants were stunted, obviously because of the high PH levels after I tested. So I hope to see sings of change and then I plan to feed them again with a tiny amount of food to see if I can get some growth spurts....

thanks

[2Supra4U]

Heres some pics....

i think I decided since something happened here that I'm gonna start to germ some new plants for when I get my hps soon (use a MHconv bulb for veg. hps for flowering)...

I took a cutting off the biggest plant and hopefully it will survive and I will fond out if s a female or not....if it is I'm gonna get that one and use it for clones...

[2Supra4U]

3 more...

last one had to cut leaves cuz they were yellow/dying....

I cut leaves off all the plants...quite a few...

[Wolfman-XI]

i think i have the same problem as you with my plants... im not really sure what to buy though... i was planning on going to lowes or home depot or something to get some plant feed with hight N content.. ya think that would work?

[p_dj]

in another thread that you can use urea which is urine,put 1 tbsp to 1 gallon of water

[SmknVTEC]

supra,

Your plants look fine. Keep that pH around 6.8 and give the plants that have yellow leaves, your vegging nutes. The problem with urea is that it has tons of nitrogen and nothing else. Therefore, you will need other fertilizers to supplement the p k and micro nutrients. Here is a list of good ferts:

Good ferts would be anything good for vegetables such as 10-10-10 or 20-20-20. Fertilizers Inside Sun
http://www.insidesun.com/index.php?a...category&id=12 and http://www.insidesun.com/index.php?action=category&id=4

According to Stitch for Veg

Chemical Nutrients

Advanced nutrients Grow (2-1-6)
Vita Grow (4-0-0),
BC Grow(1.2-3.2-6.5)
GH Flora Grow (2-1-6)
GH Maxi grow (10-5-14)
GH floraNova grow (7-4-10),
Dyna gro Grow (7-9-5)

Organic Nutrients

Dr. Hornby's Iguana Juice Grow (3-1-3)
Advanced Nutrients Mother Earth Grow (1.5-.75-1.5)
Earthjuice Grow (2-1-1),
Pure Blend Pro (3-1.5-4)
Bone Meal(0-10-0)
Blood Meal(12-0-0)
Fish Emulsion (5-1-1)
Seabird Guano (11-13-3)
Crab Shells(2.5-3.0-.5)
Pure Blend Grow (0.4-.01-.5)
Marine Cuisine (10-7-7)
MaxiCrop Seaweed (1-0-3)
Super Tea (5-5-1)
Mexican Bat Guano (10-2-0)
Sea Island Jamaican Bat Guano (1-10-0)
Kelp Meal (1-0-2)
Seaweed Plus Iron
Neptune's Harvest (2-4-0.5)
Alaska Start-Up(2-1-2)
Bio-Grow (1.8-0.1-6.6)
Age old Grow (12-6-6)
AGE Old Kelp (.30-.25-.15)
Neptune's Harvest (2-4-1)
Maxicrop Seweed(.1-0-1)
METANATURALS Organic grow (3-3-3)
METANATURALS Organic nitrogen (16-0-0)

[2Supra4U]

they would have looked alot worse if i hadn't cut the dead/dying leaves before these pics were taken.

Plants looked better after one day and today look even better...some have grown and inch or so over night (height and width wise). My biggest is now well over 1ft (~1ft2or3). Hopefully these smaller ones that suffered the most will pickup a bit. Since they are still pretty damp, today I just fed each like a half cup to a cup of water with 20-20-20 nutes from a jug a was going to feed them with before I flushed. We'll se how they are in a few days. No wilting or drooping at all since the flush.

[toastybiz]

Your thinking sounds right on. N def due to nute lockout from high pH, stop all feeding until pH back in line. Nice job.

[2Supra4U]

Best news of all for me a few minutes ago when I decided to take a close look at my plants. I was looking at my biggest and noticed lil white hairs (pistols) growing at the top 3 leaf sets. I had been trying to root a cutting, but they would die as the cuttings were not cut big enough I think. Now, it seems I'm not gonna have to flower a cutting because she's showimg me what I want to see.

There is one thing bugging me but I'm pretty sure I've figured it out. There are blobs of light green ont he lower leaf sets where the female/male flowers would form. I'd like to know if those blobs are just the flowers in its beginning stages of creation. I figure they are, but just want to make sure...

some pics....sorry not my camera so pretty blurry but u still can make it out if u look close....

[2Supra4U]

I've done the reading, but someone correct me if i'm wrong.

When a vegging plant reaches a certain age (when it becomes mature), even if it has not been started on a 12/12 flowering light cycle, it will start to show these preflower signs so that we are able to tell its sex before it begins to flower correct?

thanks,

[SmknVTEC]

You are correct.
I can not see the pistils.
I don't think 38 percent humidity will give you a problem. Teens and tens on the humidity and yes problems but, not 38 percent. That is only 2 percent away from the perfect humidities of 40-60 percent.

[d4nk]

Hey all,

After looking at your yellowing plants, I think I might have the same problem. A while ago, all my plants started getting yellow from the tips of the bottom fan leaves inwards, until each leaf was completely yellow, where the process would repeat itself for the next set of fan leaves above it. Anyways, I came to the conclusion that this was a nitrogen deficiency (and it probably was) so I went out to the store and the only NPK fertilizer they had that was high in N was 'Plantprod Everacid 20-10-10' (for evergreens and other acid loving plants). Being the idiot I am, I bought this and gave all the plants a very tiny dillution and a couple days later, the yellowing leaves simply turned brown and fell off. Other green leaves also started turning brown. Obviously I fucked up the ph by carelessly giving my plants the wrong type of fertilizer.

After a while they thankfully recovered although their growth was much slower. Currently they're somewhat stunted but the the yellowing problem is happening again.

I'm suspecting that my ph is still messed up and/or that I need new fertilizer. Can anyone please help? Any help would be extremely appreciated!

(PS - dont ask why I tied down one of the plants. I'm a noob and thought that I did an LST and another cola would grow but i guess i'm wrong.)

[SmknVTEC]

d4nk,

What kind of soil are you using?
What kind of lights?
What is the pH of the soil?

Your node length is way to long indicating, not enough light, lights too far away from the plants or both. Also, your plant in that little square pot needs to be transplanted into something bigger ASAP. Check out those ferts that I listed above. You need to grab something off that list so you have something good to feed them with.

[d4nk]

Originally Posted by SmknVTEC

d4nk,

What kind of soil are you using?
What kind of lights?
What is the pH of the soil?

Your node length is way to long indicating, not enough light, lights too far away from the plants or both. Also, your plant in that little square pot needs to be transplanted into something bigger ASAP. Check out those ferts that I listed above. You need to grab something off that list so you have something good to feed them with.

Soil: Berger PH-balanced profesional quality potting mix http://www.bergerweb.com/en/melempot.php (it was given to me by an experienced grower)

Lights: 120W 11 000 lumens T8 flouros http://cgi.ebay.ca/T8-FLUORESCENT-GR...QQcmdZViewItem (bought it a long time ago and yes, i know i got ripped off.. but it doesnt get hot so i'm happy)

pH: I have no idea but tomorrow i'm going to go to a plant store to buy paper ph testers along with ferts.

As for the node length, I had to leave the city for 2 weeks and I lent them to a friend who has an automatic water pump system that he uses to water non-pot-plants except he had them by a windowsill which could explain why they stretched so much.

I know my lights aren't bad as my plants didn't stretch before I went away. The soil is also really good imo. You can read up about it in the provided link.

I'll get back to you once I test the ph of both the inputted and outputted water and i'll be sure to buy one of those ferts tomorrow from the list you posted.

Thanks!

[SmknVTEC]

Originally Posted by d4nk

Soil: Berger PH-balanced profesional quality potting mix http://www.bergerweb.com/en/melempot.php (it was given to me by an experienced grower)

What was this grower experienced at growing? I have a concern about the soil; it has what they call starter fertilizer in it. This is in the form of organic compost according to them. Problem is that mj needs no fertilizer for the first three weeks of life. And, organics can burn plants just not as easily as organics. This concerns me a bit. Otherwise lights are fine. Get back with soil and run-off pH.