Soo ive had a problem and have been trying to figure it out but i just don't know anymore! I have a soil mix with 1/3 part compost 1/3 part promix 1/3 lava rock+pumice and then i added 2 cups per/cu ft of the Build A Soil nut kit for coots mix which is what i'm using. I also added 3 cups of the mineral mix from BAS as well. Mixed in a little bit of karanja and 5% charged bio char as well and water with aloe, coconut water, and fulpower with locally sourced fresh worm castings as a topdress mixed with some oly mountain compost and then layered a thick layer of barley straw as mulch on top of my existing live mulch. I've had a few problems since i started my no till. At first i transplanted the clones too early and not with a strong enough root structure which causes them to freakout and show a lot of problems. I tried very lightly to fix but then from talking to others on here i just watered with water pretty much. I was given a mother blueberry in a 1 gal of a buddies mix then took 6 clones and transplanted into 10 gal smarties. The 6 small plants showed the problems while the mother was healthy for a good month at least. Once the plants gained root structure most of the problems went away except 2 which i think are related. The mother plant was then transplanted into my mix in a 10 gallon and didnt show any problems until about 2 weeks ago. All the new growth looks really healthy but then as soon as it starts to show it slowly as new growth forms. She started showing the same slight yellowing from the tip of the leave to the bottom and from the outside inward with slow growth and purple/hard stems (buddy has a health blueberry that i got mine from and his stems arent purple). You can't even see the problems on the mother plant without looking very very closely because it's so slightly and hasn't really gotten worse but the mother has like all purple and hard stems to where the clones are less purple but still purple and are not hard at all compared to the mother. They're almost woody but don't look woody and are just not easily bendable. I've jumped from potassium to magnesium deficiency but can't pin it out. I have yet to ph my run off but didnt think i had to in organics especially if i was following a proven mix. I have pictures attached, but what does it look like to you guys? Ill get back with you guys later tonight when i water to check my pH run off. I've added fish hydrolysate (potash) twice in 3 weeks and have been having this problem for a month. I just can't get it and am stumped and i feel like once i properly diagnose this i can fix it because it seems like a deficiency but nothing is helping which is leading me to assume it could be a lock out? Not sure. These leaves look too similar to similar problems. Sorry for this being soo long but i just really needed to start a page for this problem and explain my problems. Thanks for any repys, i really need help!
mother plant looks good to me, man. purple stems are no big deal IME. how much water have you been giving to the little ones?
Has the look of a nutrient deficiency. Do you check and adjust the pH of your water? If not, better start doing that unless you want your roots to lock up on you. If you've not been doing that, that very well may be your problem since root lockup won't allow the plant to take in any nutrition. Is that all the soil you're planning on putting in those pots? Those are 10 gallon pots and it doesn't look like you've got even hardly a good gallon or two in them. The roots of your plant are the most important part and they need to be happy if you want your plants to produce anything. Also, beware of large smart pots. Lots of people have serious issues telling when they are actually dried out enough to water or not and I've seen multiple people talk about giving their plants root rot from them staying too moist. A cheap fix to that is buying a moisture probe...something with a long probe that you can use to get way down in a deep pot with just to be sure everything is sufficiently dry before you water more. And, if you're going to mix you're own soil, then I suggest using a tried and true recipe and sticking to it. My guess is the soil since everything eventually started with the problem after transplant into that soil. I would chunk that and buy some good premixed grow soil until I got through a successful round or two. Then maybe try to build your own. But just because a soil bag says "organic" does not mean that it's not loaded up with slow release fertilizers that will just mess your world up while trying to keep everything balanced.
OP, I concur with TJ. Your larger plant looks perfectly fine to me (on my phone) and the smaller plants look like the soil may just be a bit moist. I hate to even ask this but with the soil mix you've described, could it be possible that you might simply be overthinking this? Please don't worry about purple stems. Your plants look good but the smaller ones "might" just be slightly overwatered. Whatever you do, please do not check and adjust the pH of water going into an organic garden - leave that for the Hydro crowd. J Edit - curious - what is your water source?
It is not necessary to adjust the pH of water in an organic garden. What does "beware of large Smart Pots" mean? OP iS using a "tried and true" soil recipe - but he should chuck all this soil that he just constructed and instead buy bagged, premixed soil? J
Jerry ... I feel it's his mix also and IIRC, that large plant is in a mix constructed by someone else who was the source of the mother and clones(?). The large plant + mix looks perfect. The smaller plants are clones, but the mix is different, yes? The OP's mix, yes? Environment is the same for everyone, so that only leaves one difference, the mix. Where does the mix that the mother plant is in differ from the OP's? Is aeration the same, or, something else? The liming agent? Amendments and/or amounts of amendments? My gut says it's aeration/drainage/ too dense, but that's just my take. Wet
Alright welll i based my mix off of a proven mix on the first page of the notill thread... I added a couple things but did very lightly like karanja or extra rock minerals etc. The mother plant was given to me in a half gallon and i transplanted her into my mix filling out a 10 gall pot. All my pots have 10 gallons in them lol they are squat pots so maybe that's why it looks misleading. The mother plant isnt in a smart pot. But i know somethings wrong with the mother because i have 2 buddies who started this tga blueberry and both of their plants dont have red stems and they arent hard. My mix is very well aerated and i feed the small plants about 3/4 of a gal every 2-3 days and the mother about 1-2 gal every 2-3 days. Ive done everything from adding fresh red wigglers and worm casting topdress with neem and alfafa to eradicate the fungus gnats but nothing works. Not even neem and essential oil sprays.
I got this clone from a buddy who got his from another buddy and both of their blueberrys dont have purple stems. These plants have been vegging for 2 months.... They didnt undergo a lot of transplant shock because i didnt let the roots get developed enough but they havent fully rebounded yet and still show this aggravating problem. Whether it's a water issue with the cheap kmart bought filter? Or my ph isnt being regulated??? I mean i have great soil life underneath the mulch and my soil dries out in 4 days and i water in about every 3 days and dont let it get bone dry but i let it get 'lighter to lift'... I can't figure this out and this has stumped a lot of people.. Could it maybe be the fungus gnats that ive done everything to get rid of from neem to essential oil to fresh EWC to a thick mulch layer or mosquito dunks in the soil or the beneficial nematodes i have as well for sprays... Like ive put a lot of effort love and time into them and am getting shit on because i havent even come to a simple diagnosis in 2 months. The growth rates have been retarded i feel like! Maybe they're coming back now but i just don't know because i lack the experience My water source is from a old sink in my basement that has a cheap 20$ kmart filter on it to soften hard water and element some chlorine. I have city water though so i just dont know. The only thing is it's either a ph issue or a deficiency that i havent corrected for yet but i mean i feel like my soil has been given or has everything it needs!
"still show this aggravating problem" Basically you're telling us that the "problem" is the purple stems and maybe slow growth rates? What type of light are you running? I'm feeling like the light is also maybe kinda far away from the small plants. No, you're doing everything right IMO from what I'm seeing. You're doing more than I do. I'd get the light closer to the smaller plants but not too close to burn. If the tall one is your "mother" you might need to move it but going by your bottom pic it appears that the smaller plants in question should be closer to the light. Just don't burn them. Purple stems aren't an issue and never have been. And no, of course you shouldn't be regulating pH. Your mother plant looks perfectly healthy to me. Are you sure your buddies just aren't running things differently than you are so that they don't have red stems? And what's the matter with hard stems? The single only difference I see here from your pics is that the small plants are quite far away from your light which could be resulting in slower growth. Let's put it this way - if those smaller plants were mine I'd have that light (again, what kind of light and is it ventilated well?) dropped right down on top of them - as close as possible without fear of burning. When I intentionally want to slow growth I move them away - like yours are. J Edit - don't get disappointed/frustratedOP. You'll get this worked out.
MO I know you have been trying to figure this out for a while. I think Jerry has made a good suggestion to get your smaller clones under stronger light. It makes a big difference with how quickly they grow. They have definitely grown quite a bit since you first started posting about the issue. woody stems-- stems will get hard and woody if the plants are growing slowly, for instance if you leave them in a small container for a long time. If the plants are growing quickly, the stems will stay green and flexible much longer. I would imagine that the mother plant and the clones probably all have hard woody stems from being in the same pots for over two months already. It's not a deficiency or PH issue, it is just the slow growth. To accelerate growth, you need to have strong light on the plants and keep up with watering them as they grow. If it were me, I would get those small plants closer to the light, like your mother plant is, and give them a real watering. 3/4 of a gallon every 3 days is pretty light in a 10 gallon pot imo. Smart pots dry out pretty quickly and you have more than 1/3 aeration, so I doubt you will have issues overwatering them. A good rule of thumb is to start with about 10% container volume, so that's 1 gallon of water in a 10 gallon pot of soil. $0.02 hope ya get it figured out man!
Alright so i just attached 3 new pictures taken 2 days ago. I've concluded that it 'looks' like a Mg or a K issue.. Whether it's a deficiency or not able to uptake it, the symptoms: yellowing from the margins, yellow veins on old leaves, purple stems, leaf tips curled down and slow growth. All of those are Mg and or K deficiency signs except the leaf tips curled downward, actually Mg deficiency the leaf tips curl up but i'm not sure if that only difference can rule Mg deficiency out. The stems aren't woody on the small ones besides the bottom of course. However, i can notice more purple forming on main shoots all the way up although the growth looks healthier. I can notice the older leaves with the yellowness, the green in between gets darker as the yellow turns more really pale green yellowish shades. I did take a temperature probe and test the temperature of my soil and it's about 67 degrees. Could that be the problem? I know both K and Mg deficiencies can be from cold roots, or could that temperature of my soil limit the microbes to be able to pH my water which is causing a pH lockout? The mother plant doesn't show these signs as severely, but does show them with the purple stems and slight yellowish shades on the older leaves if you look really closely but barely noticeable. The mother is the only plant in an actual plastic pot while the others are in fabric smart pots. Maybe the plastic holds in heat better? Just a thought. The small ones are different sizes because 2-3 were shaded by the big mother. So they should catch up now that i moved the mother to flower. I have 2 400watt metal halide air-cooled hoods for veg and then i have 2 1000watt HPS air-cooled hoods for flower. I did move the 400's closer to the small plants since the temp 8 inches below my hoods are only 75 degrees. Thoughts everyone??
Also, keep in mind i took my soil temperature readings while the lights were on and my room has about a 6-9 degree temperature difference from 74-75 while lights are on, to about 67-68 while lights are off
IMO all you can do now is wait and see now that you've dropped the lights closer. There should be no reason to have any kind of a deficiency in the soil you constructed. Are the plants on a cold cellar floor? If so stick something under them. J Edit: once again, the "purple stems" mean nothing. We all see this all the time under varying circumstances and it never, ever affects plant health. J
I would say that the yellowness on the leaves that resembles a Mg deficiency worries me more than the purple stems.. Because that i know for sure is not normal. I'll continue to do what i've been doing and i hope the colors of these leaves start looking more normal because it hasn't gotten worse but i havent seen it get dramatically better. It still has been eventually consuming the new growth after about a week or 2. All the new growth and shoots that haven't quite shot up yet look green and healthy but as soon as that node shoots up and nodes form above it then the previous node starts to show the signs on the leaves. I appreciate all the help everyone has given, truly. However, it's just frustrating when i know it's not normal the color of these leaves and this strain having hard purple stems because my buddy gave me this strain and all i've been doing recently has been just water, ACT's, a couple SST's, and water w/ molasses and microbe life to help the microbes. Also i bought mats for under the pots so they aren't directly on the ground. I actually hope it's cold roots which kill off my microbes and cause ghost deficiencies because the mats would they fix that which would fix all my problems hopefully.... Haha
I'm not sure if it's a filter based on salts. I tried to do some research on which filters are based on salts and i can find factual information about filtration based on salts but i can't actually find out which one's are based on salts and which ones are based on salt-free... All i know it that i'm using PUR 3 stage filter that was about $20 from kmart and i believe it's this one, http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Faucet-Filter-Chrom... Is this a filter based on salts and what exactly is a filter based on salts and what are the effects of using it for my babies?