Hey guys, so I have posted regarding a similar issue before which has now come back again. I grow no-till following the mix in the no-till revisited thread plus a couple add ins (a little cottonseed meal and a small amount of fish bone meal) and have been growing no till for about four years now. I always had great luck until my last year roughly. I believe I have the issue narrowed down to adding too much to my waterings but wanted to check and see if other people had had similar issues. My main issue is yellowing color/discolored leaves which unfortunately I cant take pictures of right now as my phone camera is broken, however, I will get onto my computer and post up some similar pictures from my last grow. The problem always seems to start as I add more freeze dried coconut water and aloe vera powder which leads me to believe that I am either over doing the amount I put in, or over doing the frequency at which I apply them. My conditions are ideal and are typically 75 degrees f and 50 percent humidity in veg. I have brand new bulbs, plenty of air flow, and i only use Poland springs water. I also use smart pots which are on trays allowing air flow to go underneath. My girlfriend uses basically the same mix but does NOT add anything to her water and she gets great results, hence why I believe it to be one of those two things. For some reason I believe in particular that it is too many enzymes, however, I cant find any concrete info online to go along with this hypothesis. The only other thing I have been adding is recharge to the water. My frequency for watering is currently 8-10 cups about once a week, which I pick up the pots to be able to make sure they need. I am putting those items listed into each and every watering. Any help is greatly appreciated guys, thank you!
Ancient, Have you noticed if this yellowing happen at specific period of the grow (veg/early flower/late flower...)? Also, how widespread is this? across the whole plant? some leaves, all leaves? top? bottom? etc.
@Sc00byD00bie It usually happens about 3-4 weeks into veg which I assume is when the additives are adding up and the plants are reaching their thresh hold. It does affect some plants more than others. I have 6 strains and all are affected to a certain degree. Also a lot of leaf twisting near the top and a little tacoing as well.
I totally believe in the fact that it is easy to over use enzymes, especially over a long period of time. I'm not certain that's what you have going on, but I have done it. The good news is, just quit using them for a while and things will come back around. When you resume, be way more conservative with them. In no tills, you don't need much after the first round. I go sparingly in the beginning rounds, just to avoid over accumulation. hth and good luck cheers os
Yeah I agree with OS, try to lay off the enzymes for a while and see if there is an improvement. Just a thought but maybe the excess enzymes are causing too rapid of growth which is causing a deficiency since the demand for nutrients during this fast growth isn’t being met. Kinda hard to figure this out without a visual though. Do you have an old phone or a tablet you could snap a photo with?
Pretty much every time I've tried to improve on nature by adding a bunch of stuff to "make" my buds do, uh, something that I thought they should because I read something or heard something, it's either been unnecessary or harmful. The side by side with your girlfriend's water only grow is in line with my life experiences in general. I wasted years thinking the guy at the grow shop or the guy on the internet forum knew more than nature. When I was a wee lad I saw a 10' tall cannabis plant growing by the railroad tracks, straight out of adobe brick clay soil, without water or "nutes" or any care beyond the seed being tossed out while some long forgotten stoner rolled up a schwag joint. Its gorgeous emerald leaves the size of my head reaching proudly into the air, not a spot of yellow or bug or disease, taunting the future where people would come to believe this millions years old marvel of the natural world would need bottles and bags of magic elixers and powders with their big impressive N's and P's and K's to "sugar-up" or get "terpy" or any number of other things the snake oil salesmen would get their followers to repeat as gospel. It took years for the lesson this plant was teaching me to finally sink in.
I don't think it has anything to do with enzymes - just my 2¢. I've gone way over the recommended amounts with no problems. Can you tell us how much aloe and coconut water you are using? Have you been using the same notill beds/soil for four years? If so, what are you adding back into it? Remember cotton is not a food crop and is sprayed with pesticides accordingly. P-
Do you have a active top layer like mini clover or something else to regulate the nitrogen and keep it coming in as a constant source? What size is your pot? I grow in a 20 gal no till and it takes a good 5 grows before I start to see any need to add more amendments. The recipe is in my journal if you'd like to take a look. It's pretty simple though. Lots of chicken poop, worms, and some amendments with a top layer of mini clover. After a grow, I'll let my worms go nuts on the medium for a couple weeks before I replant. I've tested the recipe on 5 gallon pots as well and it does great there too, lasting about 2 full grows before needing to be replenished. Is there a specific reason you're adding coconut water and aloe? If you have a no till setup, there should be no need to use additives as everything ever needed would be in the medium. The only time I ever add anything to my no till is if it's molasses to chelate amendments like dolomite lime to correct ph.
You're not gonna get a whole lot of nitrogen fixing in a indoor container. For one, even if your clover is inoculated with the proper microbes to fix N, it needs to pull it from the air, and you wont have the air exchange like you do outdoors to provide a constant fresh supply. The second factor here is size, and unless you let the clover grow big and lush its not going to have much effect even if it was outdoors. It does provide other benefits like helping to create air and water pathways in the soil, provides a protective live mulch barrier and when it decomposes it provides food for the soil. Re Coconut water and aloe. Coconut water, along with sprouted seed teas, or malted barely are used for their enzymes and growth stimulants. Coconut contains lots of micro/macro nutrients, vitamins and amino acids. Aloe boosts to the plants immune system and is also loaded with enzymes and amino acids. Are they absolutely needed? No, but IMO They do provide a benefit by enhancing and boosting plant growth and health.
@Patanjali The main reason I believe it is either aloe, freeze dried coconut powder, or the inoculants such as recharge is because my girlfriend is using the exact same mix as mine with the only difference being our lighting (i grow hps she grows led) and I seem to always have this same issue where my leaf tips start curling/tacoing and getting spotchy yellow spots. Sometimes it may look a little like calmag but it seems to be different from plant to plant so I am just using process of elimination. @Sc00byD00bie My mix is definitely nice and nitrogen full and I believe the reason I am getting such nice, dark green leaves this time is due to the recharge unlocking more nitrogen for me, does this sound plausible? I realize there is no way to know for sure but rather I am just checking to see if I understand what products like recharge do to the soil. @Rezerg The nitrogen seems to be coming through fantastically this grow I just know I have been using the products stated in every watering which is why I figured it was one of those.
My indoor no till begs to differ. Nitrogen fixing abilities of mini clover is very well documented. Even for indoor setups. Coconut does indeed contained whats mentioned, hut that should all already be in the medium and have no reason to use it as an additive.
@Rezer I will be uploading pictures as soon as I can get my camera fixed on my phone. For some reason it stopped working back in August and I havent been able to fix it myself since. The main reason for the coconut water was simply because in the no-till revisited thread the watering schedule calls for a top dress of MBP every week or two so I was attempting to replace the MBP with the freeze dried coconut water because from what I understand they are both ultimately used to add enzymes, right? I could be totally wrong on this but thought I had heard that somewhere. @Sc00byD00bie So should I even be using aloe each watering? From what I understand aloe can help spread out the pathways the water creates when watering the soil because it is a surfactant, is it possible to over do this? I am using a quarter tsp per gallon of the aloe powder from buildasoil.
@smguffer Haha, my thoughts exactly! @Sc00byD00bie So do you think I would be safe in continuing in using aloe?
I would say so. How big are your pots by the way? And what about some pics? Cant you get a camera from somewhere?
@Sc00byD00bie They are 10 gallon smart pots and yes I totally will by this weekend. I can grab a friends phone to take some on when he stops by this weekend. I was going to post the last grow's pics but noticed these do actually look a little different so I figured it would be best to just wait for the new pictures.