Hello all, I am growing 3 platinum OG and 3 super sour diesel. I grow outdoors inside 5 gallon smart pots (fabric) and am using Empire Builder soilless (coco). I water with regular h2o out of my hose (I let water sit for 36-48 hours so that the chlorine can evaporate) plants are vegging 18/6. I have fimmed each plant twice. All six plants were started as clones and in 2 months they have all grown well. Average height of the platinum is 26 inches tall and the average height for my super sour diesel is 36 inches. Early this morning my pots were super light so I fed my plants their usual stuff (botanicare pure blend pro grow, botanicare cal-mag and botanicare liquid karma). When I got back from my doctors appointment around 5pm western time I noticed that one of my platinums had developed some very bad discoloration on the fan leaves. This problem is covering about 10% of this particular plant. I am attaching some pics to aide you in helping me narrow down this problem. From what I've been able to gather this looks like it might be a phosphorus and/or manganese problem?? Anyways thanks in advance for any help you are able to provide. PS- last 3 pics are if all plants in grow room. Very last pic is of the platinum OG with the problem
phosphorus def it looks like you have enough mag in your mix it might be a ph issue to high or too low causeing the problem
Transistor- Thank you for your input. Since this is the only plant out of my 6 ladies that is showing this problem should I expect to see it appear on the others too? They all get the same water/nutes and always in the same location outdoors when they receive direct sunlight from 10:30am-4:30pm. I have a ph kit on the way so I'll make sure that it is always at the optimal range for my medium 6.6-6.8 Just seems strange that this plant is the only one with this particular problem. I'm just hoping that this plant will get back on track because this is my medicine. After four different types of prescription pain killers cannabis is the only one that helps me sit and stand pain free (Nerve damage) I also should've mentioned in my original post that the plants were recently treated with Safer brand 3-1 fungus/insect soap. All plants were sprayed equally. This spray was mostly sulfur based (bought from a grow booth at hempcon this past weekend) What do you think?
Coco will build your ph to seven easily, and your issue is probably Mn, make sure that's in the nute mix. Ph for coco should be around 5.8 instead of 6.8 as you stated, so yes, the others will start to express the same deficit unless ph is lowered and Mn is not applied or ph is too high.
mmman- Thanks for your input. My growing medium is Empire Builder Sanctuary soil. The ingredients are as follows SOIL AMENDING INGREDIENTS: Coco Coir, Sphagnum Peat Moss, Composted Forest Humus, Worm Castings, Coco Chips, Lava Rock, Pumice, Perlite, Gypsum, langbeinite, sea bird and bat guano, fish bonemeal, feather meal, bonemeal, limestone, greensand, alfalfa meal, kelp meal, glacial rock dust, azomite, soybean meal, and rice bran. Ph kit is on the way so I will make the proper adjustments. I thought 5.8 was more for hydro systems?? But this is why I love growing cannabis. Always learning and improving. Last year I grew an almost dead teen (gardener found it at another location and brought it to me) and I used the same regimen as mentioned above with the exception that it was in a 10 gallon fabric smart pot. Never checked ph with that one and she kicked ass. Gave me 106 grams and the trim yielded 15 brownies and 60 cookies. My hose water was good enough for that harvest so I can only imagine what it would be with proper ph levels. But the thing about my current situation that bothers me is that all 6 of my plants receive the exact same water/nutes/light/dark but this one platinum OG is the only one with the problem. Do you have any other ideas that can explain this? Thanks for your help I appreciate it!
Coco is considered to be basically a hand fed hydroponic system, and I can see in your medium that ingredients are added to get your ph on the up and up, so just watch, and make sure Mn (manganese) is in your regimem, plants need it in very minuscule amounts but will make your plants look terrible if deficient, so when they express this deficit, it's easily fixable, so remember this also, anytime your plants express a micro deficit, it can be added by foliage spray, one of the best and fastest ways to a quick fix, don't expect the browning to go away, it'll be there.
Thanks mmman! I'll look into getting some manganese for my plants. What supplement do you suggest? The hydro shop is near where I'll be running some errands later today so any suggestions would be appreciated. Also, why, in your opinion, is this problem only happening to one plant as opposed to all of them being affected? I assume that all of them would be having the same problem/deficiency since they are all on the same regimen. Anything I might be overlooking? Could this also be pest related? (I had a few leafhoppers on the plants but they have been eradicated with the insecticidal soap I mentioned in a previous post) Again thank you for your time
It's hard to say at times why one will express and the others don't but I would venture to say ph soared a bit further in the one plant because of alkalinity. My nutes have 0.8% chelated Mn, that is enough to keep Mn at bay in my plants, so any nutes with Mn in chelated form will suffice.
Thanks again mmman. She doesn't look any worse today and looks a bit greener (a darker green compared to pale green) than she did yesterday. All the other ladies look great today. Have you ever grown platinum OG or super sour diesel? I know each strain is different and some require longer periods of flowering. I let them get sunlight till sunset and then I move them to the grow room for 3.5 more hours of light to get the full 18 hours of photoperiod. I want to veg them another 3-4 weeks and then flower them with 12 hours of sunlight and 12 hours total darkness in the garage (about 10 feet away from their outdoor location) Is it okay to do this inside/outside regimen? I only do it because my neighbor has an automatic light and their cats set it off all night. Last season my girl Hermied on me (on the side that got hit by the neighbors light) because the photoperiod kept being disrupted. She was just too big to move by myself. At harvest she was over 6 feet tall and the buds were so heavy the branches were bending over!
Your very welcome. I've never grown the strains you mentioned, there are so many strains these days, and I could only imagine your method would work fine, they're many ways to create a secure path to harvest.
Mmman- the cal mag I am using says it contains manganese (botanicare.com) so do you think that this source is enough? Knowing now that the plants have been receiving manganese with cal mag I am more confident that the problem is the ph of my water/nutes as you initially suggested. Thanks again for your help brother I truly appreciate it!
Yes it is, your girls only need it in small quantities, very minuscule amounts, but when ph is to high it becomes unavailable. Ca was slipping too, so keep your ph no higher than 5.8 and you'll be good to go. Oh, looks like your girls need some high stress training. LOL. Check this out also and bookmark. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i272.photobucket.com/albums/jj182/HippyVibes/untitled.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thctalk.com/cannabis-forum/showthread.php?6128-Ph-Chart-for-Soil-and-Hydroponics&h=335&w=600&sz=49&tbnid=sOkA0vF0G1dbGM:&tbnh=65&tbnw=117&zoom=1&usg=__t0syIUReUTqDqYjxpfN0rpy-0lo=&docid=e2AcxPKkwvRW9M&sa=X&ei=YsynUY-LBoW69QTn_oG4DQ&ved=0CDIQ9QEwAQ&dur=2866
Mmman- Thanks for the chart. I came across it a few times while researching ph the past 48 hours would like to LST but because I move the plants into the garage for their dark period (to protect from pests/elements/light) I can't have them too branched out or I won't be able to carry them as easily (bad back) I did FIM all my plants and got some good bushing out in the OG and two of my SSD have 4 top colas. I can't wait for the ph kit to get here and start adding this element to my grow and future grows. By the way, if you don't mind me asking, what is your favorite strain to grow?
Well, friend, I'm 60 years of age this August and have never found a favorite, weird ain't it? I'm growing the Royal Queen Power Flower right now that I like, it's 88% Sativa and finishes relatively fast.
This one is better: http://www.michiganmedicalmarijuana.org/uploads/1312062939/gallery_2682_677_98716.jpg
Not weird at all! I would love to grow many different strains in the years to come. Not to get too metaphysical but I find growing cannabis as a practice/art. I hope that when I'm 60 I'll be growing awesome plants too. Do you use solar or artificial light? I would like to grow with artificial (HID/MH/HPS) because of the quicker turnaround but way out of my budget right now. I've seen some 2000 watt (equivalent) cfl full spectrum/reflective hood (for flowering) for about 300 bucks. I vegged my girls with cfl and am intrigued with the possibility of utilizing cfl for flower (with sunlight in the mix as well). My plants are going to stink up the air at some point and neighbors might become nosy so I would love to let them get their sunlight when they are all away at work/errands. I'm going to google the hell out of Royal Queen Power Flower now haha!
I have about 24 plants outdoors right now, as I receive the bulk of my meds from nature, but I do have a small indoor grow that I use for basic experiments; my wife says I'm a mad scientist?
Mmman- Mad scientist! Hahaha! Well it's been a few days and the blotches seemed to have slowed down quite a bit. I flushed with 8 gallons of water with 3 tablespoon of lemon juice to bring down the ph. However, now I am getting some yellowing fan leaves on all my plants. All of it is in the bottom third of each plant. They have been in veg since march 15th so I'm wondering if this is normal for the older leaves or if this might still be a ph related problem? I also got 4 clones finally showing some roots. I'm working on a very tight budget and couldn't afford a humidity dome so I just put my heating pad for my back under the little girls and kept my shed moist and humid and finally some roots! Don't know what to do with them though since I'm at my legal limit of 6 mature plants. I can have 12 immature but I don't have the funds right now to see them through. Hopefully someone local can adopt them lol. Anyways hope all is well with you and again thanks so much for your help man What do you think in regards to the yellowing leaves at the bottom portion of each plant? It's been pretty hot the last few days too so I'm not sure if that is also affecting the lower older growth. Thanks in advance
Ok ill post some pics after dinner. Can't get a ph number since the ph kit comes in tomorrow. I was thinking the same in regards to the nitrogen but was a bit hesitant to put my eggs in that basket since its only the bottom portions of the plants that are yellowing (the early fan leaves). All my nutes are coming in tomorrow too.