Pretty certain I have nutrient lockout. What next?

[NugHeuser]

So lately my plants have been fading out big time, I've been feeding them between .8 ec a few weeks ago to up to about 1.2 ec when i noticed all the yellow lower leaves about a week ago so I boosted it to 1.8 ec last feeding. Feeding around every other watering to every three waterings depending on how the plant looks but now I'm stumped because I decided to check my runoff water on a couple plants and it's ranging between 1200 and 1700 ppm on the 500 scale for a couple of my bigger plants that are showing the worst of the deficiencies. The ph of the runoff is between 6.26 and 6.3.
So I don't know if I have really hungry plants or if theyre locked out.
They've only been getting liquid nutes for a little over a month and I started out pretty light. Plus a few of the feedings have been organic teas and nutes.
So that just seems really quick to have lockout by salt buildup but that's why I'm here, I'm new and you guys may know better. I'm including some pics of my watering schedule and a pic of the runoff water from my malibu pie #5.

 

[NugHeuser]

Also I have a lot of lighting over these which I read effects how much nutes they take up, I'm guessing it causes them to require more nutes to keep up with all the growth and energy it's getting from the light.

It's a 9.5x 3.5 canopy with a 315w cmh - 600w hps - 630w DE cmh - 315w cmh, I'm that order hanging from left to right.

I just want to make sure I get this right and don't ruin all my hard work. They either need fed or they need flushed

 

[Budzbuddha]

Why are you watering EVERY DAY ????

Excessive watering just mucks up things - root problems , uptake , excessive Nutes etc.

Your notes show you are pretty much throwing lots of stuff at them , which they cannot fully take advantage of with daily waterings . Not only are you leaching ( runoff ) Nutes , you keep roots in a overly saturated state . I would stop that immediately.

Spread out your feedings and watering ....... Also not necessary to FLOOD containers.
Runoff is high because of all of the accumulated Nutes. You can course correct either by letting this last feed/water go longer BETWEEN the next one or flush them all with PH water only (6.5) and let go COMPLETELY DRY before resuming a feed.

 

[NugHeuser]

Here's some pics of the one I just watered and tested the runoff. PH of 6.3 and 1775 ppms. The plant looks healthy up top, but I pulled probably 20 yellowed out leaves off of it the other day and it still seems to be yellowing out more slowly but surely.

 

[Budzbuddha]

They look pretty good ... Fading is part of flowering as plant pulls from leaves.

 

[NugHeuser]

Why are you watering EVERY DAY ????

Excessive watering just mucks up things - root problems , uptake , excessive Nutes etc.

Your notes show you are pretty much throwing lots of stuff at them , which they cannot fully take advantage of with daily waterings . Not only are you leaching ( runoff ) Nutes , you keep roots in a overly saturated state . I would stop that immediately.

Spread out your feedings and watering ....... Also not necessary to FLOOD containers.
Runoff is high because of all of the accumulated Nutes. You can course correct either by letting this last feed/water go longer BETWEEN the next one or flush them all with PH water only (6.5) and let go COMPLETELY DRY before resuming a feed.

First off, thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.

Your mistaking about the watering everyday thing. I have 18 plants and water each when they're dryed out. Light to pick up, top soil is completely dry and dirt sometimes shrinking in from the edges of the pot. So they shouldn't be overwatered, some plants I've let go over a week between water randomly because it simply took their soil a while to dry and some I've had to water every other day a couple times.

And about throwing lots of different things at them, considering that they aren't getting all this stuff each watering and usually average only 2 waterings a week or so, Do you still think that's too much? Ive cut out the silica, so they only get 3ml of calmag (bottle recommends 3 to 5), 4ml of bud candy (bottle recommends 8ml), 3 ml bloom booster(rock solid by growth science, bottle recommends 6ml) and my bloom base(botanicare) which varies as you see in the notes. For this stage the bottle is recommending I believe 22ml, and I've been giving closer to 10ml up until the last feeding for a couple of plants that were fading big time so I gave them 15ml yesterday. So I've been giving less than the recommended amount because I'm afraid of salt build up.
So with that clarified a bit do you still feel this is deffinitely salt buildup?

 

[Budzbuddha]

Actually they looked better than described ... I would stay the course .... Some strains will keep pulling from itself sooner than others. No more leaf picking let her just go about her business.

 

[NugHeuser]

The abbeviations in my notes, "mp", "ar", "bx" all stand for the different strains and numbered plants. Alien rift, malibue pie and bibbilicious cross. And bc is bud candy, cm is calmag, and rs is rock solid. Sorry should've clarified that.

 

[Budzbuddha]

No worries ... I only based my 2 ¢ without seeing your plants.

She looks pretty happy. Using a controlled feeding ( sometimes less ) is a better approach to your girls if they are happy at level less than the feed chart , keep it there.

Kind of like cooking , dump in too much salt - hard to fix the taste.

 

[NugHeuser]

Here's one that's fading extremely fast, it did seem like the hungrier plant of the bunch when they were in veg.

This is how it's feeding has been, plain water, .8ec, plain, 1.2ec, 1.2ec(organic tea), 1.7 ec, and just yesterday about 2.0ec. It's been getting watered probably every 4 to 5 days. And it's fading more and more by the day, it's runoff yesterday was 1400 ppm and 6.3 ph.

 

[NugHeuser]

And if there is a lockout, won't they take up water real slowly and take quite a while for the pot to dry out?

These are getting water between every 2 to 4 days with the exception of maybe 2 or 3 plants.

 

[Budzbuddha]

Yeah she is looking like a hungrier girl ( Sativa ) .... You can also scratch into topsoil a small amount of bat guano for a bump in nitro. Or do a 50/50 veg bloom feed mix to compensate the leaf eating ..... Other than that she is looking killer.

 

[NugHeuser]

On the flip side my bigger plant in a 7 g pot is only giving a runoff of around 800ppm and she almost looks a little dark and hasnt lost many leaves. And she's 2 to 4 times the size of the rest that are puting out runoff water well over a thousand, yet yellowing..

 

[NugHeuser]

Yeah she is looking like a hungrier girl ( Sativa ) .... You can also scratch into topsoil a small amount of bat guano for a bump in nitro. Or do a 50/50 veg bloom feed mix to compensate the leaf eating ..... Other than that she is looking killer.

This is awesome to hear. If that's truly the case and I know that she's not locked out then that takes a load off. She's almost ready to be watered, probably will wait until tomorrow. I think I'll give her half and half, bloom base and veg base and see if that greens things up. She's twice the size of the others her age, I keep having to supercrop her to try keeping things even.

Here's the whole canopy with what I'm working with. Ive got a couple plants that are greened up and happy and one that has been given plain water a few feeds in a row because i thought it was getting n tox but i think ot was actually just over watering. For some reason it was taking that plant upwards of a week and a half between watering so i started getting that clawed look and mistaked it fpr n tox, now its pretty yellowed out but i started feeding it again yesterday.

The fading just really had me worried with all the time and effort I've put into this.

Anyway here are the pics.

Oh and the ones in the 2nd pic under the hps are actually pretty faded, it's not just the color of the light. I'll include a pic of the plant that is in the middle left of the second pic. This plant was all greened up about 6 days ago and is now getting strange spots on some of the leaves. Last 3 waters have been fed, 1.2ec, 1.4ec, and now yesterday 1.6ec and is still yellowing. Thats probably a week and a half or two of straight feeds. Does that sound right?
Oh also my tap reads out around .35 ec, huge factor I forgot to add.
So the bloom base I've been giving them, I haven't been keeping track of how much ec of that they're getting, I've just been measuring the finished mixed gallons ec with the additives, tap water and base. So maybe I should change that habit?

I'm here to try to learn so anybody please tell me if I'm wrong in what I'm doing or if there's a better way, this is only my second grow.

 

[NugHeuser]

Anyone else want to chime in? I know I've got atleast a couple plants that have been fed 3 times in a row and are still yellowing out. One is the taller one I posted pictures of.

Does that seem right? They have been getting under half of what the bottle recommends but I've always been told that you don't need to give what the manufacturer recommends, that it's just so that they can sell more. Plus there's a runoff ec of 2.8 with that specific plant.

When the plant gets what it needs in soil, nutrients wise, how many days does it take for the leaves to start greening up and showing signs of recovery?

 

[MichiganMedGrower]

Well I have a few questions and a few comments. I hope I can help. The plants look good and pretty strong and leafy to keep going during the “hiccups”.

First is your last question and the answer depends on availability of the needed nutrients and the plant health and environment it’s dealing with.

Some things like needed iron given in chealated form like in cal mag will green up the plants right away. But only for the short term if the medium is not back in balance or the plants roots or environment is still compromised.

If properly leached and a simple complete base nute is added back at the right ec they like. 3 days to a week for major improvement. Sometimes they show less leaf stress or start to green up gradually right away. I suspect your garden can turn right around if you can figure out what they need. Really nicely done setup you got going. Clean and even. Nice! I’m jeolous of your space. .

You are using an abundant but not excessive amount of light. Unless the de 600 is too close. Looks like maybe 1 side of the garden has yellowed up top more?

The edges of the leaves are up. They show a mild “taco”. This is from excessive transpiration. Too hot or too bright or too dry. Or too much nutes and maybe all of the above. Bright hot dry conditions require 20% less nutes as a guideline.

The larger plant doing better on the same solution may prove my theory.

What is your source water? I didn’t see it mentioned.

And what is the soil mix?

My first impression is simply too much PK and not enough nitrogen to sustain balance in the leaves. And high levels of light requiring more nitrogen than your fertilizer is providing.

I only use a base grow nute to avoid this but it becomes important to ramp up and taper back down through the cycle or you can have too much nitrogen accumulate in the leaves.

But too much pk results in lower and then upper leaf yellowing. Also too much calmag will block the roots and lock out p then k.

You can always use the Grow nute here and there as needed. And example is Jacks classic duo they recomend alternating the 20-20-20 and the 1-3-2 to maintain plant health but still promote vigourous blooming.

In my research and experience the plants never need the P as high or higher than the k. And a lower dose of a balanced 3-1-2 or like I use 3-2-4 works better. Really in potting soil 3-1-4 would be better I think. So much stays available in good running soil.

What is the base nute being used?


Wow. Sorry for the book I just wrote. My new Kitten woke me up and I partook in a nice wake and bake with a good coffee. Look I’m still babbling.......

If I’m way off base here I blame the Thai cross.

 

[NugHeuser]

Well I have a few questions and a few comments. I hope I can help. The plants look good and pretty strong and leafy to keep going during the “hiccups”.

First is your last question and the answer depends on availability of the needed nutrients and the plant health and environment it’s dealing with.

Some things like needed iron given in chealated form like in cal mag will green up the plants right away. But only for the short term if the medium is not back in balance or the plants roots or environment is still compromised.

If properly leached and a simple complete base nute is added back at the right ec they like. 3 days to a week for major improvement. Sometimes they show less leaf stress or start to green up gradually right away. I suspect your garden can turn right around if you can figure out what they need. Really nicely done setup you got going. Clean and even. Nice! I’m jeolous of your space. .

You are using an abundant but not excessive amount of light. Unless the de 600 is too close. Looks like maybe 1 side of the garden has yellowed up top more?

The edges of the leaves are up. They show a mild “taco”. This is from excessive transpiration. Too hot or too bright or too dry. Or too much nutes and maybe all of the above. Bright hot dry conditions require 20% less nutes as a guideline.

The larger plant doing better on the same solution may prove my theory.

What is your source water? I didn’t see it mentioned.

And what is the soil mix?

My first impression is simply too much PK and not enough nitrogen to sustain balance in the leaves. And high levels of light requiring more nitrogen than your fertilizer is providing.

I only use a base grow nute to avoid this but it becomes important to ramp up and taper back down through the cycle or you can have too much nitrogen accumulate in the leaves.

But too much pk results in lower and then upper leaf yellowing. Also too much calmag will block the roots and lock out p then k.

You can always use the Grow nute here and there as needed. And example is Jacks classic duo they recomend alternating the 20-20-20 and the 1-3-2 to maintain plant health but still promote vigourous blooming.

In my research and experience the plants never need the P as high or higher than the k. And a lower dose of a balanced 3-1-2 or like I use 3-2-4 works better. Really in potting soil 3-1-4 would be better I think. So much stays available in good running soil.

What is the base nute being used?


Wow. Sorry for the book I just wrote. My new Kitten woke me up and I partook in a nice wake and bake with a good coffee. Look I’m still babbling.......

If I’m way off base here I blame the Thai cross.

No man I appreciate the lengthy response, getting niddy griddy as my garden could be at stake

So to answer all those questions, starting from the top;

It's pretty spotty all over the garden as far as one side yellowing more than the other. If I had to say where the most yellowing is coming from, it'd be toward the center under the hps.

They are in a dryer, warmer climate than they were a couple weeks ago before I added the hps. Before I was keeping rh around 55 to 60 percent with temps hitting highs of about 80 degrees. Now with the open end hps the rh stays closer to 35% above the canopy and 45% under it. And my highs, lately because winter is still not wanting to show up, have gotten to the low 90s on the warmer days. I did have a few days a week or so ago where temps got up to 95 degrees at the streychiest cola in the warmest area of the canopy, most the rest of the canopy I'm guessing was upper 80s for highs, as these temps are measured at the stretchiest tops that are sitting a good 5 or 6 inches above the rest of the canopy, center depth right under my dounle ended 630 and 600 hps. Ive got some pretty solid air movement going to help with the higher temps. 2 ocillating fans, a floor fan, a 6inch intake inline fan connected to 2 ducts with adjustable air registers on them and an 8 inch inline for exhaust connected to a carbon filter.

Yeah the larger plant has gotten probably an average of .3 to .4 ec more than the others and it's looking pretty good, if anything it's getting a bit dark. The runoff ppm for the larger plant is considerably less than the other smaller plants I've checked, it's sitting around 800 or so on the 500 scale, So about 1.6 ec runoff for that one.

My source water is a mixture of r.o and my tap. My tap runs around 480 ppm so I mix it and have been aiming for around 150 ppm. I have still been adding cal mag though which Idk if I should be since I'm running 150 ppm tap? The cal mag contains 2% nitrogen.
Soil is fox farm ocean forest. They started in one gallon pots and after about a month were up potted to 3 gallon. They didnt start getting fed until about 3 weeks after the final transplant and I started pretty light.

Very good possibility I have overabundance of PK. My base bloom is botanicare 1-4-5 and I also started using my bloom booster about a week ago which is 0-4-4.5. Other than that, calmag and bud candy. Was using silica but I cut that off about a week ago, only was using it to try giving my plants extra strenth bouncing back from the broad mites I had. Ive been told you don't need to use silica in soil because thats what soil is.

A couple times I've added earthworm casting, crab shell meal and some compost tea bags to make a tea. They were given one tea in veg and have had one tea in bloom that I dissolved some organicare dry nutes into water with a little bit of the crab and worm castings then diluted to the desired ppm.

Hopefully that answers some questions!
I appreciate the reply, worrisome stuff here, I'd hate for something bad to happen to my girls.

 

[NugHeuser]

@MichiganMedGrower So based off the information you gave me, I'm starting to think ive been giving too much cal mag(given each time they're fed) considering I probably have atleast some if not enough in my 150ppm source water and that many of the plants have had atleast 2 if not 3 feedings in a row. And also I may have a lockout of P and K because of the ratio of my nutes along with me giving more nutes to my plants since I'm seeing the yellowing (nitrogen def.), making it even worse and that I'm only seeing the yellowing because my base bloom is only one part nitrogen so my plants aren't getting enough N. BUT, theyre still getting extra N from the cal mag though, maybe still not enough? Perhaps a little bit of a flush to drop the ec and add back in a mixture of my grow and bloom base to help even things back out? Cut back on the cal mag nitrate maybe as well?

Am I on to something here? Your thoughts?

 

[MichiganMedGrower]

@MichiganMedGrower So based off the information you gave me, I'm starting to think ive been giving too much cal mag(given each time they're fed) considering I probably have atleast some if not enough in my 150ppm source water and that many of the plants have had atleast 2 if not 3 feedings in a row. And also I may have a lockout of P and K because of the ratio of my nutes along with me giving more nutes to my plants since I'm seeing the yellowing (nitrogen def.), making it even worse and that I'm only seeing the yellowing because my base bloom is only one part nitrogen so my plants aren't getting enough N. BUT, theyre still getting extra N from the cal mag though, maybe still not enough? Perhaps a little bit of a flush to drop the ec and add back in a mixture of my grow and bloom base to help even things back out? Cut back on the cal mag nitrate maybe as well?

Am I on to something here? Your thoughts?

Well you have confirmed all my suspicions. Nice detailed response.

It’s too hot for one. I would turn off a lamp over 80degrees for sure. And it’s pretty dry so I would add humidity but it is not so low that it is the main problem.

Also your plants are pretty tough to take all this.

So I would leach with a gallon or 2 of th 150 ppm mixed water. Stop the cal mag. It should not be needed. Stop silica. Not needed at all in soil. If you want to add silica diatanacious earth is a good source. But many ingredients already have silica.

And if you have the pure Blend Pro Grow bottle I would simply add a medium dose 10-15 ml and nothing else until you see an improvement.

My plants always yellow too early with the bloom 1-4-5. I only use the Grow bottle and also use ocean forest with 20% perlite added.

That’s what I would do. And lower the temps which should bring the humidity up a bit.

Good luck please call me back If you want so I can see what happened.

 

[NugHeuser]

Well you have confirmed all my suspicions. Nice detailed response.

It’s too hot for one. I would turn off a lamp over 80degrees for sure. And it’s pretty dry so I would add humidity but it is not so low that it is the main problem.

Also your plants are pretty tough to take all this.

So I would leach with a gallon or 2 of th 150 ppm mixed water. Stop the cal mag. It should not be needed. Stop silica. Not needed at all in soil. If you want to add silica diatanacious earth is a good source. But many ingredients already have silica.

And if you have the pure Blend Pro Grow bottle I would simply add a medium dose 10-15 ml and nothing else until you see an improvement.

My plants always yellow too early with the bloom 1-4-5. I only use the Grow bottle and also use ocean forest with 20% perlite added.

That’s what I would do. And lower the temps which should bring the humidity up a bit.

Good luck please call me back If you want so I can see what happened.

Awesome, I appreciate all your help! I have a thread for this grow going too but yeah I'll forsure message you and let you know how things are turning out.
I didn't water anything yesterday because I wasn't sure what to do so today I have many that are dropped, 14 of the 18 need watered. Long evening ahead.