Mad Bad Cal-Mag Deficiency

[Damios]

So I have two Ak-47's, both female, in Happy Frog Soil that are about 10-12 inches tall. They are about a month old from seed.

I'm using House and Garden's soil two part nutrient and "root excelurator". Along with a compost tea and some molasses.

I encountered an extremely odd PH fluctuation about a week ago and it F**cked everything up.

I was watering the plants with 6.4ph water and for some reason after watering with it for a few days, the PH of the soil dropped to around 4.5!!!!!! I'm guessing it was the moss because I heard that shit is highly acidic and can throw your ph off later on after sufficient watering.

I immediately was like WTF and flushed the soil with some 7 PH nutrient water and it raised the PH of the soil back to around 6.5-7.0

I came back the next day and noticed the Ph fluctuation hit the two lowest fan leaves REALLY hard....I mean like burnt to a crisp. I was relieved to see that it had only hit the lowest two fan leaves and thought that I messed up but things were now under control....well shit I was dead wrong.

Turns out that the PH fluctuation completely locked out calcium and magnesium and I have a double deficiency.

I am now like 3 days into a worsening Cal-Mag deficiency that has reached the highest fan leaves and now even they are starting to get necrosis and that rust look.

All of the lower fan leaves are completely f**cked and are dead as a doornail. The only part of the plant not affected by necrosis is the new growth, none of it is harmed it just all has a lighter green appearance towards the outside of the leaves and between the veins...typical mag deficiency.

Luckily the plants are still growing just very slowly compared to before and I can tell it is getting worse.

I am now in the midst of trying to save the plants before it gets worse and really starts to affect the new growth.

I watered them today after not watering them for about 36 hours not wanting to lock out any cal-mag further with my typical nutrient water but brought its ph to 6.8

I foliar fed with botannicare Cal-Mag plus at a rate of 5ml per gallon....is this ok? or is this going to burn the leaves for foliar feeding...I have heard it might...

At this point I just want to know how many times a day I should foliar feed with the cal-mag and if I should be watering with straight water to help break up and lockouts if they are still present....

Any help is extremely appreciated and I will try and get some pictures up soon for extra advice.
Please help!

 

[morrisgreenberg]

you totally sure its a def? i used happy frog and it usually gives me a higher PH runoff, the soil is hot, as in loaded with nutes, so loaded you can go 8 weeks without ferts, it usually burned anything i put in it so i would have to flush immediatly, you have 2 options here, one you already did was flush and foliar, by the way, did you flush with 3 times water to pot volume? what i usually do in this situation is flush the soil with 1/4 strength grow ferts, or 1/4 cal-mag and as you get half way through the flush check the runoff, flushing with nutes mixed in does 2 things, ensures the plant will get those deficient nutes and corrects your PH, now since you already flushed you may want to foliar feed till soil dries out, if no improvment from foliar and you want to flush again try it with the nutes

 

[Damios]

you totally sure its a def? i used happy frog and it usually gives me a higher PH runoff, the soil is hot, as in loaded with nutes, so loaded you can go 8 weeks without ferts, it usually burned anything i put in it so i would have to flush immediatly, you have 2 options here, one you already did was flush and foliar, by the way, did you flush with 3 times water to pot volume? what i usually do in this situation is flush the soil with 1/4 strength grow ferts, or 1/4 cal-mag and as you get half way through the flush check the runoff, flushing with nutes mixed in does 2 things, ensures the plant will get those deficient nutes and corrects your PH, now since you already flushed you may want to foliar feed till soil dries out, if no improvment from foliar and you want to flush again try it with the nutes

Your signature is funny as hell...I'm russian....

Anyways, first off thanks for your input, I really do appreciate it.

Next, yeah I'm sure its a deficiency and not nute burn because it shows extreme characteristics of cal-mag deficiency first off and second, this happened directly after the PH went out of wack not after using this high of nutrients...because I have been using about 500ppms for the past 2 weeks and they were fine when they were even smaller.

Also, when I flushed I did more like double or 1.5 the pot size, seeing how it was to fix the PH and not get rid of extra nutes I didn't think it would have to be that extensive.

The problem showed up directly after the Ph problem and because of that I would directly relate it to a lockout though.

My main question was just how many times I should foliar feed witht he Cal-Mag within a timespand of 24 hours?

Once a day? twice? everytime the lights go off? on?

I mean just specific for Cal-mag, because I can find a bucnh of info on how much to foliar feed for all kinds of reasons...but in terms of how much you should foliar feed "cal-mag" when you have a calcium magnesium deficiency is kinda up in the air, can't seem to find anything that specific.

Anyways thanks again for the input, plus rep for you.

 

[richjames]

Interested myself in ur thread as i'm having a similair prob i'm not quite sure how to handle since i've never had it yet. Did u say u had a pic of urs? Right now, i'm trying to put my finger on weather mines got the mag def. or zinc. I'd like to compare em and see ya know...does urs look like this?

 

[morrisgreenberg]

ahh previet damios, im ukrainian

 

[morrisgreenberg]

play it safe always, go 1/4 strength, you wanna watch out foliar feed too often as you can get a salt build of on the leaves, iyour right there is no one way of spray feeding, i wouldnt recomend it unless you absolutly needed in , only in these instances when you have soil issues, if the soil isnt dry by the time you would normally feed again through traditional means, foliar feed again, but if you had no issues once in a blue is fine, but im telling you right now, out made a ton of mistakes and one guy on here i wish i can credit him told me to flush with nutes, ever since then it fixed any deficiencie i ever had----real fast too.

 

[morrisgreenberg]

richjames, you said in your thread about this this is happeneing at the top of your plant right? could the lights be too close? looks a little like N, but if its up top could be other issues, perplexing and hard to get issues occur up there as you already know,

 

[morrisgreenberg]

bioth of you should check out this link
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=11688

 

[zoink29]

Interested myself in ur thread as i'm having a similair prob i'm not quite sure how to handle since i've never had it yet. Did u say u had a pic of urs? Right now, i'm trying to put my finger on weather mines got the mag def. or zinc. I'd like to compare em and see ya know...does urs look like this? View attachment 377126

i have one that looks exactly the same...i think my ph might be high and be lockinout zinc how is urs doin...how did u treat it?

 

[richjames]

richjames, you said in your thread about this this is happeneing at the top of your plant right? could the lights be too close? looks a little like N, but if its up top could be other issues, perplexing and hard to get issues occur up there as you already know,

I got the 400 7 or 8 inches away from the top of the plant, I've had my battles with heat, unfortunately it's not the case this time around. Temps stay between 76-79, it got up to 82 once...

i have one that looks exactly the same...i think my ph might be high and be lockinout zinc how is urs doin...how did u treat it?

I'm still in the process of treating this one and i still have some steps to take before going full on saying it's zinc. Tonight i gotta get some more water since she's ready for a drink, then i'll check the runoff. If the runoff ph is high, over 7, then I'll be able to let u guys know for sure, and a flush will be in order.

 

[Damios]

play it safe always, go 1/4 strength, you wanna watch out foliar feed too often as you can get a salt build of on the leaves, iyour right there is no one way of spray feeding, i wouldnt recomend it unless you absolutly needed in , only in these instances when you have soil issues, if the soil isnt dry by the time you would normally feed again through traditional means, foliar feed again, but if you had no issues once in a blue is fine, but im telling you right now, out made a ton of mistakes and one guy on here i wish i can credit him told me to flush with nutes, ever since then it fixed any deficiencie i ever had----real fast too.

I am going to just have to try this....nothing I have been doing is working....if anything I have made it worse, being a spaz and all trying too many damn things at once.

I have been foliar feeding wayyyyyyy too much by what your telling me and the on ly way I can think of fixing it now is to unlock wtvr the f**k is locked up in the soil.

I'll get back to you tomorrow to say how well it worked....and I should be able to tell I think because every day the plants have been very noticeably worse. If tomorrow I see them and they havn't gotten even worse then I would have to say its working.

Ttyl and thank you very much for all of your help.

 

[richjames]

For those interested, i said i'd be back and here's the results-
Runoff tested ended up having a ph of 8-8.5! Wayy to high! Will be proceeding with a proper flush tonight as well.

 

[Damios]

For those interested, i said i'd be back and here's the results-
Runoff tested ended up having a ph of 8-8.5! Wayy to high! Will be proceeding with a proper flush tonight as well.

I just finished, and all went well.

going to have to wait till tomorrow obviously to actually see whether it worked or not.

All I can do is hope for the best, I will update tomorrow. Ttyl

 

[Damios]

I just finished, and all went well.

going to have to wait till tomorrow obviously to actually see whether it worked or not.

All I can do is hope for the best, I will update tomorrow. Ttyl

K well I don't know how well it worked because the plants are still getting a little bit worse, though the problem might have slowed down in progression a bit.

I guess I will just wait till tomorrow to know for sure, but at this point they are on the brink of death and all of the fan leaves are crumbled...

 

[richjames]

Damn sorry to hear that, hopefuly she'll come back. Mine's looking good thus far, flushed her with some oxegenated water lastnight, got the ph back down around 6.5, and it's definately NOT looking any worse on my end today.

 

[Damios]

Damn sorry to hear that, hopefuly she'll come back. Mine's looking good thus far, flushed her with some oxegenated water lastnight, got the ph back down around 6.5, and it's definately NOT looking any worse on my end today.

Hmm well that's good to hear. Hopefully everything will go smoothly.

I think on my end I just locked the shit out of the soil cause the PH went all the way down to 4.5! After flushing this time around to try and unlock the soil I think I potentially created even more problems.

Not really sure what happened, all I know is that they aren't gonna make it, luckily I was able to get two branches of the top of one of them because they hadn't been affected yet. I'm just gonna start over with the new clones and replant them. All is well that ends well.

 

[morrisgreenberg]

Damios, whats was the Runoff PH?

 

[richjames]

i shoud've know better myself . Normally I check my ph every time i water without food, I let it slip for a couple times and my ph skyrocketed on me! I'm glad i saw mine comin, and for now, looks like my gal is back on track. Sorry to hear urs aint gonna make it, but u got the right idea, just keep doin it till it comes out right. I'll put a pic or two up in my journal tonight if u wanna check it out, good luck with the clones as well.

 

[Damios]

Damios, whats was the Runoff PH?

Not sure, I didn't get a chance to check it cause it all went down the drain....oops lol

 

[FilthyFletch]

Did they look like these kind of??