I don't doubt your skills - you have proven yourself just fine. Everywhere I've read, people warn against trimming autos as they doesn't have sufficient time to recover from the stress.Go to my thread and look at my plants. All have low branch fan leaves removed (I keep all fan leaves down to 3 node, I clip the rest). Do they look any worse for wear?
If you look at the pic you posted, the lower leaves are not getting any useable light, BUT, they are taking energy/food away from upper growth
I thought so too about a week ago, but once the leaves grows bigger it disappears. She actually started flowering about 2 weeks ago because she's an autolook good, is it the beginning of tip burn`s I see ? maybe lower your Nitrogen/Veg nuts a bit and up the P/K Instead now she have begun to flower
I will give it another shot of epsom salt, it's been a while since last time. Gonna have a look at my nutes to see if I can give it less N - it's a two bottle system, which are added in a 1:1 ratio (5 ml per liter water).well if you have the epsom salt, you could try a bit and see, wont hurt anything with 1/2 a ts in your water/res
and I know you grow Auto`s, why I did suggest the lower N and more P/K (seem`s like my Sweet tooth auto like it that way)
Zink would be odd, as our Tap water should hold plenty, but who knows ? it should also keep a lot of lime but still not enough if I remember correct ? different strains also demand different "food" and levels of food and I also experience the LEDs make a different from my old 600W HPS, guess its both the intensity of the light, and the fact that the HPS grows made my water evaporate faster, and I also notice a big different from Reg. plants to Auto`s guess different grow mediums also make a small difference but mostly the strain play a hugh role IME