Lockout in Living Soil?

mgchaze7 said:

Hey all, I have a MAC cut from a clone shop in Detroit that's struggling. It's in a 3x3 tent with two other plants. The other two aren't struggling as much - I have a lemon OG kush (dna genetics) that is stunted with a minor zinc and mg deficiency, and I have a purple punch plant (Detroit clone) that is showing what appears to be a zinc deficiency.

The MAC has been vegging 18/6 since early December. It's in a 5gal pot, under a 300w hps @ 20-24", Temps 65-75F, Humidity 58-65%, watered with RO until deficiencies appeared. I then began adding Recharge and Calmag @ 150ppm.

Soil mix: Roots Organic 707, promix, coco, EWC, ancient forest, seabird guano (12/11/2), Jamaican Guano (0/11/0), and BOSS potting amendment w/ calmag - 24 organic ingredients. I mixed this soil with my tap water which I later discovered was 600ppm pH 8+. I let this mix sit for 30+ days, and I've ran it successfully before but without the guano or tap water.

My best guess now is that the extra phosphorus I added with the guano was completely unnecessary and bound to the extra calcium that came with my tap water. I've since learned phosphorus will bind with calcium to form calcium phosphate - a form that is unavailable to the plant. The last watering was a 6.0 pH and the runoff was 6.5 pH.

The MAC seems especially sensitive to over watering. I prefer to water when the pot feels 20% of its wet weight.

Water Schedule:
21 days ago 1gal RO w/ Recharge
12 days 2/3 gal w/ kelp+Recharge
7 days ago 1/2 gal RO w/ camag 200ppm + Recharge.

The plant has been improving as it has dried out and as I have been limiting light intensity, but its still showing deficiencies. I've checked extensively for russet mites; the edge leaf curl seems to be a root issue (over-watering).

I'm curious what others might see in my pics and if there's any advice. My next course of action might be to start using mammoth p to break down that calcium-phosphate.

Thank you for your help!

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sammy2 said:

Just to be safe, scope the bottom of a leaf for broad mites at x100. They
Can mock other problems,good luck.

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mgchaze7 said:

Hey thank you for your post! I finished this grow a few months ago, and I'm about to finish the next grow using the same clones. It turns out it was most likely a phosphorus issue that was made even worse from using my town's tap water to mix the soil.

I spent weeks scouting for mites and never found any evidence under the microscope. Furthermore, for the next grow I avoided using a phosphorus rich guano and I used only reverse osmosis water throughout the grow. I wanted to use the tap water, but it comes out at 600ppm and seems to really fuck up my plants. I stopped drinking it after that too haha.

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ebcrew said:

Did you have pH issues causing the phosphorus issues?? Im having serious pH issues in my living soil grow right now.

My soil pH is 5.2 And water going in has always been 6.8

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crimsonecho said:

do they look unhappy?

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ebcrew said:

Did you have pH issues causing the phosphorus issues?? Im having serious pH issues in my living soil grow right now.

My soil pH is 5.2 And water going in has always been 6.8

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mgchaze7 said:

How are you measuring your soil pH? I bought a hanna soil pH tester pen when I was having trouble. It's expensive, but it's been useful. My soil had a tendency to go alkaline, and I had to work to lower the pH by using citric acid. This helped my situation, but it didn't correct it. I ended up flushing away a lot of my nutrients, and I also didn't have large enough pots to get enough micro-nutes to the plants in an organic grow style.

What is your water source? Organic matter, compost teas, and compost extracts might be a good way to correct your pH situation. I started using a microbial inoculant called Recharge, and it seemed to stabilize my soil's pH well. If your soil is living, there should be organic matter and microbiology decomposing it. If these are in abundance it should be enough to raise pH much higher. Remember try not to swing the pH up dramatically at once. Using organic matter, vermicompost, and microbes will help.

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ebcrew said:

I use blue labs soil pH pen. I also use recharge, but this all began when i started using the recharge. Im starting to think that it may be the problem.
My water source is 6.8, 240ppm so i thought i was good with that, i was wrong. I started increasing the pH of my water, we'll see.

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mgchaze7 said:

Interesting, recharge seems to raise my soil pH too. What might be in your soil to make it so acidic? 5.2 pH for a living soil seems like something is releasing acid - sulfur, peat, guanos. Do you have compost in it? Any chance for anaerobic conditions in the compost or soil?

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ebcrew said:

its Fox Farm HF/OF 50/50, perlite, kelp meal, fish bone meal, EWC, DTE 4-4-4 DRE 2-9-4

Anaerobic? Could be, but i dont think so. when i transplanted roots looked great. Im not getting any funky smells when taking the blue lab pen out of the soil either. Im still trying to get this organic thing right, i'll try until i get it.

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mgchaze7 said:

That mix could have great potential. I wouldn't worry about aeration problems - how much soil are you using? Fish bone meal has high levels of phosphorus if i'm not mistaken. Like the bat guano I used, if it's over applied it may lockout other nutrients. It can bind to calcium and make calcium less available and also dilute zinc availability too. Rather than mixing soil with high NPK amendments (e.g. guanos), I'm starting to rely on composts and EWC with a blended organic amendment 3-2-4 (alfalfa, neem, fish meal, feather meal mainly).

I'm still not sure why you have acidity problems in your soil. Maybe watering with diluted dolomite lime could stabilize the pH across 2-3 weeks at a weekly application rate. Swings in pH should be avoided if possible - better to slowly change pH if it has to change at all.

Mixing and tending soil has been more complicated than I thought it could be. I've realized that greater quantities of soil provide a useful buffer against problems, and relying on microbes, fungi, plants, and soft water has been important to balancing soil pH. Also, using recharge seemed to add a lot of life to my compost and soil. It became clumpy and water dense and the pots developed a stable pH. Lastly, I've started adding malted barley for fungal growth which has furthermore spurred growth.

Hope you can make light of your troubles and correct your soil mix in the future. Focus on cultivating biology. Good EWC will do most of the work, but it's damn near impossible to find good stuff. Then we have products like Recharge, photosynthesis plus, great white/mykos, and mammoth P to fill in some of the gaps.

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ebcrew said:

Thanks bro, perhaps the lack of lime is the problem? Im really not sure. I'll keep messing around i dont want to give up on it.

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Bignutes said:

Give it a strongarm of really high ph of say 10-11 then retest soil, repeat again and see if it gets you where you want to be. Your plants will be fine and some very well known growers do this. I did it on my last soil brought it down by 0.3 to 0.4 after one application. When you repeat it give it a normal watering between.

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ebcrew said:

Thanks. Yeah ive been doing that, though not as drastic. Ive been trying to raise it slowly and its working, but slowly.

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Bignutes said:

Rip the bandaid off, it's going to be better for your plants within a few days versus the whole grow, if they are vegging right now it's the perfect time, even first two weeks of flower.

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