Sick Norther Lights Plant pH drifted too high - how to fix?

I am having a really bad experience with this super soil (not American brands, I am in Asia) as compared to to other super soils I am trialing.

The plants were looking super lime-green and almost dead. I have put them on a regiment of compost tea two weeks ago, then a worm casting tea last week and this week. Runoff was super high like 9 pH!

The worm casting tea is coming in at upper 6's to 7 pH. So I'm afraid it wont be enough to get this back in line?

What is recommended to fix this soil/plant? I was reading that molasses can have the effect of lowering pH. I'm not sure if I should hit her with a pH watered at 4 or something by Citric Acid to try to balance out the medium? What can I do???

How are u checking the soil ph

Runoff means nothing, salt pockets can send it over the roof

Looks hungry to me, that's the issues with so called super soil

Salt pockets in organic living soil? I have been feeding organic like teas and fish hydrosolate.

I checked pH by runoff. The electronic meters (I have two kinds) end up stabilizing around 6-7.

The healthy plants runoff is around 6-7 but runoff of the unhealthy plant appears to be higher.

Have you tried mycorrhiza or other beneficial bacterias? I had a high PH problem before and I fixed it by changing as much soil as possible in the pot. It helped a lot. I just scooped out as much ild soil as I could and replaced it with good soil. Your plant is pretty small and young still so it would not be that hard to do right now

its almost completely locked out. no clue why. my assumption is overwatering. it dont matter the ph. you cannot fix it if its way off. you will have to repot her into some good soil. thats the reason i always start in a small pot.

Im with bob. ph runoff is a waste of time. yes salt pockets from organics. "organic" and "salts" need researched here. you missed a LOT. Organic is the hardest way to grow by far. Start with something easier, like hydro or coco.

I have a northern lights in flower now. It is a easy grow even for beginners. How did you start your nl grow, what age is it now, what size pots, temp, water, breeder?

Focus on what goes in not out

Soils with nutes are very hard to grow in for the novice grower, case in point, your issues your having

Give them a good flush
Get some nutes to them, real cannabis nutes
Give them a lower strength shot

Cross your fingers

Worm casting aerated tea did help one of them Northern Lighters to recover pretty well (green again). So I've decided to leave that ONE in my main room.


The one in the air pot shown earlier was doing the worst.

Thus I think I wont use air pots again with living organic soil. Perhaps it was getting too dried out (and out of wack) so the soil was not feeding the life in it, which was not feeding the plant as a result.

It seemed like trying to peddle uphill. So I've thrown this first Northern lights (to the proverbial dog house!) outside and maybe the rain and sun will help it. If it dies, I don't mind, it's not even feminized and my grow chamber has no room for it anymore:



As an experiment, I put it a third slighty sick, but (again seems to be) recovering from worm casting tea - into another room where I have some other hydro/soil-less experiments going on, and I've fed it with synthetic nutes.

Agreed, with you guys that hydro is simpler than organics. Lets see if the other Northern Lights makes a recovery with synthetic nutes and if the fist one above survives outside or not! Excited, I cant wait to see what happens...

do you have any aeration in your mix? i cant see your soil to good but i don't see any perlite, do you use perlite or any other aeration? its needed with organic soil to help the roots get oxygen

JustBlazin said:

do you have any aeration in your mix? i cant see your soil to good but i don't see any perlite, do you use perlite or any other aeration? its needed with organic soil to help the roots get oxygen

Click to expand...

There was supposed to be but, I perhaps it was not sufficient.

It seems kind of hard to get the proper balance of moisture in airpots and smartpots?

can you lift up your straw and take a pick of your soil...if there is no aeration in your mix its really easy to over water your plant and your plant won't be happy due to a lack of oxygen
BTW what's the white stuff on the leaves?
didn't see it till i zoomed in, did you spray anything on them?

i don't have that much experience with smart pots but they seemed ok for me they just dry out a little faster. But i use blumats so they do all the work, but i do find I'm adjusting them up a little higher then regular pots. i dont have any experience with air pots

White stuff, I thought is some tobacco mosaic virus which is inconsequential from what I was reading.

Ahh Blumats. Are you finding they are working great? As my room is really small, I am not sure if it could be suitable to have a reservoir in there with Blumats?

you think it's the mosiac virus that everyone thought the chem d clone and most of its off spring have? if so thats not what that looks like the chemd clone gets leaf verigation or something like that not sure of exact name. Everyone said for years it was tmv...but it isn't .
or you think it has the real tobacco mosaic virus in which case you should probably toss it cause isn't that shit transferable from one plant to another

as for blumats they kick some serious ass if you set them up correctly(which i didn't personally find very difficult and I'm not handy or smart)
i just bought a 4 foot shelf to hold the res and put right beside my tent

I will def look into having blumats in a future project. In the meantime I should aim to water not too much and not too little right? The idea of Blumat is that it slowly drips a tiny bit of water into the medium (but only when/if) as needed? Which spread out by capillary action? Thus keeping a constant and consistent e.g. 45% moisture level that the roots love? So less fluctuation of moisture and just a perfect medium. Correct?

Agree it is not likely TMV but I have no idea wha it actually is!!!

if i where you I would not try and water like the blumats, would be pretty difficult to replicate and you would more than likely end up over watering you plants all the time. Just give them a good watering when th pot gets light...just don't let it get to dry or to wet and you should be good. Yes they want to be somewhere in the middle of dripping wet and bone dry.
have you sprayed anything on your plants? That can burn the leaves if the get liquid on the leaves with lights on

Noted to find that balance on the watering. Maybe every 2-3 days at this point. With 1-2 weekly AACT's (actively aerated compost) or worm casting teas for a gallon in each 5 gallon pot. And also 1-2 more light waterings per week as needed with 1-2 gallons.

Total about 2-3 gallons per week sound about right at this stage?

Should the AACT's keep at the macro and micro nutrients topped up for veg?

How much longer do you guys reckon this room will be ready for me to hang the trellis and flip to flower?

I did spray with lights on using kelp extract and humic acid. Also with water. But I am not sure if that caused the leaf pattern as attatched?

It's occurred on only 1 plant. I've attatched as well, some discoloration found on another leaf. Please feel welcome to let me know what that might be too.