Strange problems, please help

I have two plants on the go right now, on white widow, and one northern lights. Both plants have been doing well, up until about a week ago they started behaving strangely. The leaves will droop randomly, and sometimes curl. The WW is definitely doing worse than NL. During the first couple weeks I was overwatering them, and they were in bad soil, after I transplanted them into better soil they both took off. I was feeding them every 3-4 days with water, and molasses, and occasionally giving them a phytoplankton/seaweed extract. They seemed to start showing signs of underwatering, the leaves started to droop directly from the main stem, so I started to feed them every 2-3 days when the top soil dried out. They responded well to that for a bit, then it seemed like they were being overwatered again. I let the pots dry out for a few days, and on the fourth day they got worse again. I started to think that i might have a nitrogen toxicity caused by the phytoplankton supplement, so I flushed them with plain water pH'd to 6.8. Immediately after the flush they responded well, and perked up a bit. However, this morning they are drooping worse than before. Both plants are about 5 weeks now. I will list the symptoms of both plants below:

WW:

• droopy leaves, more at the top of the plant
• darker green leaves near the top
• weak stems
• rusty spots on the bottom leaves
• leaves curling upwards

NL:

• drooping leaves near the middle of plant, however, this appears intermittently, some days they will droop really bad. and the next day it appears fine
• other than that this plants appears pretty healthy

This is an organic grow BTW, they are both in a soil mixture of compost, worm castings, bat guano, manure, and 25-30% perlite and they are in air pots. I always adjust pH of my solutions to 6.5-6.8, and the run off from the plants is 6.7 for both. Temperature goes up to 76 during the day, and 66 at night, and the humidity stays between 45-55%.

Any other information you need, let me know. Thanks in advance!

They look stressed (purple stems)
Also looks like you have a bit of calcium/magnesium deficiency (rust/yellow on leaves)
Buy some calmag

Bushbaby11 said:

They look stressed (purple stems)
Also looks like you have a bit of calcium/magnesium deficiency (rust/yellow on leaves)
Buy some calmag

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Thanks dude, I'll definitely give it a shot! I have been giving them molasses with every feeding up until the last feeding when I gave them just plain water. My plan was to start giving them a calcium phosphate extraction I made with molasses within the next week anyways, as lot's of people claim it does the same job as calmag. This is what I'm talking about: https://www.420magazine.com/community/threads/emmies-diy-calmagphos-from-eggshells.276691/

They are just recovering from being overwatered. the rust is from the swings in ph from the uneven moisture in the pots. Go by weight. water them real good and let them dry real good (to the point of droop) then check the pots weight. If your getting all the soil wet then it would take at least 5 days to dry out all the way. maybe 6 or 7. (the "flush" was the worst thing to do , thats why they are taking longer then usual to recover. too much water with not enough food.)

getogrow said:

They are just recovering from being overwatered. the rust is from the swings in ph from the uneven moisture in the pots. Go by weight. water them real good and let them dry real good (to the point of droop) then check the pots weight. If your getting all the soil wet then it would take at least 5 days to dry out all the way. maybe 6 or 7. (the "flush" was the worst thing to do , thats why they are taking longer then usual to recover. too much water with not enough food.)

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See that's the thing though, the ph hasn't really changed, at least not out of normal range. And I had overwatered them a little before, but after I noticed them droop really bad I let the soil dry out completely(only took about 4 days), and they got dramatically worse. After I flushed them they did perk up a little bit, and they haven't gotten any worse yet. I will try to let them dry out completely again, and then I'll try feeding them normally with some calmag.

maybe you can try lower the ph to about 6.0-6.2 also, i believe the molasses should be given after the 4th week of flowering or so. good luck

Mr. Cheetah said:

maybe you can try lower the ph to about 6.0-6.2 also, i believe the molasses should be given after the 4th week of flowering or so. good luck

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I’ll try and drop the ph a bit more next feeding, and I’ve heard so many different answers on when to use molasses, but caligreen on YouTube uses it for his entire grow so I thought I’d try that way. As far as I know it shouldn’t cause the plants any harm though, right?

How's the new growth on the tall one? The angle is a bit wonky. Do you have any form of IPM?

Ozymandiasza said:

How's the new growth on the tall one? The angle is a bit wonky. Do you have any form of IPM?

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The new growth is actually looking pretty good on both, the angle is weird because of the training I did to it haha and IPM? Like pest management? I don’t have anything if that’s what you mean, but from what I can see there is no evidence of pests

You can use molasses all the way through if you want. Wont hurt either way.
You wont be able to see the ph swing i was talking about. your meter wont pick that up.
They look as if they want more N but your recipe has N all over it. gotta love organics!

The rusty spots are calcium deficiency. This can happen even when your soil has lots of calcium in it, as most calcium sources take some time to break down and become bioavailable. Most people remedy this by feeding chelated cal-mag nutrients, but you can also fill the gap by making a water soluble calcium solution to dilute into a foliar spray from eggshells or oyster shell flour soaked in brown rice vinegar. There are tons of videos on YouTube showing how.

Hawg Wild said:

The rusty spots are calcium deficiency. This can happen even when your soil has lots of calcium in it, as most calcium sources take some time to break down and become bioavailable. Most people remedy this by feeding chelated cal-mag nutrients, but you can also fill the gap by making a water soluble calcium solution to dilute into a foliar spray from eggshells or oyster shell flour soaked in brown rice vinegar. There are tons of videos on YouTube showing how.

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You got plenty of Ca in your soil BUT as hawg points out , some of the stuff in the soil is not broken down yet, therfore not availible for the plants to eat...yet. This is why i always have a bottle of chelated NPK during an all organic grow. (yes i know its cheating in the organic world but i would rather cheat until i get it right vs letting them die till i get it right. )
Im leaning towards Ca and N being a little low. 2 waterings of chelated food should even things back out.

getogrow said:

You got plenty of Ca in your soil BUT as hawg points out , some of the stuff in the soil is not broken down yet, therfore not availible for the plants to eat...yet. This is why i always have a bottle of chelated NPK during an all organic grow. (yes i know its cheating in the organic world but i would rather cheat until i get it right vs letting them die till i get it right. )
Im leaning towards Ca and N being a little low. 2 waterings of chelated food should even things back out.

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I think it was just Ca actually! I used a foliar spray with a calcium phosphate solution I made this morning, and they are already perking up a bit Haven't had to water for since i flushed 'em as the soil is still dry, but I think all the stress made my WW hermie NL still hasn't shown sex yet, so hoping that it's a girl, they are feminized seeds. I should be good on N though, as I did mix some more worm castings into the top soil. Next feeding I'm mixing 1tbsp molasses, and 5ml calcium phosphate in a gal of water, then I'm going to give a compost tea after that which will be worm castings, bat guano, and phytoplankton. Hoping I'll be able to flower in a couple weeks like i planned, thanks for checking back and helping out man!

Correct me if im wrong but i dont think you can hermie a plant in veg. Maybe if you were to flower her starting today it might hermie but i dont think thats how it works. you wont be able to bring the hermie out of her until flower. You are good to go sir!

getogrow said:

Correct me if im wrong but i dont think you can hermie a plant in veg. Maybe if you were to flower her starting today it might hermie but i dont think thats how it works. you wont be able to bring the hermie out of her until flower. You are good to go sir!

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I could definitely be wrong, but a couple weeks ago the pre flowers on this plant had distinct white hairs, now all the new growth has these sacs that look like males. Hopefully I am wrong, but if not then I'll mess around with this plant to test some stuff, and get rid of it before flower

shitty ass seed chuckers. Thats a boy and always was. I promise you did NOT cause that.

Please post the chuckers you got them from so we know to steer clear of them.

getogrow said:

shitty ass seed chuckers. Thats a boy and always was. I promise you did NOT cause that.

Please post the chuckers you got them from so we know to steer clear of them.

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Damn, that's annoying. Just praying that my NL is female then and i can still get something out of this grow. I got these seeds from a small local seed bank, now I know to steer clear of them

bmihalides said:

Damn, that's annoying. Just praying that my NL is female then and i can still get something out of this grow. I got these seeds from a small local seed bank, now I know to steer clear of them

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Im honestly glad to hear its just a small local joint but still , im pissed off for you. Ive had a LOT of bad experiences with shitty seed banks but NEVER have i bought a feminized pack an got a male. Thats just shitty labling. I have bought fem seeds and got 100% hermies and ive gotten no herms but shitty weed. close to 30 ywears of growing and ive never once seen a good plant from seed, in person. (plenty of folks on here have had way better luck)