2 plants with probs, help please

[Wobster]

hi people, I am seeking some more of your knowledge and advice on my grow. I have 2 plants at different stages that i'm concerned about. One in my flower room and one vegging away. If the one that was vegging was healthier i would be putting her into flower too but i think i need to sort her out first.

The vegger

Strain - Power plant
Medium - Potting Soil/Perilite
Lights - CFL 24 hours
PH - 6.9 approx (need to invest in a digi meter)
Fertilizer - Unfertilized

Overall the plant seems quite dark green and I flushed her 2 days ago as i thought she may be too high in nitrogen. Can't understand why she would be too high in nitrogen as i haven't used any nutes on her yet. The newest fan leaves are becoming more mottled (not a nice uniform green). Some of the leaf fringes are turning up. Some leaf tips are turning up, some are turning down. The fan leaves are now developing small brown spots, no more than 1mm in size. The petioles are red along the top and green on the bottom. Half and half. Please look at the photos full size because i've added info to the photos.


The flowerer

Same conditions as above except she is under 2 envirolite 125w 12/12 and I feed her with bio-bloom. You will see the probs on the pics. Leaf discoloration and droopyness. I use 2 ml for a liter of water and I only feed her every other watering. The instructions say use with every watering but I'm worried about over fertilizing. Should I use every time I water and does 2/ml per liter sound ok?

Thanks in advance for any help and thanks to anyone who was bothered to read all that. wob wob

...come on Stinky, whadaya thinky!

Wobster Reviewed by Wobster on 12-26-2007. 2 plants with probs, help please hi people, I am seeking some more of your knowledge and advice on my grow. I have 2 plants at different stages that i'm concerned about. One in my flower room and one vegging away. If the one that was vegging was healthier i would be putting her into flower too but i think i need to sort her out first. The vegger Strain - Power plant Medium - Potting Soil/Perilite Lights - CFL 24 hours PH - 6.9 approx (need to invest in a digi meter) Fertilizer - Unfertilized Rating: 5

[stinkyattic]

The mottling in pic 3 does not actually look like a deficiency, but more like variegation. Let's concentrate on the other stuff.
Your potting soil- I imagine it must already contain fertilizer if you are not ferting and the plants are so healthy. It's time to feed. The brown speckles are a potassium deficiency. A foliar feed with a solution of the 'Micro' from the GH 3-part mixed at 1/4 what the bottle says will really help in the short term, and regular feedings with a complete fertilizer contaning micros are important. You may be seeing signs of a K lockout from pH imbalance. Complete a soil runoff test. It doesn't have to be precise; run water through the pot. Test the pH of the water going IN, and of the water coming OUT. Figure out how much and in what direction the water has changed in the process of going through the pot. Post the results. A soil meter type pH tester may not work for this; the GH liquid is like $7 US for a bottle and is perfectly sufficient for a soil grower.
Edges cupping and curling down like that looks to me like you are about due for a larger pot. Margins curling up indicates acute heat stress, and I'm guessing it's most pronounced nearest the lights. Bend those branches away from the lights just enough so that you can hold your hand there and it's still comfortable, not too hot.
Is that one of those fancy houseplant pots that has a built in drip tray? If so, you may need to remove it, since it can clog and prevent drainage and keep oxygen out of the root zone. If you don't want to remove it, drilling extra holes in the sides of the pot will help, but ideally you don't want any chance of soggy nasty sludge in the bottom of the pot.

[Wobster]

Soil - The potting soil I used contains Sphagnum Peats, doh

After reading your advice, I re-potted the plant with the speckles. I then eyed my soil tester up suspiciously. I have cheap a soil test kit so I tried that. It's very inacurate and only shows results in whole increments, PH 5, 6, 7 and 8. The results said the soil was PH 5. I went to the Aquarium and bought a more accurate tester. The results card has colours for ph 6.0, 6.4, 6.6, 6.8, 7.0, 7.2 and 7.6. I ran water through the medium and the results said the PH of the run off was 6.0 or lower as 6.0 or lower is light yellow. My tap water is PH 7. Sorry if this is too much info. I bought a bottle of PH UP (potassium hydroxide) and added 3 drops to 2 liters of water. I poured it slowly through the medium and then poured a liter of plain tap water through and tested the run off. Still light yellow. I added 4 drops to 1 liter and poured that through followed by 1 liter of plain water. Still the same result. I stopped then because I suddenly realised that I don't know what I'm doing and I may well mess things up more. Can you tell me the right process. Somethings telling me I shouldn't change the PH drastically but I dunno. Theres no instructions on the PH UP for changing soil PH, it just tells you how to correct PH before you water plants and assumes your soil is neutral anyway.

I also tested the soil (not the run off) of the flowering plant with the simple soil test kit (not the aquarium one) and that read PH 5. I will need to adjust the soil on this one also. Although this plant looks quite healthy, the buds seem to be developing slowly. In future I'm going to be much more careful with my soil choice and get PH neutral soil, run regular PH checks, and PH adjust water before watering if necessary.

Thanks for your advice, you don't know how much I appreciate it

[stinkyattic]

You are actually doing the right thing. Get the pH of your tap water up to 7.5 or 8 and pour it through, then pour regular water through and test the runoff. If it still need to come up slightly, use tap water at about pH 6.8-7.0 and taht should do ya.

[Wobster]

Is it okay for me to bring the PH from around 5 up to 7 in one go or should I spread it out over a period of time?

When the PH is 7 throughout the soil, will the plant start taking in nutrients immediatley or over a period of time?

I want to take cuttings off the vegging plant and I know it's better to be slightly nitrogen defficient. Once the PH is normal, should I not fertilize at all, use bio-bloom or fertilize normally until it's better and then flush N out and take cuttings?

Thanks again for helping :thumbsup:

[Wobster]

Sorry to be a pain again but do you know what this is? The leaf tips at the top of the plant are browning. It's appeared after correcting the PH of the soil to PH7 and adding a mild (2ml per liter of bio-bloom).

[stinkyattic]

Very slight fert burn, no worries unless it gets significantly worse.
Try to keep the pH between 6.5-6.8. 7 is a hair high.
Yes, N def (SLIGHT) is good but not to the point where it shows as visible yellowing. I feed with bloom fert before cutting actually.
The plant should be uptaking nutes immediately now that the soil conditions are better.
And finally, give it a little while before taking cuttings- a week or so- but you're already in flower so shoot, it's 6 of one and half a dozen of the other. The benefit of waiting for the plant to be healthier may be outweighed by the problems that can arise from too much bud mass on a cut (possible place for rot to set in). Ehh do it now I guess. The plant looks healthy enough.

[Wobster]

Thanks again. I think you misunderstood what plant I'm taking the cutting from. I don't wanna take cuttings from the one in flower, it's the one in veg. Both plants had PH probs but I corrected them thanks to you, I just posted the pic of the one in bud cos thats the one thats develpoed the slight burn. Most of the pics on the first post are of the vegger... all but one. I will wait a week before I take the cuttings and keep you posted on my progress. Gleeeee!:hippy:

[Wobster]

Any ideas on the photos above. It's the plant thats flowering that has this prob. I corrected the PH to about 6.6 and ferted using Bio-bloom 2ml per liter I've also added 1/10th of a teaspoon of epsom salts to the liter of water. the prob was there before I Mg'd it so I don't think it will be salt build up. I'm wondering if it's a micro nute def as I've flushed the plant out so many times to correct the PH. Bio bloom only contains NPK according to the label. Went to hydro shop today for some micro nutes but they had none in. Bought a big bag of Bio-bizz soil wich is fertilized and PH'd correctly in the hope that if it is a micro nute def, there'll be some in the soil and I plan to repot her in a bigger pot.