brown/yellow spots on lower leaves

[str8jacket secure]

my plant is about 4 weeks old. the other day i turned off the small fan i have in my box. i sprayed the plant with some water and left it alone for a day, next time i visit it i notice these brown spots on a few of the lower fan leaves. at first i thought that because i sprayed water it might have puddled on the larger leaves and with no fan to help it evaporate, maybe it just sat too long and caused the lights to magnify and burn the plant, but after turning the fan back on, i haven't misted again yet, but the problem seems to persist. it has progressed slowly since then and i'm beginning to think it may be a different problem entirely. i haven't added any nutes to the watering schedule yet, should I? (at least i know it's not nute burn). i have no way of knowing what the soil ph is, but it does have a fairly good amount of peat moss in it. about 50% potting soil from wal mart, (i'm pretty sure it doesn't have any nutes or anything in it, its not MG, expert gardener i think), prolly 30% peat moss and 20% perlite. i've been watering with bottled water, ph level is around 6-6.5, also, i've started to LST the plant a few days before this problem started. on one side of the plant the large lower fan leaves are pushing against the soil, the other side are up in the air a little more, not touching the soil. the problem started on the leaves that are in the air, and is worst here, they feel burnt, crispy, dry. but now it's starting to move to the other side as well, to the leaves that don't get much light, so like i said, i don't think it's light damage or anything. should i remove the affected leaves? i know they're not supposed to be touching the soil, but everyone says don't trim leaves off, esp. in veg. the temps stay between 60-80F and humidity stays around 30-40% any help will be greatly appreciated

str8jacket secure Reviewed by str8jacket secure on 03-01-2008. brown/yellow spots on lower leaves my plant is about 4 weeks old. the other day i turned off the small fan i have in my box. i sprayed the plant with some water and left it alone for a day, next time i visit it i notice these brown spots on a few of the lower fan leaves. at first i thought that because i sprayed water it might have puddled on the larger leaves and with no fan to help it evaporate, maybe it just sat too long and caused the lights to magnify and burn the plant, but after turning the fan back on, i haven't misted Rating: 5

[daisley2005]

do you have a pic of the whole plant, it will be alot eaiser to tell if you can see the whole plant, how close ar your lights?

[str8jacket secure]

i'm using a homemade reflector with 7 26 watt cfl's (6500k) 1600 lumens each, they are 2-3 inches from the top of the plant, but don't give off very much heat, the effected leaves are at the bottom of the plant, top leaves seem fine to me. i'll try to get a good whole plant pic, it's an aggrevating process posting pictures right now as i'm using a cell phone...

[str8jacket secure]

k, here's a few full plant pics, crappy quality, like i said, cell phone, but maybe these'll do the job, you can see what i mean when i say one side is touching the dirt and one side is up in the air more. the problem started with the more exposed leaves that are up. but now i's spread to the lower, more hidden leaves on the other side.

[Mr. Clandestine]

It doesn't look like bleaching/burning from the lights being too close to me.

I've heard of people running into wild calcium fluctuations from using distilled water, but I'm not entirely sure how this may vary with bottled water. While you wait for a more accurate diagnosis, it would be a good idea to at least get a liquid pH test kit and find out the pH of your soil. The kits are inexpensive, and they're easy to find at pet stores, Walmart, and the like. Water your plant with enough pH-neutral water to produce runoff at the bottom of the pot. Collect that excess water, and test the pH of it. That's your soil pH. It's not exact, but it's a good start. Soils high in peat generally lower the pH unless something was added to stabilize it.

Best of luck, and try to be patient while you wait for the renowned CannCom 'green-thumbs' to show up. They'll be here. :jointsmile:

[Weedhound]

they look overnuted and perhaps overwatered as well.

[str8jacket secure]

it's possible that it's overwatering i guess, didn't really look like it to me, but i'm no expert. definitely not over nuted because i haven't started adding nutrients to the plants water yet

[stinkyattic]

Couple things.
-The pots you are using- clay pots- are those the ones with built-in drain trays? If so, you MUST re-pot or you will end up with drainage problems, pH problems from sodden peaty soil, and likely root rot. Trust me on this one.
-The soil. Expert Gardener is the Shultz brand soil. Some types contain ferts. Read the label and see what the NPK is listed at.
-The new growth. It looks good. I don't see a reason to do much besides re-pot into a pot with correct drainage. Low leaves do that often. It looks like a K or Ca deficiency, but those are old leaves that get little light AND are close to the soil surface so they are in a more humid part of the plant and get less air circulation.
Remove the leaves when they come off with a slight tug, and watch to make certain that the next set doesn't show the same symptoms. But you NEED to re-pot and let your soil dry out slightly between waterings. Oh, and use tap water.

[str8jacket secure]

it's not a clay pot, it's a 3.5 gallon plastic one, with a separate drain tray. oh and it's not expert gardener soil, my bad on that, it's some other brand, i'll have to go back and remind myself what the name was. i checked the bag for anything resembling an npk level, there's nothing on there. last night i started feeding 1/4 strength schultz nutes. the water with the nutes had a PH of around 6.8. i watered til it started to drain out then checked the PH of the run off which was around 6.6. use tap water? why would you say to use tap water, i just mixed some "drinking water" with some "spring water" the drinking water had a low ph level, just the opposite with the spring water, used about 2 parts drinking to 1 part spring and it brought ph to around 7.0, and when i added the ferts it brought it down a little more, around 6.8, what would the benefits of using tap water be?

[stinkyattic]

Oh man I've written out the explanation for that like 5 times in the last week... okay here goes. Drinking water (bottled) has minerals added for flavor, and higher sodium than you want. Tap water would be more likely to contain calcium and magnesium and lower sodium. Plants need Ca and Mg.
If the tray is attached, remove it from the pot, otherwise, you're good to go on that.
Your pH sounds decent; using tap water will help keep it that way.