Getting to be a bit more of a 911 "Help Please?"

[polishpollack]

Did those brown spots first turn kind of a golden yellow color, then brown? If so, then you have some magnesium deficiency going on. I don't know if mg is included in foxfarm soil. the leaf curling is strange, looks like maybe a heat problem, lack of water, too much fert. I'm tired and I don't want to take the time to sift throw all the data, I'm sorry but I'm off work and really tired now. But I can still help you. The way for newbies and oldies, by the way, to get a good grow is not to screw things up from the beginning. So what you do is this: you use foxfarm soil or other potting soil of good quality and use kind of a small amount of powder fert you get in a box at your grow shop, like foxfarm's fruit and flower in the yellow box or tree frog or Whitney Farms 5-5-5 at a hardware store. grow shops don't usually carry whitney but hardware stores do. The reason why you want these ferts is because they come with the bacteria and fungi already in them which aid in roots taking up the ferts. If you try Lilly Miller, you'll be disappointed because there are no bacteria. Put one cup in soil mixed well and in a 5 gallon bucket. then you just add water when the soil is dry. chances are you won't have anymore problems. I'm so tired I keep making mistakes as I type this and it's taking forever. anyway, try this idea in the future. also use good quality lighting if you can afford it and put a fan on the plants to knock them around a little to strenthen the stems. otherwise they fall over. one cup is a little too much as foxfarm soil is suppose to have fert in it already, but with these ferts, overfert usually isn't a problem. you can cut back on the fert a little if you want. this takes all the guess work out things and I think you'll be happy. use distilled water. if you want soil that is great and don't mind spending a little more, search "sunny girl soil" on the web, place an order with them and they will ship it to your address. just follow the directions on how to use the two different parts, one on the bottom and other on top, and just add water when dry. easy. when plants are really damaged it's hard to get them back so preventing problems is the key. alot of bad info floats around the web and I've been trying to put a stop to it for years. I'm not a scientist but I suggest that you do a little reading of the magazine called the growing edge. has the info everyone needs to have the grow you want. amazon has some copies. it's actually a magazine you might be able to get at a good bookstore. you can try the web for help but only use sites that have genuine data.

[Pencil5522]

The spots in areas had a small amount of yellow ate the spot edge closeest to any green when any leaf was young as the pictures show, But pretty much start and grow brown.

Thru a process of elimination I was able to get 2 clones off of it about 2 weeks ago, (pictures included below) Yesterday I transplanted them into the same FoxFarm soil. Considering they were my first cutting, and both did root, I feel a accomplishment in that area (1 check for going the right direction...grin)..

I figure now to see if the soil (FoxFarm) injures them with me following normal procedures. ?? If it does, then that strain cannot handle this soil. If they do as well as my other plants then I have to chalk it up to Organocide that was sprayed by the guy who got me the clones. Evidently he is close to loosing his whole room to what he has done.

Medical Marijuana : Professor Grow is a link to a page that talks about using this method of mite erradication that could lead to loosing everything... (obviously there are many options and opinions).

I will see how these clones perfoirm now that potted, and that may reveal a better clue.

If I need to modify the Nutes for this strain way beyond what the rest of my strains like I might remove it from the grow (to many different things to monitor etc).

I do continue to thank you for the advice.. and trust me, I am listening to all of it..

[Pencil5522]

Tomorrow I am starting to use Distilled water for all my watering. I will run with that for a couple weeks and see if I see any changes. 9i really dont think this is it.. I think its a soils related nutrient situation) after tons more online research the closest thing I find is a "Potassium deficiency", BUT how I have it using a PH water at 6.8 (was 7.6 before last week), and using the Foxfarm soil without adding any nutrients is the part that has me stubled. (if it is in fact Potassium Def.)

A few things I can eliminate.

1. Heat Stress. I have took a temprature reading at the lights in several locations (just using T-5's now) and it is 73 - 77 degrees. I am able to hold my hand above the plants for as long as I want without any burning issues at all.

2. Overwatering. I know plants enough across the board to know that isnt the issue when I consider the amount of watering guidnance that says to water until some water comes out the pot bottom holes. (underwatering may be a issue, but I dont think it is the cause)..

I have taken some higher quality pictures today of the plant that has issues top to bottom, and 2 other plants that have a leaf or two that show similar signs.

Yellow leaf tip on new growth followed slowly by it turning brown, and spreading along the outer leaf edges.. evenetually the leaf becomes hard, and will break when bent.

[Pencil5522]

Few More Pictures of the same condition taken today (3/29/12)

[burgertime2010]

From what I am seeing here it does look like a phosphorous deficiency but having recently fixed this situation I am inclined to to go with heat stress, phototoxic burn from insecticides, and overwatering. I have to advise you against keeping dead/dying leaves on the plant.....they are invitations to a host of parasites and fall into the soil and rot on the surface. Over-watering is easy to do with soil and when it shows up visibly the tendency is to fix it with nutrients in the roots only making the problem worse. If you want to get some aeration back beneath the surface one option is to use a long skewer and poke holes gently until you reach the bottom and also give them a few pokes from the holes on the pot going upward..... do not overdo it and break roots though. In this situation, foliar feeding is the way to go. Liquid light by dutch masters is great...you dont have even turn the lights off. Overwatering will always be followed by deficiency if you are in the range you want to be in so add your nutrients to the leaves directly and use a wetting agent like saturator or coco-wet. Btw 1/2 strength on the liquid light just in case. It is all connected....1/2 of your success will be the environment you create. Remember pyrethrins, neem, and oil based insecticides need to dry well before the lights go back on, and raising the light for a couple hours might be a a good idea.

[Pencil5522]

Thanks Burgertime, (not sure if you did mean Phosphorus, or Potassium??)
To update a couple items. (regardless of who might have sprayed a bug destroying agent.. the fact is that it may have been done)....lol (OK.. it wasnt me that did it, and after a few weeks now of close inspection it doesn't appear that there are currently and bug issues).

I had a Gardner out Saturday that has been green thumbing it for many years. His comment on enviornment was... "Temperature is Perfect". "Deffinately not a Heat Issue", "Air flow is top shelf". "Lighting is better than he has ever had".. He also commented that if anything the plants appeared that they could use more water overall.

So, after that made me all happy with respect to the "BIG" potential issues. Then the focus is on soils, water, and chemicals (be it organic or not).

The overall issue may (and most likely is a Potassium, and potentially Magnesium deff). The soil I am using should be fine in those respects to the point in the grow that I started having issues..

Sodium Lockout may be the key... as more watering was done, the worse the plant go, as if the necessary nutirents were in fact blocked by the salts building up from my city tap water. Since I really dont want to have a study done on the water. Per "Polishpollack's" info, I have gone to using distilled water to make sure I have "NO" sodium in the water supply (it will take a few days to see if this holds merits).

I have also got consultation at the local green grow shop (local product supply house)... Since these plants are getting into weeks 4 and 5 in this soil, the soil could now be nutrient naked. So I am watering with a fert mix recomended at the local shop (at 1/4 strength).. Pictures of products being used are included.

I have noticed that the distilled water I get locally has a PH in the 5.8 range. Not positive if I should increase it or not at this point??? (Help??)

There is also very debatable info on whether or not to flush the pots.. If I do have a salt lockup issue, should I flush the plants to get rid of the solts... (thus creating a potential overwatering issue). The Fox Farm soils is big time easy to get water through, so it doesnt just sit there and make a bog out of things.

Due to being a bit scared about this particular plants potential for infecting the rest of the plants, I did elimintae it yesterday (it has so much stress it would not perform well anyway) I wanted to look at the roots, and this plant in bad shape had nice white roots to the full depth of the 3 gallon pot, and was actually a pretty thick mess of roots in the pots bottom... The mid pot roots (if it were a tree, I would call them the Tap roots) seemed very strong (hard to break). The whole dirt package came out held together and overall was not soaked at all, and seemed like it could have used water any time..

Once again. I research and consider eveything that is passed on to me... Thank you. I will follow what I have going for a few days and see how things respond. :thumbsup:

[Pencil5522]

Noting the fact that I am pretty Niave about all of this, BUT learning as much as fast as I can.... With respects to it being a Phosphorus or Potassium problem.

The Leaf tips are turning down, and not up.. Based off the info I have read, and my buddies visit to the room. The data and info says to lean towards Potassium issues.

Correct me where I am missing anything...

[pushit]

FFOF is a great soil if you use it correctly. I use routine transplants. From solo cups, to 1 gal, and finish in three gal. FFOF has enough nutrients in it to carry a plant 6-8weeks without any additives except water. I dont use nutes in veg anymore. I only use them after the 3rd week or so in flower. Since you said your temps and humidity are great, the main thing to focus on is the ph of the water you use. You said you were gonna start using distilled water. Yes the ph is really low in distilled. It will be even lower when you add nutes so make sure you get it back up to the 6.5ish area. Here's a little chart that might help you along the way.
Attachment 283820

[Pencil5522]

I have picked up 4 different distilled water products and it appears to all run in the 5.8 PH range new... adding the Nute takes it lower to around a 5.3 to 5.4. So I am adding a PH up to get it into the 6.5 range..

Since I have already dumped the one plant (that was seriously to far gone to do anything with beyond experiment with) I am now able to better focus on my other gurls.

I noticed yesterday that the Chocolate Berry has deffinate signs of salt build up/heat stress. The areas between the leaves veins are ridged up (bumped up a little). At least it looks just like the photos in books and online stating it to be a heat stress/ salt build up issue. That would actually work in line with the fact that the Fox Farm product is high in salts, and potentially my tap water may be as well, and thus have given myself a lockout of nutes caused by salt build up. (at least to me it makes sense).

2 items

1. Using distilled water at the proper PH should take care of and prevent this happening to this extent again. (Good Action there, but I am curious if I am missing something??)

2. I have a cuurent existing scenario where I think I may need to do some sort of flush?????? I have read info saying to use Sledgehammer. I have read info saying to use regular water?? regluar water at 6 times the pot size (3 galloon pot, flush with 9 gallons).?? I have read info saying that you should flush once a month??? I have read info saying that flushing causes BIG STRESS (no one wants to purposely stress their babies).?? SO.. truly, what is best and why if you could???

Also, with respects to poting and roots etc. I am fighting with the idea that going from clone cube to a 1 gallon pot in veg, then to a 3 gallon pot in flower would be better than going right int0 a 3 gallon pot from cloone cube??? (I guess I am thinking when you plant anything outdoors you dont keep uping its pot size then finall go big)..

Once again.. I am paying attention to all, but then you can only do so much at a time, as I would rather loose a plant or two or three, and truly figure out my strains and what they require best in my enviornment, so that my second round goes smoothly, than throw a tone of things at them have them do OK this time, and not really know what I did to cure their defficiencies..

[Pencil5522]

Wanted to toss up a couple pictures of the Chocolate Berry that I think is showing signs of Salt Build Up / Heat stress.

This plant was taken from a solo cup clone with good roots 5 week ago and transplanted into the 3 gallon pot with Fox Farm soil.

The leaves shown are younger ones aproximately 10 days old, maybe 12. Older leaves dont show the signs as much or at all, and the really new 2 or 3 days old growth, I am not able to tell yet for sure.

This plant has had some FIM work done on it. I plan to leave it in Veg for a total of 7 to 8 weeks. Being a medical grower in WA I am limited to rooted plant number at 15, so my take is that I want each plant to perform to its fullest capability..

Besides, I have always loved playing with plants... GRIN!!!