Any Ideas? Input Greatly Appreciated

[elunex]

For some background. I have these Hells Bells growing in 11L pots in an experimental "super soil", I was gifted to test (in hindsight...)

It's received only water + silica twice and microbes twice. PH is always between 6 and 6.5 (slurry test and runoff is at 6)

It was vegged for 4 weeks in the soil before flip and they are now in week 5 of flower.

They looked 100% with no symptoms 10 days ago, then started to show burnt tips, but it seems weird for nutrient burn to start so late into flower. It has since progressed rapidly and I fear these may be lost.

All 6 of the plants in that soil are showing it, the same cuts in other soil are doing fine. So it's definitely related to nutrients I believe.

The question is, am I looking at a lockout causing a rapid degradation due to lack of uptake or am I looking at nutrient burn (despite the late stage of life).

There are signs that resemble both mg + k deficiency but others that suggest nutrient Burn.

The symptoms started half way up the plant and have moved up, lower growth below where it started looks healthier. This part makes me rethink nutrient Burn.

Current symptoms

Initial symptoms

 

[bluter]

potassium def. it's pulling what it needs from the leaves cause there isn't any left in the soil.

 

[Bill284]

I think a flush of ur pot with ph,d water to remove any built up salts in the soil would be a good place to start. Then start with a mild nutrient feed and see how react.

 

[013]

Some of the smaller yellow spots resemble bug bites

 

[NuttyProfessor]

super soil , or super soilless ? has soil been added or is it a peat base medium

 

[013]

BTW’s that’s a gorgeous plant, I can see past the def so don’t let a few mucked up leaves sway your opinion. Also runoff ph or ppm is useless data that means nothing. Runoff carries chemical salts from your nutes and fine sediments so it’s an inflated number anyway. Then if you change the inputs to get a different output - you will really be in the ditch.

 

[Bill284]

Have you made any adjustments to your process? Is she looking any better?

 

[BeanTownFan420]

You have lamp burn seeing it is only on the leaves most exposed to direct light. I am 100% confident it is lamp burn back off lamps and keep doing what your doing.

 

[BeanTownFan420]

Once the lower growth got shaded out more it stopped burning.

 

[elunex]

Apologies for not coming back to this, I've honestly just been trying to see how they respond first and things definitely didn't get better.

My approach was to treat for K deficiency from depleted soil.

I fed 3/ml to a litre of BioBizz Bloom along with some additional K booster, I watered this to 20% runoff.

I then followed their response over the next week and they seemed to just keep going at the same pace, I followed that up with another similar feed the next week and situation seemed to only get worse.

At this point I started to wonder if it wasn't a case of depleted soil and instead a lockout occurring (Since I had given sufficient P and K and the plants didn't seem to uptake it) and with things getting worse I opted to do a pH plain water flush.

Now the plants are looking worse than ever and have given up on them getting to harvest, the buds haven't grown in 3 weeks. I've already chopped one since it was essentially dead already. I may just dry sift them at this point, but what a fuck up. And the fact I still can't figure it out is only making it worse.

 

[Bill284]

Apologies for not coming back to this, I've honestly just been trying to see how they respond first and things definitely didn't get better.

My approach was to treat for K deficiency from depleted soil.

I fed 3/ml to a litre of BioBizz Bloom along with some additional K booster, I watered this to 20% runoff.

I then followed their response over the next week and they seemed to just keep going at the same pace, I followed that up with another similar feed the next week and situation seemed to only get worse.

At this point I started to wonder if it wasn't a case of depleted soil and instead a lockout occurring (Since I had given sufficient P and K and the plants didn't seem to uptake it) and with things getting worse I opted to do a pH plain water flush.

Now the plants are looking worse than ever and have given up on them getting to harvest, the buds haven't grown in 3 weeks. I've already chopped one since it was essentially dead already. I may just dry sift them at this point, but what a fuck up. And the fact I still can't figure it out is only making it worse.

Omg that’s heartbreaking.

 

[013]

I could be wrong here but there looks to be some whiteish debris on the fan leaves that are not trichs, that could be the result of aphids, when they mature they shed the old carcass and it remains stuck on the leaves. Check leaf undersides and main stem for critters, aphids blend in pretty well color wise. Even if it’s not critters, I have noticed that when a plant begins eating it self due to deficiency it can suck the life out of not only fan leaves but also buds and colas. Hopefully you can get some hash or oil by stripping the trichs off, but even faded leaves can still be smoked

 

[Bill284]

I could be wrong here but there looks to be some whiteish debris on the fan leaves that are not trichs, that could be the result of aphids, when they mature they shed the old carcass and it remains stuck on the leaves. Check leaf undersides and main stem for critters, aphids blend in pretty well color wise. Even if it’s not critters, I have noticed that when a plant begins eating it self due to deficiency it can suck the life of of not only fan leaves but also buds and colas. Hopefully you can get some hash or oil by stripping the trichs off.

I see the marks you mentioned but it’s too blurry when I blow it up to tell. See the way the dead leaves are so uniformly dried. When I was hit with aphids the leaves were damaged as they died you could see where they had started their cancer on my poor girls. Your right though if it’s not something microscopic like mights they should be visible.

 

[elunex]

No Aphids, but lots of Thrips for sure. Been a big influx this year into most growers rooms here. But they have damaged the plants in the other soil more than these, and those are still going fine so I've managed to exclude them as the cause of these issues.

 

[NuttyProfessor]

It might have been a excess of something in the mix do you have the recipe ?
Too much Mag will ,lock out (K) im wondering if the mix had Mag pellets. too many and they are breaking down as you you grow , then you flush and added the k boost and it locked out , zinc , iron and mag , in this order , looks like that
Just a thought, i could be a million percent wrong
The recipe will help

 

[Carcass]

My approach was to treat for K deficiency from depleted soil.

You may have went the wrong direction with the K...

I burnt a plant up last year...added bloom boosters when I didn't need to...
Your plant looks pretty similar....
Here's what she looked like before I gave her the bloom nutes (GLN Bud Explosion)
(She's the one on the left/Northern Lights)

A little droopy, but otherwise pretty healthy looking, right?

And about 10 days after I "treated" her to some extra K...

I did a flush on her to try and wash out the extra K, but the damage was done.

Bud shot- all the sugar leaves were toast.

She went full term, and I got a pretty good harvest off her, but she was painful to look at

, i could be a million percent wrong

I could be too- wouldn't be the first time...