First grow - Problem with one plant

[Honeybeeguy]

Strain - Indica, bubblegum
# of Plants - 1
Grow Type - Soil
Grow Stage - Vegetative
Bucket Size - 10 gallon
Lights - (1) Mars hydro 192 reflector
Nutrients - Fox Farms soil trio
Medium - Ocean Forrest
PPM - unknown
PH - 6.5
RH - 28%
Room Temperature -74-84F
Solution Temperature -70
Room Square Footage - 4X8
Pests - None Known

Hello all, I've been looking at the pictures and reading but I'm having a hard time nailing down an issue I have with one out of four plants I am growing right now. I am currently using just one end of my 4x8 tent to grow four plants under a Mars hydro 192. The plants are 3 707 truthband and one Indiana bubblegum. I have a feeling that my problem is nutrient burn but maybe you fine humans can help me narrow it down. I have been feeding with fox farms soil trio all their lives "They are 7 weeks old starting week 8 now" but recently there is an issue with the bubblegum that is not affecting the other 3 plants that are truthband strain. It happened about a week ago, I had been using the full trio of nutes when I think I burnt the bubblegum plant. The humbodlt website says that truthband is a heavy feeder so that's how I made my assertion that nutrient burnt was the culprit. My plants are in 10 gallon fabric pots that rest in plastic mortar tubs, Every great once in a while I will pour about a gallon or more of water into the masonry tub and let the pots soak it up, most other waterings and all feedings are done from the top of the pot. After I filled the tubs with water this last time the leaves on the bubblegum looked super green, dark, and droopy like they were curling under themselves. After that these rusty looking leaves were brown and crunchy on the edges, some were all crunchy and not quite brown. The funny part was the leaves at the center of the plant were not affected by this, even the new growth showed sighns of this but not the stuff down deep in the plant. I'm pretty sure it's nutrient burn but if someone more experienced than me can point out what I burned them with that would be great. After I suspected nutrient burn I watered with plain well water, PH at 6.5 and watered till I achieved runoff of about a gallon, I have not fed the plant since. Yes, I know I need an EC meter and I will be ordering one soon to help prevent this from happening in the future.

bubblegum is the smaller of the four plants.

Thanks!

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[Troy01]

It really looks like Nutrient Burn to me. You did the right thing to flush it. I would let it go with just plain water for a couple days and then start feeding with 1/4 strength the labeled dosage. After a week I would up it to about 1/2 the label strength.

You already know a TDS meter is a must and would get one quickly. Amazon will have it to you in 2 days for about $15.

Different strains have different requirements and where your nutrient mix may be fine for one strain it may burn another strain. The leaves that are damaged will not recover. You should keep an eye on new growth and watch carefully.

 

[Honeybeeguy]

Thank you! I've tried my best to science the hell out of this to avoid the typical FAQ problems but yes I need a meter! I'll get one on the way soon so I can keep better track of my grow. I intend to scale up soon and this first grow has been very informative.

 

[Troy01]

Don't beat yourself up. We've all been there and I an honestly say I learn something new every day.

It's like baking a cake - If you didn't know the temperature of the oven or had a timer you would probably either over cook or under cook the cake. An experienced baker could probably wing it but would always follow the recipe to the T

 

[Honeybeeguy]

Looking way better, still feeding the truthband and watering the bubblegum with straight well water. I heavily pruned the bubblegum removing heavily damaged leaves and allowing light to get

 

[Troy01]

They look like they bounced back. Scrog is looking good.

 

[Honeybeeguy]

They look like they bounced back. Scrog is looking good.

Hoping to have scrog all the way filled out and thick in a week or so. Saturday will be the end of week 8 so I have another two weeks until I switch to 12/12.

 

[Troy01]

Hoping to have scrog all the way filled out and thick in a week or so. Saturday will be the end of week 8 so I have another two weeks until I switch to 12/12.

You should have a bountiful harvest for sure. How much room do you have to the light? From my experience growing Photos they can double in size after flip.

 

[Honeybeeguy]

I'm 20-24 inches to the light but I have about 3x that space to go up once they start to stretch. I'm considering putting up another trellis net before I flip so the bugs are well supported. The tent is 80" tall and 4x8, we plan to get another one and run the two tents as flower rooms with a veg setup in the open room for a continuous harvest. I think I can flower 8 plants in each tent for a tight scrog.

 

[Troy01]

I'm 20-24 inches to the light but I have about 3x that space to go up once they start to stretch. I'm considering putting up another trellis net before I flip so the bugs are well supported. The tent is 80" tall and 4x8, we plan to get another one and run the two tents as flower rooms with a veg setup in the open room for a continuous harvest. I think I can flower 8 plants in each tent for a tight scrog.

Sounds perfect. I have a an 80" tent myself and really love the extra space.

Your plans of a second tent sound really interesting. I started growing Autos this round as I have a tight time schedule due to travel plans but still hope to get in two crops before I go away.

 

[Old Salt]

PPM from my well is 163. Have you done a complete test on your well? We had it done, and the results were horrendous. Just the arsenic was ten times the allowable level. Other chemicals were above or near allowable levels. An RO for drinking, cooking, and growing allows us to keep using the well.

 

[Troy01]

PPM from my well is 163. Have you done a complete test on your well? We had it done, and the results were horrendous. Just the arsenic was ten times the allowable level. Other chemicals were above or near allowable levels. An RO for drinking, cooking, and growing allows us to keep using the well.

I use city water. I live in the middle of Silicon Valley and in my particular area I our water is mixture from the Hetch Hetchy reservoir just outside of Yosemite and San Francisco Public Water Supply. The good thing is that quarterly they send out a report on the quality of the water with a detailed breakdown of all the trace elements. The problem is I never know which source the water is coming from on a daily or weekly basis or if it is blended.

I can generally tell by the PPM the source of the water.

 

[Honeybeeguy]

My PPM is 488 from my well. I have no doubt that the majority of that is calcium followed by iron. I live quite far removed from industry or major agriculture so I'm not concerned about any harmful chemicals but I am concerned about how I'm supposed to calculate the EC for my grow.

 

[Troy01]

I would also suspect that most of the high PPM is from Calcium. I guess what I would do is just start with 1/4 of the fertilizer's label amount and check and record the PPM. If the plants don't show any negative signs I would up it after a couple days to 1/2 label strength and again check the PPM and record. If your happy with the way the plants are growing mix to that PPM. If you want to push them gradually increase until you find the sweetspot.

 

[Honeybeeguy]

So after looking into it and sorting out my meter my ppm is 199, I fed today with a half dose of nutrients and all I used was grow big and tiger bloom "I always want to say tiger blood" from fox farms. I used it in the concentration of 1tbs of each per gallon and the ppm was around 1400. I think that should be fine because the Truthband was taking it at full strength with no problems the only one that had an issue was the bubblegum. With that being said we are going to purchase an inline filter for the water spigot in the grow room for the current time being to avoid me spending tons of money on RO water for flushing later on in flowering. In the long term we are planning on a whole house RO system "because my wife said so" and it will be easier to calculate nutrients and not clean out my coffee pot every 2 weeks.

 

[Troy01]

Well happy wife happy grow!

Wow... 1400 ppm ... If the girls can handle it go for it.

 

[Honeybeeguy]

Well happy wife happy grow!

Wow... 1400 ppm ... If the girls can handle it go for it.

Well the 1400 is including the 200ppm from my well, needless to say though next order I put in is going to include a filter and some flushing solution.

 

[Honeybeeguy]

So I've been doing some more playing with the water now that I have an EC meter. Distilled water from the jug is reading at .006 but my tap water is reading .446-.510, So i purchased a simple inline carbon filter. This does nothing for me, actually the EC went to .660 at least I know there isn't anything bad in the water. This is where it gets scary I have been using 10 gallon smart pots with Fox farms and using the soil trio with the schedule and following on time with feeding. Well the EC of my runoff water was 8.1!!!! holy shit!!!! WOW, so I have some work to do. For starters I'm watering today with just distilled water, one gallon per plant. I won't be able to put in a whole house RO system for a while so is the additional minerals going to make the weed taste like hot garbage or not do well in lab tests?

Thanks for the help.

 

[Troy01]

Good work buddy. It is amazing how much you learn when you have some scientific measuring devices in your arsenal. A PPM of 1,400 is pretty hot with nutrients. I usually keep mine under 900. If your plant is taking it without any ill effect then go for it. My Tap is about 225 ppm and I'm currently running my seedlings at about 450 ppm and my mature plants at 800.

Flushing will help but I have a feeling the high run off is due to all of the nutrients that are in your growing media.

 

[Honeybeeguy]

Good work buddy. It is amazing how much you learn when you have some scientific measuring devices in your arsenal. A PPM of 1,400 is pretty hot with nutrients. I usually keep mine under 900. If your plant is taking it without any ill effect then go for it. My Tap is about 225 ppm and I'm currently running my seedlings at about 450 ppm and my mature plants at 800.

Flushing will help but I have a feeling the high run off is due to all of the nutrients that are in your growing media.

This is day one week two of flower, I have 7-8 weeks to go so yeah I can fix this. Do you know about the calcium and other dissolved minerals being a problem though? I'm going to water them with one gallon of distilled water now but I may have to switch if this is going to continue to be a problem in the future. I plan to sell overages to dispensaries and truly want the highest quality cannabis for myself so if switching water sources is a must, I will.