Hey guys new to the forum really need some advice, have grown before but never had any real issues until now, I was recently given a plant by a friend and upon receiving it realised it had rusty brown spots on the leaves and a little yellowing the friend told me it was a mag deficiency and gave me ebson salts to fix it, I gave it the ebson for 2 days and nothing got better in fact it was getting worse, I tested the soil it came in and it was a PH of 10 and I didn't have a way to lower it and it needed a bigger pot anyway so I transplanted it this is when I noticed my mate had used clay as the soil which made it a pain in the arse to transplant and impossible for me to free the root structure of it so I put it into a 60% soil 20% dirt 15% sand 5% Ash mix but there was still quite A bit of clay on the root system when put into the new mix, afterwards I gave it a good water and hoped to see some improvement a week passed of only watering and it was still getting worse leaves now going lite green edges looking burnt tips curling up I gave it powerfeed to see if it would help again nothing, tested the pH of the new soil was sitting at a 5.5 so I flushed it put in some pH raiser (lime) and gave it a feed of powerfeed and seasol now hoping to see an improvement but I'm starting to doubt my main concern is I'm now getting the same brown dots on my own two plants that I started not long after getting the trouble plant I'm hoping it's to do with the 5.5 PH soil I have put the lime in to balance the PH but I'm honestly grasping at straws I attached photos of the trouble plant need to save at least my new plants other wise no crop for next year, if you need anymore information just ask need to save my babies
Help! Can't figure out the issue
- Thread starter Flip08
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Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
what a mess... ok, going to give it to you straight... please take this as me really trying to help you with what I would do faced with your situation. First, it sounds like your soil is now totally jacked up and you are really over thinking it. You seem to have some misconceptions about what is needed in a soil to grow this weed and it is my strong suggestion to get her out of this lime infested frankensoil you have created and just put her in some decent organic potting soil, preferably with active microbes. Don't add anything to it...
Here is how pH is supposed to work. Most of our cannabis appropriate soils have a pH up near the upper end of the 6.3-6.8 range or even higher. This is by design. Your task is not to adjust this soil. Your task is to set the pH of your container to 6.3 when you water, with a solution set to this pH. Your soil with a base pH higher than this will cause a drift as the soil dries out, causing your nutrients to slide through the entire usable range during each wet/dry cycle. Clearly, you are doing this pH thing all wrong by trying to adjust your soil in such a dramatic way and this is making needed elements unavailable to your plant.
Then, let's talk about epsom salt. It is a salt. Salt is bad for the roots. Too much salt and your roots stop being able to uptake water, and the salt needs to be flushed out. It is possible to put ES into an organic soil and then allow it to compost into the soil, and there it can be very beneficial, but applying it to the soil of an active grow is less then helpful. The best use of epsom salt in the grow tent is as a foliar spray, where it can be used as a temporary fix to a Mag deficiency while you are waiting to get some calmag+ shipped in. So that is my advice for the burned looking areas... get some Calmag. But also get that pH problem fixed so the calmag will work.
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- #3
Haha frankinsoil that's great and thanks for the advice I appreciate it and it's not so much like infested I put maybe a pinch sprinkled on top of the soil then a decent watering was just following instructions on the pack to raise soil PH from 5.5 to 6.5 and planned on testing the soil to make sure it's where it needs to be I usually just water the plants and give it a feed once a week making sure I use the recommended amounts and right so Epson salt isn't good and all the forums I read were wrong after all I was curious as I didn't think it would be that good for the plant and what do I do if I have no way to get new soil right now kind of tight on money at the moment and the soil it is in is mostly organic soil but unfortunately had only a enough to make a mix soil the dirt used is quite good as well so I figured it would be a good mix as I have another friend growing down the road straight in the ground and his plant is thriving I shall invest in some calmag + when my money comes through this week also I live in Australia so no easy access to weed specific soils and supplements if that's what you were referring to when you said "our cannabis appropriate soils"
Emilya Green
Well-Known Member
ok good then... doesn't sound quite as bad as it did at first. So lets just try watering all the time at 6.3 and see what that does... and while you are waiting on the calmag, by all means do a foliar spray of some epsom salt solution.
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- #5
Okay great thanks again for the advice I knew getting on a forum was the way to go, I shall stick to your advice and if it's okay I'll come back to this thread if I run into another road block
If money is an issue, you should give Emmie's homemade calmag recipe a try.
Here's the link: Emilya's DIY Cal-Mag
Here's the link: Emilya's DIY Cal-Mag
