Is this a Calcium Deficiency?

[Northern Boxer]

I call it being a pawn of the commercial nutrient companies. Once you go full living organic and taste the difference in the product, few will ever go back. Good luck and jump in with questions and results of your work anytime! Great to meet you Northern Boxer and welcome to the TLO world![/QUOTE
Hello Emily's, i have been reading some of your links, journals and working my way through the Rev. You are certainly dedicated to the organic grow. With that I just wanted to update you and had a question if you could share your thoughts. I just couldn't bring myself to applying chelated nutes so I sourced a organic quick brew "Boogie Brew". I had good foaming action after 24 hours and the EC came in at 455 ppm after subtracting 22 ppm for my RO water. I applied this at around a 10 - 1 which came in at around 50 ppm. My plants are well into flower now. The new bud leaves don't seem as affected though I'm still getting quite a bit of yellowing going into week 4. I was considering applying a Top Dressing of worm castings to get the N up a bit and hoped the microbial tea would free up some of the amendments in my mix which is around 7 weeks old now. In your opinion should I continue down this road. My runoff only came in at 550 ppm....do you think I should up the strength of the tea I'm my next watering? Your thoughts are always appreciated. Thanks NB.

 

[Emilya Green]

Hello Emily's, i have been reading some of your links, journals and working my way through the Rev. You are certainly dedicated to the organic grow. With that I just wanted to update you and had a question if you could share your thoughts. I just couldn't bring myself to applying chelated nutes so I sourced a organic quick brew "Boogie Brew". I had good foaming action after 24 hours and the EC came in at 455 ppm after subtracting 22 ppm for my RO water. I applied this at around a 10 - 1 which came in at around 50 ppm. My plants are well into flower now. The new bud leaves don't seem as affected though I'm still getting quite a bit of yellowing going into week 4. I was considering applying a Top Dressing of worm castings to get the N up a bit and hoped the microbial tea would free up some of the amendments in my mix which is around 7 weeks old now. In your opinion should I continue down this road. My runoff only came in at 550 ppm....do you think I should up the strength of the tea I'm my next watering? Your thoughts are always appreciated. Thanks NB.

Hi NB... your ppm numbers mean nothing to me since I put that meter away years ago when I gave up on hydro, but logic alone says that the ppm of a compost tea must be much higher than what you just used. I am in the process of applying a compost tea to my garden right now, and I only diluted mine by 100%... 1 gallon of tea became 2 gallons of watering mix. I would imagine that my ppm's are off the scale because this stuff is thick. So first, I would recommend using your tea in a much greater concentration than you are right now.
Secondly, you are in bloom right now, so N is no longer a macro nutrient and the plant's needs now involve a lot of calcium, phosphorus and potassium along with a constant need for nitrogen to build the new leaves.
Providing that these base elements are now breaking down in your soil at 7 weeks, at least partially, you need the microlife that can specialize in breaking down the needed elements, in large numbers. That microherd population needs to be increased dramatically, and hopefully the broken down elements are there to feed the microlife so that they can in turn feed the plants. The good foaming action in your tea showed you that there was plenty of life in the soup, but then you diluted it to 1/10 of what it could have been. Keep in mind, your goal in TLO is not to feed the plants with your tea... you are feeding the microlife that lives in your soil. The microlife feeds the plant. I do think i am seeing some improvement... but don't be timid with this... with enough microlife and if indeed your soil mix is supporting it, you could get this thing going. The trick now is to keep those microbeastys alive by keeping the medium moist, and I would immediately start another strong bloom tea, with added bone meal and soft rock phosphate, and this time, don't dilute it more than that first 100% cut. If that shows further improvement in the overall greening of the plants, you will have this in the bag... but if not, assume the materials in the soil still have not cooked down enough, and get some organic flowering nutes in there.