Is this cal mag deficiency or something else

[Two Scoops]

Hi All, looking for some advice.

I have 2 young plants in large storage containers, large holes drilled in the bottom for drainage. They are growing in soil which consists mainly of various composts (chicken manure, cow manure, mushroom), perlite, coco, peat moss. I've added in some gypsum, biochar, potash etc. I just checked the ph, its somewhere between 7 and 7.5. I have only been using straight tap water. no nutrients. Generally because the container is so large and the plants so small, i leave it about a week between waterings.

I noticed the yellowing leaves earlier on, and i figured magnesium deficiency, and so i had been doing the odd foliar spray with epsom salts. But things weren't correcting, so i recently grabbed some cal mag and did another foliar spray according to the directions on the bottle, and a light watering. Its probably been about 2 weeks since i did the first epsom salt spray, and only a few days since i sprayed with cal mag. I know its a short time, but they seem to have gotten worse since regardless

I want to get a handle on it before it gets much worse. If there is something wrong with my soil mix i am willing to transplant them. Though its odd, i have one small plant outside in the exact same soil mix and it has no problems whatsoever. And all it gets is water. Though its in a much smaller pot and dries out more between waterings which makes me wonder if i am over watering the indoor plants.

I don't know whether this is cal mag, as i see yellowing on the newer leaves.

Any assistance is appreciated

 

[cbdhemp808]

Hey @TwoScoops and welcome to the forum! You've come to the right place...we'll get you squared away.

Your grow medium looks really strange! Please describe the percentages/ratio of the ingredients.

What is the size of the "pots", in gallons?

What strain are you growing? Auto or photo? What is the approx. age of the plants?

 

[NOOOBIENOT]

Hello , wrong choice of container , the roots will never be able to grow deep enough and your medium is half organic and half hydroponic style , the composts you added needs to be aged -cooked in the soil by microbes etc 3 weeks to be available to the plants roots ,i would transplant to cloth 5-10 gallon pots for starters and add some worm castings to the mix and top dress with a good dry organic all purpose nutrient fertilizer , i use gia green because i am in Canada not sure what is available in the united states, you don't need holes when you use cloth pots , get some kind of mycorrhiza and apply to the roots when you do the transplant ,this is if you want to go organic ,other wise go hydroponics style and water daily at least and a good liquid nutrient fertilizer or dry product but be sure to ph your water be for adding to medium , you are half pregnant here now you need to pick a type of grow style and stick with it , foliar feeding is only a short term fix and has only a small result fixing the calmag issue you have going on here and there are other issue here also and foliar feeding should be done just before the lights go off , intense spraying of leaves with water droplets magnifies the light and burns them,, be sure to use about 20 % perlite to the mix if you go organic. your 1st step is to decide if you want to grow organic or with synthetics .just my opinion .you need to act quickly here as those plants have a lot of damage and it takes 7-10 days to see any results for a change of this magnitude , cannabis plants grow a large root ball , there are forums here that help you grow with either style of grow you choose.

 

[NOOOBIENOT]

Happy roots = happy plants ,leaves are just a signal indicator that there is a problem at the root level of the plant .

 

[NOOOBIENOT]

don't be disappointed , we all screwed up our 1st couple of grows , that's the fun of growing, the learning is the fun part and there are many great growers on this site for good solid advice , emilya ,in the shed are well educated growers and there are many other also.

 

[Two Scoops]

Hey @TwoScoops and welcome to the forum! You've come to the right place...we'll get you squared away.

Your grow medium looks really strange! Please describe the percentages/ratio of the ingredients.

What is the size of the "pots", in gallons?

What strain are you growing? Auto or photo? What is the approx. age of the plants?

Hi,

The plants are both grand mommy purples, though they look very different. One is extremely dense, the other looks completely different. Go figure? Photo

The containers are about 50l or 13 gallons according to the conversion tool. The top layer is fungus gnat sand, as i had an infestation early on, but is now under control since i added the sand. The vast bulk is a compost mix equal rations of mushroom, chicken and cow manure. Its had a coco brick and a couple of small bags of peat to adjust the ph down. 5l bag of perlite or 1.3 gallons.

Thanks for your assistance

 

[seaofgreen18]

Hi All, looking for some advice.

I have 2 young plants in large storage containers, large holes drilled in the bottom for drainage. They are growing in soil which consists mainly of various composts (chicken manure, cow manure, mushroom), perlite, coco, peat moss. I've added in some gypsum, biochar, potash etc. I just checked the ph, its somewhere between 7 and 7.5. I have only been using straight tap water. no nutrients. Generally because the container is so large and the plants so small, i leave it about a week between waterings.

I noticed the yellowing leaves earlier on, and i figured magnesium deficiency, and so i had been doing the odd foliar spray with epsom salts. But things weren't correcting, so i recently grabbed some cal mag and did another foliar spray according to the directions on the bottle, and a light watering. Its probably been about 2 weeks since i did the first epsom salt spray, and only a few days since i sprayed with cal mag. I know its a short time, but they seem to have gotten worse since regardless

I want to get a handle on it before it gets much worse. If there is something wrong with my soil mix i am willing to transplant them. Though its odd, i have one small plant outside in the exact same soil mix and it has no problems whatsoever. And all it gets is water. Though its in a much smaller pot and dries out more between waterings which makes me wonder if i am over watering the indoor plants.

I don't know whether this is cal mag, as i see yellowing on the newer leaves.

Any assistance is appreciated

Howdy my friend first off no need to ph Organic soil and looks like 1 problem could be nitrogen deficiency leaves look a AWFUL pale green I'm thinking you got a few issues going on there

 

[Two Scoops]

Hello , wrong choice of container , the roots will never be able to grow deep enough and your medium is half organic and half hydroponic style , the composts you added needs to be aged -cooked in the soil by microbes etc 3 weeks to be available to the plants roots ,i would transplant to cloth 5-10 gallon pots for starters and add some worm castings to the mix and top dress with a good dry organic all purpose nutrient fertilizer , i use gia green because i am in Canada not sure what is available in the united states, you don't need holes when you use cloth pots , get some kind of mycorrhiza and apply to the roots when you do the transplant ,this is if you want to go organic ,other wise go hydroponics style and water daily at least and a good liquid nutrient fertilizer or dry product but be sure to ph your water be for adding to medium , you are half pregnant here now you need to pick a type of grow style and stick with it , foliar feeding is only a short term fix and has only a small result fixing the calmag issue you have going on here and there are other issue here also and foliar feeding should be done just before the lights go off , intense spraying of leaves with water droplets magnifies the light and burns them,, be sure to use about 20 % perlite to the mix if you go organic. your 1st step is to decide if you want to grow organic or with synthetics .just my opinion .you need to act quickly here as those plants have a lot of damage and it takes 7-10 days to see any results for a change of this magnitude , cannabis plants grow a large root ball , there are forums here that help you grow with either style of grow you choose.

Hi,

The intent was to go water only, and i had looked at a few super soil mixes online and worked around what i had available, Theres quite a lot of worm castings in there, both from a bag i got at the hardware store and from my own worm farm. In fact theres several hundred live worms in each pot, they at least seem happy when i went to check the soil ph before posting haha. Most of the potting mixes and nutrients used in the states and Canada are not available in Australia, so its just bagged composts of different varieties i can get from the local hardware store.

When i mixed everything together it sat for about 6 months before i used it.

In my last grow i used large fabric pots, similar thing happened. Though i wasnt using cal mag at the time.

I an going to switch to smaller pots tomorrow.

 

[Two Scoops]

Howdy my friend first off no need to ph Organic soil and looks like 1 problem could be nitrogen deficiency leaves look a AWFUL pale green I'm thinking you got a few issues going on there

Howdy my friend first off no need to ph Organic soil and looks like 1 problem could be nitrogen deficiency leaves look a AWFUL pale green I'm thinking you got a few issues going on there

Thanks,

I figured i would ph the soil down to around 6,5. When i first mixed everything up, let it sit for several months, and then checked the ph it was around 8.5. I figured that was too high so added a couple of small bags of peat moss to bring it down. Ph seems to have creeped up a little since then.

The shorter denser plant had a solid green on it before the issues arose, and now the yellowing seems to be from the deficiency i have put them in. The other less dense plant seems less hardy under these conditions, and started showing issues earlier, which is why it looks like it does.

Cheers

 

[seaofgreen18]

And you know you need to start off with a ph balance in your soil when you started I noticed the recipe you used and well I didn't see anything for pH and did you charge your Biochar or purchase pre charged bio char you can just use that straight outta the bag unless it's pre charged and also how are you planning on fixing your ph?? Liquid pH down?? Your soil is to high in pH you fix that and I think you'll see an instant result more so than the pots if you have good drainage I'd re check your recipe

 

[seaofgreen18]

Thanks,

I figured i would ph the soil down to around 6,5. When i first mixed everything up, let it sit for several months, and then checked the ph it was around 8.5. I figured that was too high so added a couple of small bags of peat moss to bring it down. Ph seems to have creeped up a little since then.

The shorter denser plant had a solid green on it before the issues arose, and now the yellowing seems to be from the deficiency i have put them in. The other less dense plant seems less hardy under these conditions, and started showing issues earlier, which is why it looks like it does.

Cheers

Organic Sulfur for ph ing down AG lime for up

 

[Two Scoops]

Organic Sulfur for ph ing down AG lime for up

Yeah i have sulfur and iron on hand but i understand these take some time to adjust the ph. I used the peat because its supposed to be a ph of 4 and would work quicker,

 

[seaofgreen18]

And your difencieny is coming from the ph being out of whack as well as some of your inputs of your soil not the wrong inputs just the wrong amounts that's just an observation

 

[Two Scoops]

And you know you need to start off with a ph balance in your soil when you started I noticed the recipe you used and well I didn't see anything for pH and did you charge your Biochar or purchase pre charged bio char you can just use that straight outta the bag unless it's pre charged and also how are you planning on fixing your ph?? Liquid pH down?? Your soil is to high in pH you fix that and I think you'll see an instant result more so than the pots if you have good drainage I'd re check your recipe

The biochar is a mix of prebought "charged" biochar, not a huge amount of it in there. There is also some stuff i made myself which i soaked for a few days in a worm tea i was brewing.

 

[Two Scoops]

And your difencieny is coming from the ph being out of whack as well as some of your inputs of your soil not the wrong inputs just the wrong amounts that's just an observation

You are probably right. What is confusing though is the plant i have outside is in the exact same soil mix. The only difference is its in a generic plastic pot, much smaller volume. It has no issues apart from flipping grasshoppers

 

[seaofgreen18]

And your difencieny is coming from the ph being out of whack as well as some of your inputs of your soil not the wrong inputs just the wrong amounts that's just an observation

The biochar is a mix of prebought "charged" biochar, not a huge amount of it in there. There is also some stuff i made myself which i soaked for a few days in a worm tea i was brewing.

Yeah soaking it in a worm tea doesn't work all you did with that was soak up alot of anerobic biology you need an aerated compost tea as far as ph. Yellowstone Brand 90% Disintegrating Sulfur Granules is a quality Sulfur-Bentonite product that degrades readily upon contact with moisture in the soil, which provides a large surface area of sulfur to be oxidized to the sulfate form of sulfur.

 

[Two Scoops]

Yeah soaking it in a worm tea doesn't work all you did with that was soak up alot of anerobic biology you need an aerated compost tea as far as ph. Yellowstone Brand 90% Disintegrating Sulfur Granules is a quality Sulfur-Bentonite product that degrades readily upon contact with moisture in the soil, which provides a large surface area of sulfur to be oxidized to the sulfate form of sulfur.

I had some air stones in their for aeration, though nowhere near that level of churn haha

 

[seaofgreen18]

The biochar is a mix of prebought "charged" biochar, not a huge amount of it in there. There is also some stuff i made myself which i soaked for a few days in a worm tea i was brewing.

10% by volume of biochar to soil

 

[seaofgreen18]

KIS Organics: Organic Gardening Supplies and Soils check out these guys they can get you where you need to be on your soil

 

[seaofgreen18]

I make my own soil and do my own castings