Pale leaves, how much nitrogen should I add?

[graybeard]

Hi all,
I have two plants showing nitrogen shortage and three that look great. All five have been given the same nutes. I’m using Fox Farms basic three. So total nitrogen count is 8 I believe and I need to up it. So I’m curious what’s considered an aggressive increase and a more conservative increase.

 

[013]

Hi Graybeard,

Follow this link How to ask for grow support We need more info. What’s the medium? Are you using cal-mag? Do you adjust ph? To what value? A N deficiency is not always a N deficiency - it could be caused by something else. A few current white light or non blurple pics of your crew will help.

Cute GSD pup!

 

[grimlyman]

Bro, just give them a couple of foliar feeds of a soluble fertilizer for the next couple of weeks and add some Trace elements chelate. Your plants will love you for it

 

[graybeard]

Hi Graybeard,

Follow this link How to ask for grow support We need more info. What’s the medium? Are you using cal-mag? Do you adjust ph? To what value? A N deficiency is not always a N deficiency - it could be caused by something else. A few current white light or non blurple pics of your crew will help.

Cute GSD pup!

Here’s a few pics. I’ll put out more info when I get a minute. Attached is my whole grow and individual shots of the plants.

 

[Emilya Green]

Let me add a few more questions. Are you following the Fox farm feeding schedule to the letter or are you giving less than they recommend? How exactly are you proposing to increase the nitrogen?

 

[graybeard]

First, I know my soil is weak. Its a 50/50 mix of Happy Frog and Ocean and is a about 3 months old.

I'm following the recommendations on the bottles and feeding with every watering.
Each plant gets a quart every few days.
The PH of what I water with is is about 6.3.
The tent is 3x3 and the light is a Spider Farmer 2000 running at 100% and abought 18" above canopy.
Humidity runs 40-50%.
Temp is regulated fairly tight around 75f
I was thinking of just increasing the Bloom and Tiger on the two pale plants by a yet undecided %

The two effected plants have always been a bit of an issue while the others have always been strong.
The 3 Run Homer is photo period and was given to me by a friend in a root locked small container.
The Critical mass has always been considerably smaller than it sister in the lower left corner of the tent.

 

[graybeard]

First, I know my soil is weak. Its a 50/50 mix of Happy Frog and Ocean and is a about 3 months old.

I'm following the recommendations on the bottles and feeding with every watering.
Each plant gets a quart every few days.
The PH of what I water with is is about 6.3.
The tent is 3x3 and the light is a Spider Farmer 2000 running at 100% and abought 18" above canopy.
Humidity runs 40-50%.
Temp is regulated fairly tight around 75f
I was thinking of just increasing the Bloom and Tiger on the two pale plants by a yet undecided %

The two effected plants have always been a bit of an issue while the others have always been strong.
The 3 Run Homer is photo period and was given to me by a friend in a root locked small container.
The Critical mass has always been considerably smaller than it sister in the lower left corner of the tent.

 

[Emilya Green]

stop going by what is on the side of the bottles and download the actual feeding chart. The mix changes with each week of the grow, according to the plant's needs. This is all you are missing... you are not feeding correctly.

 

[graybeard]

stop going by what is on the side of the bottles and download the actual feeding chart. The mix changes with each week of the grow, according to the plant's needs. This is all you are missing... you are not feeding correctly.

Ok, thanks. I have one of their charts but maybe not the right one. I was using the chart earlier and got into nute problems because it was about half what the bottles say. These two plants almost died and I had to cut most of the growth off to save them. They are recovering but still aren't running 100%.

 

[Emilya Green]

I suspect that your plants got into trouble for other reasons. The chart is always the way to go. They have no incentive to lie to you. The dosages listed on the bottles are mainly for an outdoor grow, out in the bright sunshine and fresh air. Plants out there do need a little bit more.

 

[graybeard]

This seems to match the bottles and is what I've bee feeding.

 

[graybeard]

I suspect that your plants got into trouble for other reasons. The chart is always the way to go. They have no incentive to lie to you. The dosages listed on the bottles are mainly for an outdoor grow, out in the bright sunshine and fresh air. Plants out there do need a little bit more.

So you're saying I'm feeding too much?

 

[Emilya Green]

So you're saying I'm feeding too much?

I'm saying you are using the wrong mix as well as maybe too much of one thing that might be locking out other things. I am saying to stop trying to guess at this and follow the directions. I am saying that your previous problems might have been due to watering too often or any number of other things and that it is unwise to immediately blame the chart and instead rely on a very vague instruction written on the side of each bottle.

 

[Emilya Green]

This seems to match the bottles and is what I've bee feeding.

not even close, if you have been going by what is on the bottles. Each one of the products recommends giving it every other waterings, and at dosage rates way in excess to what you see on the chart. You also have a general feeding recommendation and a heavy one, each more than this chart recommends. Grow Big is recommending 2-3 tsp every other watering... note that does not happen in the chart, and could be locking out your potassium, matching the symptoms on your plant.

Tigerbloom is just as bad, the bottle recommending 2-3 tsp for a general feeding and 4 tsp for a heavy one. Then the Big Bloom... the bottle recommends 4!! tbs/gal for a general feeding and 1/2 cup !!!!! for a heavy one.

 

[graybeard]

not even close, if you have been going by what is on the bottles. Each one of the products recommends giving it every other waterings, and at dosage rates way in excess to what you see on the chart. You also have a general feeding recommendation and a heavy one, each more than this chart recommends. Grow Big is recommending 2-3 tsp every other watering... note that does not happen in the chart, and could be locking out your potassium, matching the symptoms on your plant.

Tigerbloom is just as bad, the bottle recommending 2-3 tsp for a general feeding and 4 tsp for a heavy one. Then the Big Bloom... the bottle recommends 4!! tbs/gal for a general feeding and 1/2 cup !!!!! for a heavy one.

I appreciate your patients and help with this as I'm new to growing.
So to re group...The chart above matches what I was feeding every other watering when I got into trouble with the two plants. At that point I talked to a local grow store who's owners have been growing quite a while and they told me to feed every watering, still dosing per the chart. Since then all the plants look much better except the two are still pale but growing. I'm totally confused on what to do now. The only thing I can see is the chart shows using Tiger Bloom only after a light cycle switch to flower and the Critical Mass Hasn't started flower yet and the 3 Run Homer is photo period still running 18 hrs light. Maybe cut the Tiger Bloom out on those two?

 

[SmokingWings]

Those plants are looking pretty darn decent so any problem you see should be easy to figure out and correct in no time.

This seems to match the bottles and is what I've bee feeding.

The chart you show in msg #11 is the most recent one as far as I can tell. Found my copy in a neighborhood lawn, garden and landscape shop & supply yard last week. I did not find that particular chart on the company web-site but I did not look all that hard. This chart is toned down a touch from the previous schedule

not even close, if you have been going by what is on the bottles.

I figured he meant it matched the bottles because of the name of the product and the way the label looked and not necessarily because of the dilution rates on the bottle matching.

Hi all,
I have two plants showing nitrogen shortage and three that look great. All five have been given the same nutes.

I appreciate your patients and help with this as I'm new to growing.
So to re group...The chart above matches what I was feeding every other watering when I got into trouble with the two plants. At that point I talked to a local grow store who's owners have been growing quite a while and they told me to feed every watering, still dosing per the chart. Since then all the plants look much better except the two are still pale but growing.

It is possible that they did not understand exactly what you were seeing as a problem and took the best possible thing to try. And, you tried it and you say that three of the plants look better so something worked and they did help you.

The other two plants might still be looking a pale green because it is the way they grow. Maybe it is because of their strain.

Just wondering how you are handling the different light requirements for the plants that are flowering and the plants that look like they are still in a vegetative stage.

 

[Emilya Green]

At that point I talked to a local grow store who's owners have been growing quite a while and they told me to feed every watering, still dosing per the chart.

I do not understand why supposed experts would advise you to do something that is so totally contrary to all the conventional wisdom there is in the world when it comes to growing in soil. It is almost as if you had hydro experts there, telling you what to do in soil, because their advice was dead wrong. You should not feed every time you water in soil, ever. Soil has the ability to store nutrients for use on a second pass when you come in with water only, pH adjusted of course. If you feed every time, the soil is still holding onto what was not used on the last pass, with only a few spots left open for something new. This tends to cause lockouts, again, that is what I see happening on your plants. If you feed/water/feed/water all the way though the grow, the nutrients are cleaned out of the soil with every feed/water cycle and no accumulations/lockouts occur.

Also, the chart you shared is an old one, and FF has adjusted the nutes since then and it would be best to go with their very latest feeding chart to go with their very latest nutes. Even the chart you have there is better than the directions on the sides of the bottle, vague instructions that give you zero direction in how much to use at each week of the grow.

Lastly, let me remind you that the grow store advice was not working for you because you were still having problems, so you came here for help. For a better result, you need to try something different, and I am suggesting just that... or you can continue to follow the advice that got you here in the first place. This choice of course, is yours to make. I can only recommend one last time to follow the current FF feeding chart, to the letter. Doesn't it makes sense that to incentivize you to buy more FF nutrients, it is in Fox Farm Lab's best interest to give you the very best advice possible in that feeding chart? You got to trust someone... and it might not be wise to trust your harvest to some well meaning hydro experts in the grow shop, when you are growing in soil.

 

[graybeard]

Those plants are looking pretty darn decent so any problem you see should be easy to figure out and correct in no time.


The chart you show in msg #11 is the most recent one as far as I can tell. Found my copy in a neighborhood lawn, garden and landscape shop & supply yard last week. I did not find that particular chart on the company web-site but I did not look all that hard. This chart is toned down a touch from the previous schedule


I figured he meant it matched the bottles because of the name of the product and the way the label looked and not necessarily because of the dilution rates on the bottle matching.




It is possible that they did not understand exactly what you were seeing as a problem and took the best possible thing to try. And, you tried it and you say that three of the plants look better so something worked and they did help you.

The other two plants might still be looking a pale green because it is the way they grow. Maybe it is because of their strain.

Just wondering how you are handling the different light requirements for the plants that are flowering and the plants that look like they are still in a vegetative stage.

---Just wondering how you are handling the different light requirements for the plants that are flowering and the plants that look like they are still in a vegetative stage.

Four of the five plants are auto flower so I'm running a 16 hr light schedule. When the auto's are finished I'll adjust and push the photo period 3 Run Homer to flower. The stunt in its growth has slowed it down enough it may all work out. My 1st priority is the auto flowers.

The Critical Mass lower right in the tent is a sister to the Critical Mass lower left in the tent. It was the same deep green as its sister before I got into problems with it.

 

[graybeard]

One thought I have is to run a Hydrogen Peroxide mix with no nutes through the two that are pale.

 

[SmokingWings]

---Just wondering how you are handling the different light requirements for the plants that are flowering and the plants that look like they are still in a vegetative stage.

Four of the five plants are auto flower so I'm running a 16 hr light schedule. When the auto's are finished I'll adjust and push the photo period 3 Run Homer to flower. The stunt in its growth has slowed it down enough it may all work out. My 1st priority is the auto flowers.

The Critical Mass lower right in the tent is a sister to the Critical Mass lower left in the tent. It was the same deep green as its sister before I got into problems with it.

Makes sense.

As for the nutrient schedule I ended up calling Fox Farm this morning. After describing the one that I picked up from the gardening store last week she said it was an older one but she was not sure how old it was. Since the amounts were similar or the same as the one you posted then they may both are out of date. She said she would mail me a copy of the very latest schedule so I can replace my paper copy that I keep under the bread basket on the kitchen table.