pH problems and plant problems

[Stratol]

Hello,
My 1st post. Wish it could be a happier one.

I'm having problems with my first indoor grow. Started out great, but then things started falling....like leaves. I seem to be doing something wrong cos I can not get my pH to come up. It's low, all I have is some test strips for the pool water so I can't say exactly how low, but below 6.0. I will get a tester asap, but for now I'm just measuring the run off. I have lock out, I think, I've read X 100 here, and maybe a Mg deficiency???? Don't know.
My plant is in the 3rd week of flowering and almost 8 weeks old.
here's some details about the grow........

Strain - Bag seed
# of Plants - 1
Grow Type - Soil/ MG potting / I know this was a mistake now.......
Grow Stage - Flowering / 3 weeks
Bucket Size - 4 Gallon
Lights - 365+ W total CFL- 2700 -3200 K range
Nutrients - MG (vegg), mostly from the soil / Bone meal and tomato food 9-12-12( used a pinch twice, not much) / feeding every other watering and very little so far..about every 4-6 days,whenever the pot is lite. I made a tea out of hydroized lime and sprayed over the top of the dirt today(6-18-13), maybe 6 ozs.
Medium - MG potting
PPM - unknown
PH - problem. My water is at around 7, and is tap that I let sit for 24 hrs
RH - ??
Room Temperature -78 or so
Solution Temperature -74-76 ??
Room Square Footage - 6.5' tall x 4' long x 2.25' wide
Pests - None Known

The start of whatever it is looks like this

The leaves will curl upwards until they are dry and shaped like a fist, then fall off.

I have some supplies on hand but I'm not sure what to do. I've read alot but don't want to just pour some stuff on it not knowing what I'm doing. I don't have many problems with outdoor, except for maybe bugs, deer, rabbits.
Please help!
Stratol and thank you!

 

[TanR]

Hi Stratol,

Let me start by welcoming you to 420 magazine and the community of mutually supportive growers, cultivators, and cannabis connoisseurs that congregate here. I wish your first post could have a happier one but you have come to the right place.

Unfortunately, I'm too inexperienced to provide an answer, but wanted to lay a little ground work for those more experienced growers sure to follow. I see you have found the " Problems, Pests & Disease Control" section of the grow room. Wondering if you happened across and explored the "Cannabis Plant and Pest Problem Solver - Pictorial" sticky?

Good call on the hydrolized lime tea. That should help bump the PH up some. I see you mentioned adding bone meal which is also alkaline and will help increase the ph. It is slow working though unfortunately.

In glancing at the pictorial and taking into account that you've only utilized the tomato feed very sparingly, I can't help wonder if you don't have a phosphorus deficiency perhaps even caused or exacerbated by the PH problem.

Please understand that I am new to indoor growing so I'm only sharing what has worked so far for me. I use a high peat content and soil mix and to keep the ph from bottoming out as the peat breaks down, I use a hydrolized lime tea every single watering and always completely drench my plants. I'll wait 10 or 20 minutes and come back and water them with the tea again! But then I don't have to water for 5-6 days at least.

Just a suggestion, but you might be able to add a bit of the tomato food to another batch of lime tea and get the phosphorus into your soil, so as the ph comes up it is ready and available.

I do hope others with more experience will chime in, but know that I wish you well!

Good luck.

 

[Stratol]

Thank you TanR !
I have looked at the thread/sticky you mentioned ( prolly 50 times by now lol) and it has been a big help but I wanted to ask before doing something...tho I did add the lime, didn't think it would hurt. I don't think I would have gotten this far if it hasn't been for this place, there are other sites but this is the only one I've signed up on. I wished I'd read more before putting seed it dirt tho, I would have used the same stuff I use outdoors with some adds in there.
I'll try the tomato food with lime thing, sounds good to me. I forgot to add that I added some ash to that soil a week to 10 days ago in the form of a tea as well, but it didn't help, it was something I read. I looked at and read the 'solver' sticky and figured it was a Mg thing, but I really have no idea. The plant is losing a few leaves every few days but still flowering good, alot more than I ever would have expected. I kind of let her get out of hand, didn't top her soon enough and it's def a sativa dom.

Thank you for your help !
Stratol

 

[Jimmycricket]

you should take a actual pic of the leaves.

Saying it looks like this isnt the same as showing us the actual problem. To your eyes it might look similar, heck maybe it looks identical. But anyone can miss something or overlook something. Get us a pic and we can fix your problem. Throwing random nutrients at a plant hoping it will fix the unknown problem is a good way to make things worse or kill it.

 

[Stratol]

Can someone recommend a soil tester or whatever kind of tester I need? Really don't know what to get and I'd like to get this fixed and then there's future grows too.
Thanks in advance!!
Stratol

 

[Jimmycricket]

Also for PH it dont really matter about the PH of the water you feed. The thing that matters is the PH of the soil.

 

[Stratol]

Thanks Jimmycricket !
This is a scan from a leave off my plant. I can't get close up pics with my little pocket camera. I was posting the same time as you were!!

TIA
Stratol

 

[Jimmycricket]

tbh i just use a cheapo home depot soil tester. its got two metal prongs and you just stick it in the dirt. come back an hour later and you got the info you wanted.

if that is the leaf it appears to be calcium mostly.

judging from the color of the leaf it probably does not need extra NPK it probably just needs more micro nutes, mainly calcium.

However you said you gave it a lot of dolomite lime and a little bone meal. Both these are extremely high in calcium. So are you sure this problem is not just on older leaves from before you gave the plant all the lime and bone meal? Is this problem existent on new growth?

 

[Stratol]

I didn't give it much lime or bone meal really. I didn't know what to do( or how much) and was just relying on what I had read here and elsewhere. Clearly I messed up by not asking....I wish I had of asked a long time ago. I will get a meter tho, I knew that I should have, just didn't want to spend anymore money.
Here's pics of the plant, maybe you can see a pattern or something??

How much lime? How much bonemeal? If it's locked up what then? Really sorry for all the questions.....
It's not on new growth but it starts out as spots, I'll get a leaf and scan it. It's on some smaller leaves, just not new ones.
Thanks
Stratol

 

[Jimmycricket]

Thats phosphorous deficiency/burn (they look the same)

Im gonna say its probably phos burn from back when youd use the bone meal in veg. that browning of leaves and curling up is phos though for sure.

 

[Stratol]

Is there anything I can do to help it?

 

[Jimmycricket]

flush it and just give it water for the next feeding.

 

[Stratol]

Thanks JC !
The bonemeal was an add when I went to flower it(Flip is what yall call it I believe, havein to get used to the slang lol), and it was just a tea I made up. The MG potting soil is not what I'll be using next time. I'll flush and see. That MG has the time released shit in it and I wonder will it wash out? No matter, what I've 'juiced' it with will be gone I expect. Wish me luck!!
Thanks!
Stratol

 

[Jimmycricket]

yeah slow release chem nutes are horrible for weed. Even if they were in a good ratio (which they never really are), they will still be there in flowering and moreover in flushing. So you can never really flush and your smoke will have a level of harshness.

But do what ya can, id say get your hands on some seaweed too. its got a lot of good hormones.

 

[Stratol]

Seaweed? I'll try to find some. Outdoor problems seem to be more manageable....can't do much about them. Rabbits chew them down (have a live trap to try to catch them and have), deer walk on them and bugs chew the leaves. But I usually get plenty out of what's left by planting alot. This would be 'guerrilla' growing.
Thanks
Stratol

 

[Coke420]

 

[Stratol]

So......
It's been a while and it's still alive.
Never did flush it, it's hard for me to move the thing and I didn't give it much of anything, a teaspoon of lime and bone meal a couple times, so I figured the damage was done...so I just fed it water for a month. Seems like the MG potting soil is purdy hot and has plenty of food in it. I added a teaspoon of tomato food a couple weeks ago, sprinkled around the top of the soil and it started to burn bad. I raked all the soil from the top that had the TF in it off. Replaced it with plain topsoil w/nothing in it. Still lost some leaves.

As you can see it's still not in the best of health, but considering I did everything wrong, it's doing what it's supposed to.

There's some drooping leaves....Why??? The ones that stick out of the 'meat' of the buds....What is this???
Thanks for all your help!!
Stratol

 

[Scarfinger68]

Your doing fine.

Easiest thing to do would be to mix 1 tbs or garden lime or dolomite lime per gallon of water and add that to her. This will help raise the PH.

The best thing would be to flush first, but... if you can't then you can't.

 

[Stratol]

Thanks SF68!
I'm gonna do my on dirt next time and lime will be in there. Right now I don't want to feed it anything, what I read it will taste better. Really smells of citrus, tangerine kinda...really nice. Not very 'frosty' but I've got a couple (maybe more) weeks to go. She popped out of the ground 3 months to the day today....she takin her time.

Thx
Stratol

 

[Stratol]

Folks, looks like I may have a problem......The yellow and brown spotted leaves are starting to worry me!

Her name is Beth in case anyone's wondering......

Just been feedin her water, tap that sat out for a couple days and it's about 6.5-7 pH. Not hard water. Good water, always made good beer..
My thots right now is to just let her grow. It wont be too long before she comes down. Really nice smoke now but she aint ready by a couple weeks??
Any help would be helpful??

TIA
Stratol