Yellowing of my leaves

[HawaiiGrower]

Hey this is my first grow and I’ve been noticing a little bit of yellowing happening through the plant and the new growth. Ive been trying to look into it and I think it’s a zinc deficiency, but I’m not to sure. Any advice would be helpful. Mahalo

 

[pontiacman]

What's your ph?

What's your runoff ph?

What and when are you feeding?

Need more information......

 

[HawaiiGrower]

I use the general hydroponics PH drop tester and always try to get it around 6.0-6.5. I haven’t really tested my runoff PH and I’m feeding with the roots organic line of nutrients once every 2-3 days. I water until there’s about a 10-20% runoff

 

[Boatshoe]

Zinc and iron deficiency start yellowing at the base of the leaves from the top down. It looks like that may be happening but it’s hard to tell from the pictures. It is caused by too high ph or possibly need iron in soil. It sounds like you’ve diagnosed that much already.
If your runoff is high, something is in the soil and you might be able to flush it. If it doesn’t get better, that might help in any case. You can use a foliar, I use a combination zinc/iron supplement that works well. That will treat the chlorosis until you hopefully find the cause.
Double check for bugs. Probably not but doesn’t help.

 

[HawaiiGrower]

So I have it a little flush with just straight filtered water with a ph of 6.0-6.5 and the runoff had a ppm of about 470 and the ph of the runoff was high. It’s at about 7.5-8.0. How can I lower the ph of my soil?

 

[Emilya Green]

why in the world would you want to do that?? Just water at the correct pH and all is good... let the soil create a drift that drags you across the entire usable pH range of 6.3-6.8. With your soil buffered up at the high end where it is supposed to be, all you have to do is water at 6.3pH and you are golden.

 

[Boatshoe]

So I have it a little flush with just straight filtered water with a ph of 6.0-6.5 and the runoff had a ppm of about 470 and the ph of the runoff was high. It’s at about 7.5-8.0. How can I lower the ph of my soil?

I’d flush it bit more. If you can get your runoff below 7 you’ll be in better shape. Above 7 you will definitely see iron problems.
You can add sulfur to the soil but that takes months for microbes to break down to sulphuric acid. That might be a long term fix if you have that long. You can top dress with moss, if you have some that not ph balanced with lime. Moss is acidic. You could transplant but it’s not severe enough imo.
So that leaves you with correcting it via your water, using some kind of sulphuric acid or phosphoric acid PH down type product.
I think if you leave it that high the problems will worsen. Any ideas how it got so high? Did you add something and forget to adjust? If so, that should correct pretty soon. If it’s too much lime, or something like that, it might be harder.

 

[Emilya Green]

People constantly fail to realize that the pH of your container of wet soil ABSOLUTELY HAS NO CHOICE BUT TO ASSUME THE PH OF THE FLUID YOU SATURATE IT WITH. If you water completely and saturate the soil with a 6.3pH adjusted fluid, then the pH has to be 6.3. It has no choice. Then, as the soil dries out, it begins to drift towards the base pH of your soil, whatever it is, and your runoff pH has very little correlation to this value. If you want to see what the pH of your soil is, you have to do a slurry test. Your runoff pH does indicate a strong buffer in that soil to move the pH toward the high end, but you still don't know yet what the actual number is, and any recommendations from people, no matter how well intentioned, to modify your soil somehow, are premature without the actual numbers.
I am proposing that you actually have no problem and that your soil is doing exactly what you want it to do. Just water correctly at the correct pH, and let the soil do its thing.

 

[Boatshoe]

Seldom correct, never in doubt.

 

[Boatshoe]

The reason I suggest you flush out more is that the liquid in the pot is too alkaline. This is can have two causes, maybe you put too high ph in the last warning. Or maybe the soil,has too much calcium, which will increase ph.

A thorough flush will replace the liquid, more or less. So if you could, you would replace all of the liquid with your new 6.8 ph balanced liquid. At that moment, your root zone would be at perfect ph.

If you only get 20% runoff, you haven’t replaced your container liquid. If the runoff is at 8.0ph, the plant is sitting in 8.0 ph, and you will see worsening lockout.

After you flush, the ph will change, for a few reasons, over time. One is that the calcium will dissolve and return the ph too high. So if your next water runoff is under 7, you don’t have too much calcium and you’re good. However I f it is high that means something in the soil is causing it. If you want to take a slurry test it’s easy for a rough one and it will tell you this soil ph. Testing your runoff is an approximation.

Soil will not completely assume the ph of the liquid added due to solids that dissolve and water already in the soil. Add a tablespoon of baking soda, or calcium, to dry soil. Add tap water and ph it. It will be high.

That’s where you would like to change the soil composition, but really cant quite so easily.You could continue to flush heavily and eventually the calcium will all dissolve and leech out. Normal watering will do it eventually. The plant will use some. You can’t keep flushing because it is too hard on the plant. So the best you can do is control it with ph water and possibly top dress to help.

I don’t flush often and Iprefer to use compost tea,so it helps keep your microbe community.
Hope that explanation helps.

When the iron is locked out because of solubility, the plant can’t photosynthesis. So it loses its green. If that gets too bad it can damage the plant. So if it continues, you can spray with a foliar to help the symptoms and green it up. I have found this kind of ph problem clears up in about 4 days if treated properly.

 

[Boatshoe]

Hi @HawaiiGrower ,
I wanted to make sure there was no confusion. I am suggesting you flush the plant to remove suspect ph liquid. I recommend compost tea. See what happens ina week. I can’t really see a problem, as I said, but if you see yellowing and your ph is off, it can be harder to get under control if it gets too bad.

@Emilya has expressed concern to me that this is terrible advice and you should do nothing except continue to water with ph adjusted water as you were doing.

She is quite adamant that my advice is wrong so I feel remiss if I don’t bring it up, but I don’t want to put words in her mouth.

I feel there is very little risk in pouring a quart of compost tea on the plants.

 

[Boatshoe]

I should have added that I had iron deficiency due to high ph, last week. Same thing.

I forgot to ph a batch with silica blast and boom! They started turning yellow then white and I thought I would lose them. I’m not saying that’s what you did but that how I did it.

I didn’t know what it was at first so I researched it, that’s where I’ve seen it. But I fixed it, a tray of plants and they look fine. It’s on my last journal if your curious. You can see what they looked like before during and after. They were noticeably faded and I thought I’d lose them.

How do they look? Mine got worse quick (in days) so watch for worsening or patterns like that.

 

[BeanTownFan420]

Hey this is my first grow and I’ve been noticing a little bit of yellowing happening through the plant and the new growth. Ive been trying to look into it and I think it’s a zinc deficiency, but I’m not to sure. Any advice would be helpful. Mahalo

 

[BeanTownFan420]

Simple fix bigger container means more available nutes. Up grade your pot size to avoid deficiency. When leaves produce new growth it is yellow before green. Keep supercropping and keep up the good work good luck from Massachusetts.

 

[Emilya Green]

@Emilya has expressed concern to me that this is terrible advice and you should do nothing except continue to water with ph adjusted water as you were doing.

Let me correct the mis-quote.... I am suggesting that there is nothing at all wrong with your soil and that high reading on your runoff pH was perfectly normal and didn't at all indicate a problem with the soil. So far several posters were calling for more information, but it sounds and looks to me like it is simply a problem of not setting the pH of the fluids going in to the plant at the low end of the 6.3-6.8 scale and maybe the need for more supplements... but we had not gotten there yet... we were still looking for more information on this garden so we could make a proper determination and figure out a cause, not just give you a catch all band-aid like a flush.
So yes, I consider the immediate determination that there was somehow bad pH liquid trapped in the soil and bad soil pH based on a runoff test, and the need to flush and use compost tea and more flushing... as premature and erroneous advice, given with a lack of all of the information needed to make this sort of drastic diagnosis.
I told the above poster in private mail that I was not going to call him out on this in this thread and that I was going to let the conversation develop as soon as the community eventually saw what had been posted, and I clearly explained to him why I thought that his was bad advice and how terrible it was that because of this conversation with two people arguing over what to do, the OP was now confused as to where to go from here, and had not been helped.
So now he calls me out publicly because he didn't like my response via PM ... trying to make me look the fool and him the hero on your thread.
HawaiiGrower, you have my profound apologies for any confusion caused by this conversation and my part in it. You now have to decide which course is correct, and I hope others step into this ugly mess and try to steer you straight. This other poster seems to find it very important to win the argument with me, so I will back out and leave you both to figure this out. I have said my piece. That is all I can or should do. Good Luck HawaiiGrower... I hope you get this figured out soon.

 

[BeanTownFan420]

Hey this is my first grow and I’ve been noticing a little bit of yellowing happening through the plant and the new growth. Ive been trying to look into it and I think it’s a zinc deficiency, but I’m not to sure. Any advice would be helpful. Mahalo

Root bound upgrade pot droopy leaves are from stunted root bound growth.

 

[Zincite]

HawaiiGrower what ever you decide to do please keep us updated so we can all learn. Good luck.

cheers

 

[Virgin Ground]

So I have it a little flush with just straight filtered water with a ph of 6.0-6.5 and the runoff had a ppm of about 470 and the ph of the runoff was high. It’s at about 7.5-8.0. How can I lower the ph of my soil?

Aloha.
Welcome to 420 magazine. I feel we should start over, if that is ok?
could you please provide a bit more info.
I was wondering which soil you are using?
Do you know how to properly perform a slurry test?
I think you should entertain the idea of repotting your plant and properly adjusting your water/nutrient pH.
Before you do that I would do a slurry test on your soil you plan to use. Make sure to use distilled water.
Run-off pH only shows trends in your soil.
Was also wondering about your water supply? Do you use municipal water supply, ro water or well water?
What is your beginning pH?
Being in Hawai'i and if you are using well water for instance , you could have a ton of calcium in your water. I know a bunch of koi fish keepers from Hawai'i that need to deal with the extra calcium in the water or their fish will show scale distortions. They say their water is very stable with a high pH. Honolulu has a very high pH for instance , lots of magnesium and calcium. Hawai'i is built on limestone and coral and this is the effect as the water percolate through the ground. You also have a very high dissolved mineral content in some areas.
So let's get some soil and water pH numbers. Plan to up-pot. If you need to water again in the meantime, pH on the lower side of the soil scale. Your buffers will drag the pH up letting her take in nutrients along the way.
I would love to see a pic in normal light also.
Aloha.

 

[HawaiiGrower]

Okay I’m going to fill a 3 gallon fabric pot with roots organic original soil and try to dilute the soil with 6.0-6.5 filter phd water to get the runoff ph to about 6.5 with a ppm of around 250 before transplanting her inside. Does this sound like a good way to go about it? And just let her go until the next feeding?

 

[BeanTownFan420]

Perfect plan. Thank you for taking my advice i really do want you to be successful.Give it a few days three days and she will bring her leaves up to the light and grow new roots and resume normal growth as for those colors they look wicked pissah.