Deficiency has me stumped

[Rider509]

This problem just became apparent this morning. I have three White Widow autos in FFOF in the first month of flower. They have been raised side by side so the environmental variables are identical. Temp and humidity hover around 85F and 50% with monitored CO2 at 1400/1500 ppm, pH has been steady from 6.5 to 6.8, my nute levels are 2/3rds of FF recommendations for flowering, and until a couple of days ago I've never had a negative plant response to watering.

The one plant has always been a very dark green, almost like too much nitrogen. The other has always been a lighter shade of green and very healthy. A few days ago I noticed some mild yellowing on the older fan leaves on the lighter green plant. I chalked it up to normal yellowing caused by flowering. This morning it presented as much worse, and looks very much like a severe mag deficiency.

I'm considering unscrogging the girls and doing a full flush with FF Sledgehammer.

Thoughts? Ideas?

 

[KingstonRabbi]

Has me stumped too. I've grown 10 WWs from seed and cloned several of them. Only pattern I found was that ones I let grow natural didn't have this problem. Those ones also had shorter veg so less time for deficiencies and other problems to occur. Other possibility I considered is that low humidity affected some plants more than others. Haven't been able to confirm that. Eager to see what others come up with.

 

[JimmyJames905]

This problem just became apparent this morning. I have three White Widow autos in FFOF in the first month of flower. They have been raised side by side so the environmental variables are identical. Temp and humidity hover around 85F and 50% with monitored CO2 at 1400/1500 ppm, pH has been steady from 6.5 to 6.8, my nute levels are 2/3rds of FF recommendations for flowering, and until a couple of days ago I've never had a negative plant response to watering.

The one plant has always been a very dark green, almost like too much nitrogen. The other has always been a lighter shade of green and very healthy. A few days ago I noticed some mild yellowing on the older fan leaves on the lighter green plant. I chalked it up to normal yellowing caused by flowering. This morning it presented as much worse, and looks very much like a severe mag deficiency.

I'm considering unscrogging the girls and doing a full flush with FF Sledgehammer.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Did the older fan leaves start yellowing and drying up/dying? If it's the older leaves it may be normal.
If it's newer growth leaves that are attached to the bud sites then you may have ph lockout due to excessive PK. I know you said you're using the minimal dose but if your soil was already full of Potassium and Phosphorus you could have easily ph locked the availability of a PK. Yes ute soil may have lots of PK but your plant can't get at it.
I would definitely flush and flush again. Especially if you notice tiny little yellow or orange spots on the fan leaves. They look like this....

If you see those dots you need to flush immediately and test the runoff.


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[Rider509]

It's the older fan leaves at the bottom most severely affected, but it's also apparent that it is working its way up the plant. The canopy looks beautiful. I too thought it might be a normal flowering response, and advocate waiting and assessing before acting, but the speed of onset has me concerned. There's no sign of nute lockout... yet!

When in doubt, flush?

 

[JimmyJames905]

Do a flush. It happened to me a week ago when my tap water had a massive pH fluctuation (my fault, I didnt test it) but it was enough that it spread through the whole plant in a week. I had to descrog and put it in the tub and flush several times. Ph came out normal at first. By the 3rd flush it started to come out at around pH5.5 showing me the problem was in the top few inches of soil. Low ph water combined with half dose PK nutes basically contaminated the top 6" of soil.


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[JimmyJames905]

Now here's the thing. Keep in mind my local hydro shop claims Fox Farms is banned in Canada because it contains silica based time released fertilizers. (not sure how true this is but I can't find it anywhere in Canada) so I've never been able to use FFOF. Which I would like to try btw.
So the the thing is.... does it have too much PK or is your soil depleted of PK? Is the ph low on the top from starting nutes? You could have 3 problems. Luckily there is a absolute way to find out. Get yourself a soil test kit and some distilled water. The kit will tell you your NPK levels as well as soil ph. You can also take a soil sample from the bottom with a copper pipe (creating a core) This is the only way to be sure.

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[TheFertilizer]

Do a flush. It happened to me a week ago when my tap water had a massive pH fluctuation (my fault, I didnt test it) but it was enough that it spread through the whole plant in a week. I had to descrog and put it in the tub and flush several times. Ph came out normal at first. By the 3rd flush it started to come out at around pH5.5 showing me the problem was in the top few inches of soil. Low ph water combined with half dose PK nutes basically contaminated the top 6" of soil.


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I really don't understand how to measure runoff. I mean, the pH will vary by concentration so are they pH'ing a sink full of the run off, or a shot glass of the run off? Know what I mean? I also see a lot of people talk about things like, if the pH is up it means they're not eating but if it's low they're not, and always wonder what people base that off of. Like, how does it show you the top few inches of the soil is the problem if it comes out low on the 3rd flush? I bought a pH pen and everything but it's kind of useless without knowing how to interpret the results.

Sorry not trying to hijack the thread but would be useful for me to know since this kind of yellowing happens to me a lot too. In fact the constant need to flush EVERY single time I flower has prevented me from trying to scrog. I have long suspected salt build up from nutrients prevents proper root uptake, and flushing usually ends up fixing it.

 

[JimmyJames905]

It depends on your watering practices (and a million other little things too). If you let the soil dry out and then water your soil naturally becomes more acidic. If you water all the time you risk bugs or root rot. The only true way to do a good job every time is by finding the system that works for you and sticking with it. I use ProMix garden soils. My problem was that sometime last year ProMix changed their whole lineup to meet the legal criteria for soils in Canada. That's why so many products (like FFOF) were subsequently banned. But, when I ran out of soil I used the new ProMix allpurpose (never ever use this product) on one plant. This one plant has been a ph nightmare. So I looked at the ingredients and low and behold....completely different than the old bags I was using last year. No limestone, no gypsum. (VERY important ingredients). So now I use the ProMix Vegetable and Herb. No problems on the new plants. But the one in flower is a bitch.
So find your growing rhythm and stick with it. That's the best advice I can give.


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[thenaturalist]

If it's moving up the plant that looks like magnesium deficiency do u use cal/mag at all? It could be a lack of magnesium in the specific soil of that plant flushing will help but if you don't add mag at all you may wanna check that out first. if you wait and it's possible that it will kill ur plant so make sure u do something don't wait


"You can fail at doing something you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing something you love" ~ Jim Carrey

 

[JimmyJames905]

If it's moving up the plant that looks like magnesium deficiency do u use cal/mag at all? It could be a lack of magnesium in the specific soil of that plant flushing will help but if you don't add mag at all you may wanna check that out first. if you wait and it's possible that it will kill ur plant so make sure u do something don't wait


"You can fail at doing something you don't want, so you might as well take a chance on doing something you love" ~ Jim Carrey

Here's the ingredients to FFOF.
"Composted forest humus, spagnum peat moss, Pacific Northwest sea-going fish emulsion, crab meal, shrimp meal, earthworm castings, sandy loam, perlite, bat guano, granite dust, Norwegian kelp, and oyster shell (for pH adjustment)."

No limestone, no gypsum. These are ph buffers (natural source of calcium magnesium) so some cal mag in FFOF would probably be beneficial. You can also buy aggregate limestone and gypsum at your local garden centre and add it to FFOF before you plant. I see a lot of problems on this site with FFOF and some of the older pros won't even touch it. Maybe amending your own soil at start would be a good idea.


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[Rider509]

All good info and I thank you guys. The camaraderie of this forum is wonderful.

So here is what I did. After taking off the training wheels (the scrog net) I slowly flushed each plant with 12gals of water with FF Sledgehammer at pH6.66. I then followed that up with a light flower feed with an EC of 0.4. In a couple of days when they need water again I'll add cal-mag to the feed and start ramping up the nutes.

As good as the Method Seven grow glasses are it wasn't until I got the girls into natural light that I noticed that I have one White Widow auto crossed with rhubarb! This plant has always been the odd girl out. Makes me wonder if it really is White Widow.

After the flush in the shower.

And back in the tent. I don't know but the WW x Rhubarb looks a little weird. What the hell is it? And after checking my grow log I found that the clone behind them is from the rhubarb plant. I'm less than thrilled about that.

Again, thank you guys so much!

 

[Rider509]

So now I use the ProMix Vegetable and Herb.

I've searched for a US retailer of this product. It appears to be unique to Canada. I've got an email in to Promix to see if the exact product, maybe rebranded, is available down here.

On a side note, your products are English and French. Very understandable.

Ours are English and Spanish. Since when are we a Spanish speaking country!? That just pisses me off to no end.
Rant over.

 

[JimmyJames905]

I've searched for a US retailer of this product. It appears to be unique to Canada. I've got an email in to Promix to see if the exact product, maybe rebranded, is available down here.

On a side note, your products are English and French. Very understandable.

Ours are English and Spanish. Since when are we a Spanish speaking country!? That just pisses me off to no end.
Rant over.

ProMix is available in the eastern states. Go to their website. There's a ProMix finder there. The only difference between the one I use and the one available in the US is that the US version contains a silica gel pellet product. According to the website it gives you three months of time released fertilizers.


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[Rider509]

The plants are showing no signs of stress from being flushed. If it was a pH lockout I should see improvement in a couple of days, right? Regardless, at the next watering I will give them a shot of cal-mag. I think I remember reading here that White Widow is very susceptible to low magnesium levels.

 

[JimmyJames905]

They usually don't stress from flushing and yes...results take a week.


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[TheFertilizer]

They usually don't stress from flushing and yes...results take a week.


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Well in my experience they look very unhappy immediately after the drenching, like they're very overwatered... Which would make sense. But yeah I usually see them perk back up in 3-5 days.

One thing abut flushing that I picked up from Jorge Cervantes's book is that you should finish with a complete mild nutrient solution when leeching ( as he calls this ). I don't recall if he actually explains why, but I'm guessing it's just so you don't end up leaving the soil exhausted.

I hate flushing. Got mine done last night. Would be so nice if I could learn to avoid needing to do it at all.

 

[spiffziggy]

Hi TF, any update on this? I have a plant with very similar problems. Some possibilities have included:

- wind stress - I noticed the plant ending up with the spindly leaves was also directly in the path of the (non-oscilatting) fan.
- CO2 deficiency. This is somewhat unlikely, but I think autos (mine too) might be more affected because they have a set grow time and if they can't get the nutrients/energy in that time the leaves grow but weakly. I ended up unplugging my input fan and let the extractor do all the work. Created a better vacuum effect in the tent. So between no. 1 and 2 it's more circulation related than nutes...
- Manganese deficiency (as opposed to cal-mag). Do/did you have purple stems? This is most likely due to ph levels being off rather than not adding enough to the mix...I'm no expert but I just likened the symptoms to the images for Mn deficiency.

All I can think of for now, and some of the things I've done. I also flushed and am still waiting for results. Keen to hear yours!

 

[JimmyJames905]

Hi TF, any update on this? I have a plant with very similar problems. Some possibilities have included:

- wind stress - I noticed the plant ending up with the spindly leaves was also directly in the path of the (non-oscilatting) fan.
- CO2 deficiency. This is somewhat unlikely, but I think autos (mine too) might be more affected because they have a set grow time and if they can't get the nutrients/energy in that time the leaves grow but weakly. I ended up unplugging my input fan and let the extractor do all the work. Created a better vacuum effect in the tent. So between no. 1 and 2 it's more circulation related than nutes...
- Manganese deficiency (as opposed to cal-mag). Do/did you have purple stems? This is most likely due to ph levels being off rather than not adding enough to the mix...I'm no expert but I just likened the symptoms to the images for Mn deficiency.

All I can think of for now, and some of the things I've done. I also flushed and am still waiting for results. Keen to hear yours!

What are you growing in?


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[Rider509]

Hi TF, any update on this? I have a plant with very similar problems.

Wow, where to begin with this problem child. The lower leaves stopped turning yellow and dying following flushing aggressively with FF Sledgehammer flush followed by a mild nute watering. But then the middle growth leaves took on a reddish orange coloration in the lamina that started to progress up the plant. My grow guru diagnosed it as phosphorus deficiency caused by high pH (6.8ish) and recommended a complete flush with water pHed to 6.2 to 6.3 followed by a light feeding. The problem worsened. Further researched turned up a molybdenum deficiency as the most likely diagnosis, even though it is very rare. Molybdenum is the only mobile micronutrient. The soil pH was raised to 6.66 (it seemed appropriate) with a light feeding of a low nitrogen tomato fertilizer with molybdenum, nitrogen free cal-mag, and Great White mycorrhizae. The problem abated with no further progression of discoloration and a renewed growth of flower mass.

Still no idea what caused it but I suspect underfeeding. In my efforts to not overwater and overfeed I may have been starving the plant as it had the biggest mass and was the fastest growing of the three.

 

[JimmyJames905]

Probably over feeding. If you're using fox Farms it requires no nutrients until bloom (as posted on their webpage and bag). Adding nutrients to already nutrient enriched soil often gives it nutrients it can't physically uptake. The result is accumulated nutrients resulting in ph lockout.
On your next Grow with FFOF leave one plant with no nutrients and see how it performs. Unfortunately FFOF is banned in Canada due to their time release silica compound. Can't get it here and your the 12th person I've talked to with FFOF lockout problems. I did talk to two others who have been using FFOF for years and they all said the same thing, "Just add water until bloom then use a PK booster at flower"
Just like it says on the website.


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