I have two outdoor Super Silver Haze plants, in a legal California grow. I’m an experienced gardener for all things non-cannabis. This is a new experience. I placed them in a couple of raised beds in the garden in which I usually grow my flowers. In fact, I mixed them with some flowers (giving them a little space).
One is quite large, probably close to 7’ (2m) tall. The other is shorter and more compact, closer to 5’6" (1.7m) or so. The first flowered more quickly and more heavily, the second is not far behind but has much smaller buds. I’m about 5 weeks into flowering, which started right at the end of July. I have been losing some lower leaves on my larger plant, which I’ve read is normal during flowering. Plus, the buds look so good I’m not terribly concerned. However, my smaller plant has some high yellow leaves that worry me. Photos are attached.
I was not feeding them anything but blood meal and composted chicken manure during veg, and I’m now hitting them with bat guano and have applied Tiger Bloom once. Irrigation is on drip, which waters daily. The smaller plant could be experiencing overwatering as a broken emitter was spewing water for some time near (but not directly under) that plant.
So those are my grow concerns. Any other comments on things that you experts see would be much appreciated. For a first grow, I’m pretty happy but looking at other photos here, I see that I have much improving to do.
Comments on bud progress are appreciated. There are some amber trichomes on the sugar leaves, but the buds are still pretty white. This is a longer flowering variety so I’m still expecting another month+ before harvest.
Thanks, that’s at least somewhat relieving to hear. That smaller plant has me the most concerned. I don’t know if I need to flush or add nutrients, which is kind of funny. I’m going to get a closer photo of the suffering leaves today and maybe that’ll help with some collective diagnosis (or I can refer to one of the leaf distress charts).
@nostril, it might be worthwhile to determine the soil ph and the ph of your water before any nutrients are added. If you are too acidic or alkaline, you will be in a lockout and would be better served to perhaps do ph’d feeding/watering. At the least it will eliminate that as a potential for trouble.
@nostril just another heads-up. There have been more than a few Cali growers on here talking about an infestation of worms on their plants. They’ve been showing up right towards the end of their grows. Keep a close eye on them. They are far to beautiful to fall victim to those little buggers!!
@nostril this looks to me like nutrient lockout from your pH being off. I had the same problem with my outside girls. I purchased a timer for my hose because I went away for a week. I knew my house tap water was around 7.2 but had no other alternative to water them while I was away… after another week quite a few leaves on 2/3 of my girls turned yellow and some leaves were spotted (calcium deficiency) I had been giving them Cal-Mag for a while prior so there shouldn’t have been a deficiency unless it was lockout as a result of pH… hope this helps! Good luck…
7.2 should not cause a lockout. My well water is 7.2 and I have no issues using it to water outdoor plants. Perhaps your issue was using tap water from the city lines…
I want to say thanks for all the input. I checked the soil and while it wasn’t totally sopping wet, it was definitely wet. I am going to lay off the irrigation and let it dry out a bit to see how things progress. I have ordered a pH soil tester (a true glass electrode one). Once that arrives, I’ll have a better idea about the pH situation - thanks for the nudge on that. I have suspected pH issues in my garden for years and this gives me a great reason to balance things out.
There are amber trichomes on the sugar leaves - I’m assuming that’s not worth worrying about until I see amber on the buds, right?
Thanks again to everyone for your constructive comments.
My thought process was just that indoor growers water every other day or less often, and don’t water to the point that all nutrients are washed away. Just stuff to think about.
Update. I checked the pH, 6.6 under one and 6.4 under the other. So perhaps marginally high but not enough (in my novice opinion) to explain the yellowing. Things haven’t gotten worse, I can at least say that. And the buds are swelling, which is as important as anything.
