First time auto grower here. I’m growing in a relatively cool climate, ranging from 50° at night to 80° during the day. Getting a lot of sun; but I’m seeing some challenges with my plants. In a nutshell, I noticed some chlorosis a few weeks back. It started with one plant and has since showed up in others (per the pictures). I’m growing three different strains all purchased from ILGM (AuoMix 2.0 pack). I recently determined that the pH of my medium was very low, on the order of 5.2. I immediately did a flush with water at 6.8 and I’ve been slowly adding nutrients back in a similarly pH solution. Growth seems to have started back up again but I’m still not getting back to the darker green color that I would imagine. Should I have an expectation? I am using the Fox forum Trio.
What you’re seeing is the plants translocating mobile nutrients from the older vegetative growth to the flowering sites. This is absolutely normal. Just let the plant continue senescence and monitor the glandular trichome color.
Thanks @KeystoneCops! One more question, I am currently feeding twice a week. Should I keep that up as well or start to back it down?
You’re welcome!
It looks like you’re in a bagged soil, and if that’s true I wouldn’t take the approach you’re using at all. But with that disclaimer, I would try to provide consistency to the plants.
Understand that (again, assuming you’re using soil and not ProMix) when you switched to water only, you probably gave the plant a bit of a shock. And you can expect to see the effect of that action a few weeks after you did it.
All of that is spot on and will add that low overnight temps you describe might slow the plant a bit and there is an increased risk of the dreaded White Powdery Mildew showing up. Overall your plants are lovely. There is some foxtailing which could be stress or late in flower.
One thing that I would monitor is your runoff TDS: this can give you some indication of when or even whether you would want to supplement. 5.2 PH is low but very common in mid flower.
I like those colors
True, I am using FFOF for soil. I am just starting my third run for the season. Given that medium, what “should” I be doing per your comment? Would love to experiment and get to a good place.
It’s not my place to tell you what you should do, but I try to avoid watering with ionically available salts when I’m growing in soil. I use organic amendments so make progressively hotter layers of living soil. After that I only add water (7pH), soap, and microbiology. If a plant shows nitrogen deficiency, I’ll topdress as needed with blood meal or a similar product. But for the most part I rely on the microbiology to break down the wealth of nutrients already in the soil.
I also grow using synthetic nutrients, but I do that in a soilless medium that doesn’t have the same adsorption and absorbtion properties as soil. I actually prefer growing this way, but it isn’t always practical.
