One plant out of seventeen showing nutrient problems

15 mls of molasses to a gallon with epsom salt if you dont have calmag on hand .

Does molasses have enough calcium?

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Enough phosphorus, and iron the epsom salt has calcium , im not trying to text 600 words but you can used a 1/4 cup of milk as well to a gallon , if you dont have calmag , I have created a recipe mix so i dont have these issues hardly , but ive been doing this about 4 weeks , so i only know a wittle bit , just sharing .
Im not a professional lol !

I would use the gypsum

I decided to use what I already have here.

(per liter of water)
10ml of epsom salt granules
3ml of NFTG Demeter’s Destiny liquid calcium

I already used the epsom salt and liquid calcium.

Tonight, I’ll decrease total light hours to 16.

It may take a little time to show improvement with the epsom salt and liquid calcium. I didn’t use very much so I applied gypsum today for the calcium and sulfur. So, altogether, the plants have been given a boost of Ca, Mg, S, and just a little P. Runoff PH is still good. If the issue persists then I’ll try a little Fe in a few days.

I’m being forced to transplant before I wanted to. I’m betting things will improve once the plants are in fresh soil and bigger pots.

You need foliar spray cal mag if your outside in pots. I don’t think feeding the roots will react fast enough in the sunlight to stop further spread. Could be wrong though

Foliar would be quicker. I’ll try it with epsom salt and liquid calcium in a couple of days, depending on how the plants react to what I’ve done so far. I might also add a little Extreme Blend from Kelp4Less to the foliar spray.

I just remembered something. I’ve been using tap water. I’m sure the chlorine is harming or has destroyed the beneficial bacteria and fungi in the soil. I haven’t tested it but I think the chlorine level is a bit high. I don’t think it’s high enough to harm the plants directly but probably enough to harm the beneficial microbes. I’ll get a R.O. filter ASAP and re-inoculate it. I forget everything these days!!

I didn’t mention this earlier but deficiencies are showing in about half the plants now. I’m a bit annoyed about it so I gave them all a full dose of Miracle-Gro all-purpose plus a good dose of epsom salt. I raised the PH of the feed to 7.0. If this doesn’t kill them, maybe it’ll help. If they look worse tomorrow then I’ll flush them.

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I think I finally understand what’s happening to these plants. I know soil can become acidic when plants become rootbound. This is why I PHed the last feed to 7.0 in an attempt to compensate for that. The plants look better today so I’m fairly sure the deficiencies are mostly or completely caused by long overdue transplantation into larger pots. I’ll do that today.

Do you think these might be rootbound… just a little bit? :laughing:

These girls will have to settle for 7 gallon (25 liter) fabric pots for awhile because they must remain ‘mobile’ until I have no visitors in my area with privacy fence. This will be a week or two because I have people helping me with the raised beds (seen in the photo above). They’re here only for a few hours on weekends so it’s taking longer than I expected to finish the beds.

BTW, the plants have very long bare lower stems because I’ve been removing the lower nodes up to 12+ inches (30-35cm). Starting at 4" (10cm) below the lowest existing node I’ll remove their stems’ outer skin into the phloem and paint with root stimulator to promote root growth. Hmm… do I use coarse sandpaper or a potato peeler? Should I wear ear plugs to silence their screaming? I’ll let you know if I kill them. :slightly_smiling_face:

Yesterday, I transplanted five of the tallest plants into seven gallon pots and those are now under CMH light. I’m not moving them outside anymore. I removed only 5cm of outer material at the stalk bases because these pots aren’t deep enough to remove more and keep the wounds well under the soil line. These five are looking better.

The other twelve will be transplanted tomorrow. For the moment these are looking healthier too. The feedings and higher PH adjustment are definitely helping. I’ll do another light feeding and PH to even higher 7.3 this afternoon when they start to droop a bit.

It seems I dodged the bullet this time.

I overdid outside work yesterday so didn’t risk making mistakes. I didn’t transplant nor feed. I only watered and didn’t even PH the water. Nonetheless, the plants continue to improve. I’ll transplant and feed today. The feed will be PHed to 7.0 again, since that seemed to help so much last time.

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I fed with Miracle-Gro and epsom salt again today, PHed to 7.3. These are looking far better. I did some outside work today and moved soil for transplantation but didn’t get it done. I’ll transplant tomorrow into good fresh soil that is at PH 6.4.

Good grief. After ascertaining a Cal-Mag deficiency and acidic soil… why didn’t I just add dolomite lime???