Adjust accordingly and move forward
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She seems to be doing ok anyways. Hereās a pic I took today after feeding:
One thing I noticed though is the tips of the upper leaves are browning, does that look like light burn? I think my lights are a little too close but I just wanna make sure first
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That bud looks delicious!
I donāt think itās light burn but can be a slight nutrient burn and I have that on some and thatās part of growing for me anyway.
I really havenāt had light burn/bleaching where they turn whiteish from what Iāve seen online anyway
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Thanks so much! I canāt wait to smoke it. White Widow was always one of my favorite strains and itās also my first grow.
Thatās good to hear, and Iām also getting better results out of this shitty 600w blurple LED than I thought (not actually 600w of course). Iāll continue to update this plant in this thread as things happen.
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How do you add a user so you can post
Your posting now?
Yeah I got it figured out thanks
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Iām new here. I was reading this post because Iām having the same issue. Iām also using FFOF. My ph runoff started around 5.8 and is now currently at like 5.1 on both plants. Iām growing white widow. This is my second grow. My first one went pretty well. This one Iām seriously struggling with ph. Iāve calibrated my meter, I always water with good ph, and I have fed it the FF trio and the pons are always in good range and I notice that they drop every other water when I donāt feed them, so they seem to be eating. I will say that I screwed up in the beginning and started using calmag when it didnāt need it and I did over feed it one time and got nutrient lockout and had to flush them. They seem to have had problems from the beginning, but have really gotten worse ever since Iāve flushed them. Iām struggling to get them healthy. Every time I water them they look okay and seem to be doing better, but the issue just keeps spreading and I have pruned them several times now. They look okay and are growing big, but still having ph problems. My run-off just will not go up. Iāve made 3 gallons on 7.0 ph and about 600 ppm and the ph actually seemed to go down instead of up. What do I do? Do I give up, or try to use limestone to get my soil ph good? I feel like I can save them. They arenāt falling over or anything. The problem just keeps spreading. They will grow new leaves, but eventually they start showing signs of deficiencies.
Correction Ppm is in good range not pons
hey bro glad you posted in here because I ended up finding the solution.
The only solution is lime. FFOF, along with other peat-based soils are known for having ph fluctuations towards the acidic side. Flushing is going to do nothing but starve your plants, trust me, I tried that when I first had this issue and I killed my grow completely. The ph of the water going in is meaningless, your soil ph will be whatever it wants to be, and lime will keep your ph in range no matter what.
Grind it up in a coffee grinder (grounded lime acts way quicker), top dress the soil with 1-2 tablespoons of lime per gallon of soil, and water it in. I wish there was another solution but this is the only one I found. A lot of people tend to think ph lockout on the acidic side is due to overfeeding and thatās why they tell you to flush, but thatās not true in this case. The lime will act as a buffer to keep your ph in a good range throughout the entire grow.
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I appreciate you getting back to me so soon man. Also, thanks for the confirmation on the limestone. I knew I should have just bought the limestone sooner. Iāve heard it is the best way to get your soil ph in balance. But I also read you can flush the soil with good ph until the runoff is a good ph, but that obviously not the case. Like your saying FFOF is on the acidic side and it obviously doesnāt care what ph goes in. Itās nice that I ran across your post cause itās exactly the same problem Iām having. If anything my ph is dropping and not going up at all. My first grow I had this same problem with FFOF, but it was towards the end of flower, so it wasnāt a big deal, but my ph runoff was around 5.5 at the end of my first grow. Anyways, Iām starting to see what your saying about flushing just makes it worse cause I have done it twice and it definitely seems to be making it worse. I guess Iām just flushing all the nutrients out of my soil and then making them even more hungry. Even though I feed them the soil ph is off, so the problem will never be fixed. Iām about to order some limestone. Iām looking at one and it wonāt be here till March 5. Iām hoping to get this problem under control before itās too late to save my plants. Thanks again for the information.
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No worries bro! Glad I could help. I knew this was gonna be a common issue for people using FFOF. Yes, flushing with a higher ph water will do nothing, it may raise the runoff ph for the time being but next time you water itās gonna go right back down again. When my runoff ph was 4.9 I flushed with gallons and gallons of water at 7.4 ph, at the end my runoff ph was 5.9. Went to water the next time as usual, and bam it went right back down to 4.9. my runoff ppm was also at around 20, so my plant just fell over and died.
Lime has honestly been my saving grace - if it wasnāt for that I would have ditched Ocean Forest altogether at this point. Itāll constantly buffer your ph to a good range, around 6.5, and can also help balance out high ph as well. Feels like thereās no reason not to use it.
Iām not sure what area youāre in but they sell garden lime at Home Depot, if you donāt want to wait for shipment. Itās called Espoma Garden Lime. Also, make sure you have a coffee grinder or something to grind it up with, it generally comes in bigger pellets and itās WAY more fast acting if itās grounded up.
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Yeah man you definitely helped out a lot and confirmed the issue Iām having. Now that I know Iāll need lime in FFOF Iām okay with sticking with it. I probably would have ditched it too if I didnāt figure out what I needed to use. Itās a good soil otherwise and has plenty of nutrients to last the majority of the grow from what I hear. Also, how often do I need to use the limestone to maintain a good ph? I know I can figure it out by experimenting and always testing my run off to see where Iām at, but since you have experience with it already, I figured Iād get an idea of how often I will need to use it. I do have Home Depot where I live actually, so thanks for the info on that. I went ahead and found a really good one o. Amazon earlier and it will be here in two days. Plus I just watered them, so maybe Iāll let them rest and wait the two days, or should I go get some now and start using it? One of them I flushed last night with 3 gallons, but I gave up cause so realized it wasnāt gonna do shit. The ph was literally going down and not up, or staying about the same. Then I just went ahead and did a regular water/feed on my second one and put them back up and went on here to lo look for answers and thanks you responded really fast.
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no worriesā¦as for how often to use it you should be fine with top dressing it once and watering it in once youāre ready to water again. You can top dress again later on if you see the ph dipping again but most likely you wonāt need to, considering it sounds like youāre far along in your grow. FFOF is a great soil otherwise so the lime makes it pretty much perfect. Happy growing!
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Awesome thanks man! Take care and Happy Growing.
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Man Iāve used the limestone, been feeding them even watering with 7ph sometimes. Iām still struggling. Ph of runoff has been good here lately and they still struggling. They do look bushier, but still signs of deficiencies. You thing the ph of my root zone still off. I heard potassium carbonate works well to raise the ph too. Idk my runoffs look good.should I just keep feeding at waterings and slightly elevated ph? Iām almost about ready to just repot them in a bigger pot with fresh soil.
You can do that? Iāve been giving my plants 1tsp/gal of cal mag from day one of being seedlingsā¦ should I not do this? How do you cause nutrient lockout? Also bro Iām growing in HF and use the trio + cal mag and my runoff is consistently 5, going in at 6.5. My plant seems 100% healthy though and is in late flowerā¦ idk what to do. Should I get lime? Or is this even a problem? Couldnāt it just be from nutrient uptake? Why doesnāt anyone ever think it could just be that? The plant actually using the nutrients so the PH comes out lower? The plant favoring cations over anions? Isnāt that a possibility? I feel like if it were a real problem Iād be seeing negative effects but Iām not seeing anyā¦ what do I do?
Did you ever figure out your PH problem? Mine comes out at 5 going in at 6.5 but my plant is in late flower and seems 100% healthyā¦ not really sure what to do at this point. I flushed last week and itās already back down to 5, 6 days later.