Something is happening to my plant?

Continuing the discussion from Lights and HEAT:

Woke up to this on lower leaf and starting on middle leaves. I just went to 600w when it went into flower on Jan 1. I have given only water the last two times. PH is at 6.9-7.0

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Probably good call on water only, and your ph is probably a little high. Are you able to grab runoff data?

I can’t really tell from pic if that’s a little nute burn or possibly light damage. Do you have pics of plant?

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Hello there @Hballer21

Frist time that I have seen you on here so with that I would like to welcome you to ILGM And our eve so growing community and with that "WELCOME "

OK Let’s see now, seems to be … Here is a pic that explains what I say, they look the same don’t they your plant and my pic

Potassium%232

Potassium (K) Mobile Element and Macro Element

Potassium plays a big role as well. Having good amounts of potassium in your
plants helps in having sturdy and thick stems, disease-resistance, water
respiration, as well aids in photosynthesis. Potassium is also found in the
whole plant. It is necessary for all activities having to do with water transportation.
Potassium is necessary for all stages of growth, especially important in the development of Buds.

Having to little of Potassium in your plants causes the plants leaves to show
retarded growth and show a scorched tip and edges around the leaves. Plants may
stretch and your branches can be easily broken or weak. Don’t get this deficiency
confused with iron, because it almost acts like iron but to tell the difference
in the two is: for potassium the tips of the leaves curl and the edges burn and die.
Older leaves may show a red color and leaves could curl upwards. Dead patches (Necrosis)
can happen on the margins of larger fan leaves thus, the leaves will eventually die
off and turn brown. The Older leaves will show different patches of color (mottle)
and turn yellow between the veins, following by whole leaves that turn dark yellow
and die. The plants overall growth slows down, mostly when they are in vegetative stage.
To little amount of potassium also slows the growth of buds during flowering stages.
Dark edges will appear around the edges of the leaf when the deficiency is starting
to happen. When your Relative humidity is low, you can almost bet your going to soon
get a potassium deficiency from your plants perspiration.
Potassium can get poorly absorbed when having too much Calcium or ammonium nitrogen,
and maybe cold weather. Having to much sodium (Na) causes potassium to be displaced.
SO keep those in mind… Parts affected by a Potassium Deficiency are:
older leaves and leaf margins.

When you have too much Potassium in your soil, it can lead to big troubles, like
salt damage and acid fixation of the root system, as well as too much potassium
can cause a calcium deficiency. Your fan leaves will show like a light to a dark
yellow to whitish color in between the veins. Due to a molecular imbalance,
potassium toxicity can cause a reduced uptake and lead to the deficiencies of Mg,
and in some cases, Ca. Also leads to the other nutrients to not be absorbed properly
leading to lots of other deficiency such as: magnesium, manganese, zinc and iron and
can cause problems with calcium as well.

Problems with Potassium being locked out by PH troubles
Soils with excessive Leeching and High ph soils and or water.Soils that are
potassium fixated. An excess of kitchen salts (sodium) in the root system/enviroment.

Soil

Potassium gets locked out of soil growing at ph levels of 4.0-5.5
Potassium is absorbed best in soil at a ph level of 6.0-9.5. (Wouldn’t recommend having
a ph of over 7.0 in soil) anything out of the ranges listed will contribute to a Potassium deficiency.

Hydro and Soil less Mediums

Potassium gets locked out of Hydro and Soil less Mediums at ph levels of 4.0-4.5, 6.0-6.5.
Potassium is absorbed best in Hydro and Soil less Mediums at ph levels of 4.7-5.3, 6.7-8.5.
(Wouldn’t recommend having a ph over 6.5 in hydro and soil less mediums.) Best range for
hydro and soil less mediums is 5.0 to 6.0. Anything out of the ranges listed will contribute
to a potassium deficiency.

Solution to fixing a Potassium deficiency

Any Chemical/Organic nutrients that have potassium in them will fix a potassium
deficiency.
Again Peters All Purpose plant food 20-20-20, will cure the potassium deficiency ,
Miracle grow Tomato plant food, Miracle grow All purpose plant food.( Only mixing at
½ strength when using chemical nutrients, or it will cause nutrient burn!) Some other
supplements of potassium are: Wood ashes, which are fast absorption, Kelp Meal, which
is medium absorption, Greensand, which is slow absorption, granite dust, which is slow
absorption. Sulfate of Potash, Sulfate of Potash Magnesia, Muriate of Potash, which are
medium absorption. FOXFARM GROW BIG HYDROPONIC CONCENTRATE, which is fast absorption.
(FFGB can bring your ph down as well) Earth Juice Meta-K, which is fast acting.
(Can bring down your ph as well) Leaves will never recover, but the plant will show
recovery after about 4 to 5 days when using a fast acting nutrient.

Note: Wood Ashes, can make your ph go up a bit, so please monitor your ph when using it.
Now if you added to much chemical nutrients and or organics, (which is hard to burn your
plants when using organics) you need to flush the soil with plain water. You need to use
2 times as much water as the size of the pot, for example: If you have a 5 gallon pot and
need to flush it, you need to use 10 gallons of water to rinse out the soil good enough
to get rid of excessive nutrients.

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Excellent information!

I will add that if you are using drops, strips or a soil probe to measure PH it would be far better to invest in a digital PH meter. I like this one:

https://www.amazon.com/Apera-Instruments-AI209-Waterproof-Accuracy/dp/B078NPH1W3/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1546782041&sr=8-3&keywords=apera+ph20

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First, thank you for the WELCOME. This has been a very helpful group when I have gotten into trouble. I’m posting as I go, (even if nobody reads it) so that when I do need help, there’s a history. Since I went to 600w, I added an additional fan (with fresh air blowing on the floor). I do notice that my humidity, which has been in the 40%-60% range was 25% last night. I am watching my upper leaves (with a bunch of good looking buds on them) for any sign of curling, or burning. I added more fresh air as well as ducted cooling for the light. @dbrn32 should I have been more in range with a 300w HID ?

A few weeks ago, I did get nute burn on this one plant, which only got the tips of the leaves. I then went to water only. They have both gone into flower on Jan1. I just got a digital pH meter. They both got the Bergman Flower nute with 1/2gal fresh water ph 6.8 going first. Then 1/2 gal with the nute mix.

They sleep during the day, so I will check tonight what the output ph was (I save it) and post it. I will post a pic of both plants (This is only affecting Hermane, not Lilly (gotta be girls names, lol)

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Good that you got a digital meter. Do check the calibration with Standard Reference Solution (7.0) to make sure it’s reading correctly and follow the storage instructions; some probes like to be wet and others dry for storage.

Your PH is a little bit high at 6.8. I would bring that down to a target of 6.3 or so.

25% at transition is low but I would rather see it low than high in flower. Humidity management is critical late in flower to avoid the dreaded bud rot.

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Ya, you are a little higher on your light density than you probably should be. It didn’t cross my mind that you potentially had potassium issue, but with @garrigan62 info it makes sense. With all that light in there you are driving photosynthetic energy through the roof. Which likely means the plant is struggling to get amount of nutrients it needs to keep up.

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Only one of the two plants is being affected. They are getting the same of everything since the transplant. Again, I will check tonight and take pics, check pH, humidity and temps and report back. If it is potassium deficiency, is there a household product that would suffice, or back to the hydro store ?

My meter is the “wet all the time, meter.” My well is 6.9-7.0 consistently. WIth the flower nutes it went to 6.8. I will check everything tonight and post up. Thanks…

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If you don’t have PH up and down it’s a good investment. You can use household items like lemon juice for down and baking soda for up but the b.s. is not good for long term use. The commercial products are actually micronutrients.

Having your PH in the lower range does a couple of things: over time it will migrate back towards your original value from the well. This allows for multiple PH “hot spots” to make different nutes available to the plant. In addition the lower PH seems to be (for me anyway) a more robust growth spot for soil.

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I see what you’re saying. I thought I had spent enough to get through this first grow. Apparently not. I figured as time went on I would get better and get better equipment as well. The pH up and down at the local hydroponic store has a test kit also, like for testing pH in a swimming pool with drops. I believe my digital should still be more effective than that, correct?

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Oh, absolutely! A good meter can get you into the .01 range (totally not necessary here). I would suggest you get a big bottle:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FG0F9U?aaxitk=IbJ-nEIuXQmdCoL-e7KqKQ&pd_rd_i=B000FG0F9U&pf_rd_p=3ff6092e-8451-438b-8278-7e94064b4d42&hsa_cr_id=6272244720301&sb-ci-n=asinImage&sb-ci-v=https%3A%2F%2Fimages-na.ssl-images-amazon.com%2Fimages%2FI%2F411wStN39CL.jpg&sb-ci-a=B000FG0F9U

It’s not expensive. A quart set of up and down is like $15.

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I jumped the gun being they are autoflower and opened the tent while they were sleeping. My runoff from yesterdays Bergman Flower nutes were 6.7 and 6.8 on the two plants. I have pics of the problem plant, the other (Lilly) is green, happy and doing fine. I have pics of the lower leaves, middle and top. @dbrn32 you spotted nute burn weeks ago on this plant. Could that be the “completion” of that burn by taking the lower leaves and some mid leaves to this condition?

The mid and upper leaves are not reacting the same, even though the mid leaves were there when I burnt it before.

The first pic is the lower leaves. I pulled the only one off that was worse than this in yesterday’s post.

These are the middle leaves. The tips are burned from my first outing with nutes. I have washed twice since then. Note the small yellowing on the sides. If it is potassium deficiency, how much of an increase would stabilize the growth?


Here are the upper leaves. Growing fast in flower!

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It could be potassium or like you suggest: could be the tail end of nute burn. If potassium you will see more leaves progress to yellow between the veins. Your flowering nutes will contain potassium so likely you are experiencing what you suspect. Just wait and see. There are a lot of growers that take the nutes right to that point and hold it there with good results. I’ve found they respond to less quite well.

Also remember that every plant is different. One will like your lighting less, one will be more sensitive to Nitrogen, another might be sensitive to any disturbance in it’s day/night cycle etc.

Your plants look pretty happy though.

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Having no previous growing skills (even my lawn looks like hell), I am approaching this like a scientist: Read Read Read and then ask questions if it doesn’t make sense. Being they were fed yesterday, I will watch them until it’s they dry and do the water then water and nutes, unless something looks funny. I was just concerned about the change in the lower leaves. I have removed about 3 or 4 since starting this plant, as they died, rested on the dirt and burned, etc.

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You will see leaves start to yellow and drop in flower. It will get pretty advanced before you harvest normally as the flowering nutes are scosh on nitrogen. Leaves will yellow and die: this is normal. Too many dying too soon is a problem but I don’t see anything like that yet.

This is a Sour Diesel ready to harvest.

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Looks like @Myfriendis410 has you covered. What you’re seeing right now is minor, I wouldn’t even go as far to say you have an issue. Just watch to see how your plants progress. Also, there’s no reason to pull leaves like that off.

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