Team, think this could be nutes burn as well but like to get your thoughts

Updated…

Team, think this could be nutes burn as well but like to get your thoughts.

Delahaze fem.
Indoor.
No space restrictions. She’s in a 4 inch peat pot to start.
Jiffy natural & Organic Seed starting mix - soil less medium incl peat moss, vermiculite, and lime, and i added perlite.
7.0 ph of soil
Pure Kelp plant food every other day
One feeding last week with a 8-4-4 herb/veggie mix derived from oilseed extract, Bonnie Plant Food
One tsp. feeding last week with a 5-7-3 tomato/veg/herb fertilizer, Dr. Earth homegrown organic.
Past two weeks I sprayed everyday, once, on both leaves and soil with neem oil (i was able to stop a spider mite breakout) stopped spraying about 5 days ago.
Last week I tried a feeding with liquid co2 for fish tanks! Maybe that what did it…
EC/TDS/PPM levels? Don’t know.
No temp regulation, but the weather is 70° low and 88° highs, and 71° at 7:45AM
No humidity reg but humidity is 75% here
One 60 watt CFL in a heat lamp reflector clamp
Ventilation system? N/A
Humidifier, De-humidifier? N/A
Vegetative stage, from seed germinated 7/6/2015

Now that I write it all down, I’m sure it’s nute-burn but this is the first time i’ve gotten so far with a plant and I was scared when I saw the cotleyons browning - only to find out that’s normal!!

I really want to know if the neem oil hurt her.
And if liquid CO2 is a bad idea.

I appreciate any feedback.

If you look real close you can see the tips yellowing. I have flushed lightly last night and the day before yesterday and it seems to at least halted the spotting/yellowing. I have another one from bag seed that is 100% green (except for the damage from the mites on the first true leaves) but the tips are curling under at the tips so I think I could have over did it a bit. Same conditions on that one except I did one spray of insecticidal soap b/c that’s the one that had the mites. Other than curling, has recovered nicely with just a little stunted growth only.


Having the EC/TDS reading of the run-off after watering would help give us an idea if indeed the nutrient concentration or nutrient salt build up was too high in your soil.

The pH in the soil could be lower at 6.5, this is considered the ideal pH for soil.

You can also test the soil as described in Robert’s blog, here:

I don’t think liquid CO2 is good at all. That might be for plants that actually have their leaves under the water? A plant’s roots generally need oxygen and the leaves need CO2. This sounds like a very bad idea too me, Anaerobic bacteria thrive without oxygen and are the more likely microbes in the soil to kill your roots, this is why you will often hear a lot about adding air to a hydro reservoir or even making sure your soil is well aerated, cannabis roots get water logged and drown easily, especially if there is not enough oxygen available to them.

I don’t necessarily think the neem oil had much to do with the leaf damage.

There is certainly some signs of nute burn at the pointy tips of the big fan leaves. It isn’t too bad yet.

I might be worried about some of your micro nutrients as well, these may account for spots due to deficiencies and also contributes to uneven and twisted leaf growth. But pH is often the cause of these deficiencies in a nutrient regiment that has the macro nutrients/NPK ratios and the micro nutrients all accounted for.

Also, I am a bit concerned about all the different things you have adding up. They do not sound like they’d necessarily add up to the ideal nutrient ratios for cannabis and you might be getting too many of one and not enough of the other, which can still cause nute burn, and complicate things with deficiencies in the other nutrients. When trying to use off the shelf nutrients, I always recommend sticking to something that would be a well balance nutrient intended for tomatoes. Yes a little more nitrogen is wanted during veg, and more phosphorus and potassium for flower, but the recommended ratios for tomatoes for veg vs. flower are about as close as you will get with most off the shelf available stuff. Unless you really know what you are doing with the kelp, worm casings and bat guano and such.

Hope this helps,

MacG

Yeh, very very much so, thank you. I think I got worried about the cotleyons browning and went nute-happy for a min. before researching it further.
The Dr. Earth is for tomatoes so it sounds like thats the best to stick with. It is also organic but it incls. Fish Bone Meal, Feather Meal, Kelp Meal, Alfalfa Meal, Soft Rock Phosphate, Fish Meal, Potassium Sulfate, Seaweed extract. So adding anything on top of that is probably no good then, huh? And, no I don’t really know what I’m doing, just have read up on it lots that’s all–> first timer at GM.

I really liked the kelp b/c it seemed very mild for the seedlings first feedings, but when the cotleyons died off I knew it was time to step it up…
I’ll have to check out my local nursery for the ppm and TDS detectors, I was hoping to avoid, but it may be worth it until I get more experience huh.

Also what’s the best way to lower the ph w/o chemicals? Vinigar I heard I think and how? Or is it better to break down and buy the chems?

The tools to more accurately test these conditions can be found here:

http://ilgmforum.com/c/ilgm-official-sonsors-buters-guides/ph-ec-tds-meters-pens-controllers

And they are not really that expensive and well worth the investment to keep your plants healthy and to provide yourself with quality home grown medicine.

BTW, vinegar is not at all the best for pH down. And people need to get over the “chemicals” thing, lol. Many organic growers will tell you, there is nothing wrong with using sulfuric acid as a pH down. Or you can use food grade phosphoric acid, this is the primary ingredient in commercially available pH down products.

here is a link where we discussed mixing you own sulfuric acid pH down:

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Notice the stem is curvy all of a sudden too. I think my ph meter is for s#!@t though no matter what I do it reads 7.0 so I think I’ll have to look into that too. It is for soil and there is no calibration… I dunno.

In the meantime, today when I got home the leaves had severely curled under. It seems like it’s getting better with the lights off but this has got to be in result of the flush…right? Can you believe this is the same girl from this morning? To help her along, what is the best thing now? to leave the lights on or off? I had her in the window sill with the 60 watt CFL today to try and dry out after a flush last night. I think I’m mother-hening her to death now!

Wow…Poor thing. Hope it all works out.

She’s looking better. I decided to go without the dr. Earth after all and as mcguyver mentioned too many micros. since she’s still small i don’t need too much. Still trying to get a good combo of nutes though and I think the kelp food was working well for her up until I added the dr. Earth. So I’ll stick with that and add the 8-4-4 veg/herb/flower food from oilseed extract, called bonnie for npk. Intro to Plant Food – Bonnie Plants
Tried to remove what I could from the top layer of soil and replaced it with a clean seedling mix by jiffy that she started in, having added perlite too.

Or, a lot of people like Super Thrive and apparently some use it for all their nutes and nothing else, but it says to add it to fertilizer so not sure about that. Maybe chuck everything and try that? It sounds like it could help her in this time of being so distressed but I already have b-1 vitamin which could do the trick too. Any thoughts? I think i will stick with r/o water until she is healthy again. I’d love to hear your thoughts. @latewood @MacGyverStoner.
With a 7.0 ph still, I am on the way to the nursery to find something to lower that and to check out the tools for detecting the TDS. (I got the links and thank you much, my tools are playschool in comparison, but still prefer to stay local, if I can).

I didn’t say too many micros, I said you could have too many of any one nutrient, micros or macros, because they all add up, with so many things being mixed and you’d need to pay attention to the specifics of each ingredient and figure out how much of which nutrient total was being added by each product. Just a clarification.

Latewood knows more about soils and all these types of additives or amendments, so he has you covered there, and I think he’d agree in general with maybe too much of something could be going on.

A more accurate way, or a way to confirm the probes pH reading or confirm it is useless, would be a good thing to know.

I might have to get back to this when I have more time.

After reading your latest post, MacG…; Iam at a loss. This plant is so small, that the only thing I would feed it would be “Botanicare Liquid karma”. ( I have no issue with “Superthrive”, either) If it didn’t produce foliage within 3 -5 days; I would cull it. I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I just cannot say that I would continue to try and revive this plant.

Had this plant been culled and new seeds started when this topic was started; I believe the new plant would be thriving. As my Retina Specialist’, Fellow told me; "Sometimes you have to face the fact that things have gone too far.

I suggest starting over. Sorry my friend/s

One final note: After my last post I looked up and down at the 'piks". I can tell you that this plant is root bound. Any time that the leaves spread out farther than the edge of a small pot*; There is a good chance it is root bound.

  • Not as big a deal with mature plants in big pots for 2 reasons.
  1. much more depth and girth of soil
  2. At some point, you want to contain your root growth in order to finish on time.

That makes a lot of sense and then when I flushed her it further compacted the soil and then almost immediately she said, “hold up, wait a min.” I actually have a few pebbles in the bottom too and, since, I’ve removed the topsoil containing fert, so I’m sure she’s squished. Im gonna go see how bad it is. Its a peat pot -they are supposed to be able to be planted in it and grow through it though, maybe the stones in the botom were a bad call afterall.
I got set up to move her yesterday coincidentally enough, which is good cause cause I think I’m learning :wink: and I was checking out Super Thrive - and not that I mean to be difficult, but the ingredients are b1 and N derived from kelp. So im thinking im good with b1 vitamin and pure kelp food. It has a little more N at 0.13, than Super Thrive being 0.09. You think the manufacturer would tell me the exact ingredients? I hate to buy something I already have. What do you think?
The other thing is at what point do I introduce NPK or do I? See cause I was doing the kelp b1 thing but when the cotleyons turned yellow I was under the impression that is an indicator that it’s time for a NPK supplement. It sounds like thats not the case though.

I can’t tell you how grateful I am for your help.

So she’s not completely, worst-case root bound, but definitely over due. I’m hoping with some more room she will recover, not 100% ready to give up yet. She was free seed but a quality strain. The other bag seed in the same boat I’m less hopeful for because of genetics, but still not ready to cull either. So I started another seed so I don’t lose too much time anyway if she doesn’t work out. …Hey we win some, lose some, right?! Truly appreciate your time and support.

I didn’t remember at all seeing the all those NPK numbers and all the other stuff, I think I saw CO2 stuff being added to the soil and tunnel visioned on that and a vague memory of a bunch of things that sounded like organic and worm casings, and I wasn’t really paying attention to how small the plants were. I was working on I think 2 other questions from the forum in two other windows at the same time, lol.

My comment specifically about the micros was maybe certain individual ones lacking, like boron which can cause weird twisting in the leaves sometimes, and as I said, but this is normally or more often due to pH related deficiency rather than the micro nutrient actually being absent. It was just a thought in passing…

But as I did say, I also was worried about too much of something, or even everything, and was why I was wondering for an EC/TDS reading.

And so, yeah, for @andr3a, you don’t want to give seedlings or very small undeveloped plants a ton of nutrients, this would explain the nute burn tips on many of the bigger plant’s leaves.

I’m also thinking too many nutrients can cause the cotyledons themselves to brown, or nute burn, and so they die off early.

And yes, after the cotyledons normally yellow, shrivel kind of brown and die off when you are not feeding a seedling, just watering, then, yes, this can be an indication your plant could start getting appropriate strength nutrients for the size and development of the plant. But if it is from the seedling having too many nutes in the first place, and then you add more, well, then, I think you get the idea.

I was wondering about the lime, would that raise the PH? And if it’s at 7 now.
Just wondering.
Tom

Yeh I think it would but it was a premix soil that is definitely stable at 7.0. So I guess it is considered more of an acid lover then huh? I added a little soil acidifier: elemental sulfer and gypsum. And looking at my tools here that sounds spot on, too much of one, not enough of a balance, and definitely no boron. G, I thought this was supposed to be easy! My bag seed is looking better but the delahaze is looking worse. Bag is running a little behind b/c it had battled mites at an early age, but it’s working on its 2nd set of 3 leaves, with evidence of 5 following. Delahaze has been healthy until the cotleyons started to yellow at the tips and then I started her on a nutes - killing schedule but her first 5 leaves are a little twisted but developing through all my abuse no less. I think your right about the nutes though not that I gave her too much but too much of one thing. I’m still debating the next steps for her if any.

So she is in a bigger pot, with the added sulfer and gypsum, trying to bring the PH down slowly, and I will just give her plain water and see how she does. B/c she is so small, I’ve probably given her enough nutes already right. But going foward. I see my food for tomatoes has no boron. I have something for acid lovers at 30-10-10 with boron, copper, iron, manganese and zinc but I thought N was too high.

Yeh I think you guys called it. She’s just gotten worse in the past 4 days. No change in the new growth. The bag seed looks healthy but just stopped growing. And the new growth is twisting into a knot. It’s too embarrassing to post the pics at this point. I guess its all about learning on these plants and im ready to scrap them.

But my little baby is doing well. And for her I’m trying straight tap water. Also I think I’m going to try to make the super soil so I don’t have to worry about added nutes, either that or break down and buy fox farms. Does anyone know the ingredients of fox farms grow?

Sorry to hear it, and glad to hear it. Keep the faith.