Brown spots in my big buds, need advice, lots of pics, please help, thanks!

Hi all and thanks in advance if you read the whole thing and offer some advice...




I am on my second grow, growing with 340 watts of CFL along with 90 watts of LED.


Using a mix of Compost and EWC (50%) and coco coir and pumice (50%). I also added 4 TBSP of Trichoderma and let the mix sit for about a week for the fungus to colonized the medium before planting.


I have 7 plants, 4 Big Buds, 1 Diesel, 1 Shark Attack and 1 White Widow.


I am using a total of 3 pounds of CO2 per day as my growing area is small but can expand vertically as plant tops reach closer to the lights.

Temperature ranges from 78F during the day to 86F at night (air conditioning is on during the day, lights on, and off at night, lights off) so it gets a little hot at night.

Humidity ranges from 48 to 60%.


Watering every 4 days.


Using tap water with a PH 7.


Soil PH 6.5.


My plants are 65 days old from seed. LST started at the 5th internode.


I started foliar feeding them using a hydroponics solution:


N = 5%
P = 4.60%
K = 4.81%
CaO = 2.80%
MgO = 1.30%
along with all necessary Miconutrients.


Started with 1/2 strength, then full strength, and then one and a half strength every couple of days.


About a week ago I stopped feeding them and three days ago I set them to 12/12. Two days ago I fed them for the first time with an NPK solution of 20-20-20 at full strength but NOT via foliage, and noticed that some of the leaves in the Big Buds had brown spots.


Brown spots seem to me, to be a Phosphorus/Potassium deficiency in which case the recent feeding should help, however I might be wrong.


Also, as you can see my plants have a very light green colour which seems to me as a Nitrogen deficiency as well but all in all the seemed to be under feed in general... but what worries me the most now is the brown spots in the Big Buds... the other three plants do not show these symptoms.


Please advise...


Cheers!

BB.

first of , the plants dont look like 65 days old , some of them look like 25 days from seed and im not exaggerating , what do u have for air exchange/circulation , when do u apply the co2 ? u should be lights off the hot hours and not the opposite , u dont need any of thesse tactics when u on veg , u consume energy which is noit needed , when u use coco u suposed to water more often , whats the volume of the pots and how much water u use on every water ? , i hope u got more space in height for the flowering

ur plants should be fed regurally , seems the BB needs some ph spin up , BY MG/CA agents

if u dont have good air exchange then this is ur sole problem

could those spots be from foliar feeding?
temps should be colder at night and the fact that it isnt may harm your yield.
your plants look fine so just see if the spots progress they may be Mg defisiency you should feed your plants.
over all nice looking setup + rep

bonjo78 said:

first of , the plants dont look like 65 days old , some of them look like 25 days from seed and im not exaggerating , what do u have for air exchange/circulation , when do u apply the co2 ? u should be lights off the hot hours and not the opposite , u dont need any of thesse tactics when u on veg , u consume energy which is noit needed , when u use coco u suposed to water more often , whats the volume of the pots and how much water u use on every water ? , i hope u got more space in height for the flowering

ur plants should be fed regurally , seems the BB needs some ph spin up , BY MG/CA agents

if u dont have good air exchange then this is ur sole problem

Click to expand...

HI, I know my plants do not look the age they are, this was mainly because of a mistake on my end. Initially I put them in party cups and left them there for a month which caused them to be stunted, when I realized they had already ovewrgrown the cups and were root bounded I transplanted them inmediately.

Plants are inside a closet so air circulation is limited, however, they do have two 14 inch computer fans taking air in, as well as the air conditioning pipe, and two 20 inch computer fans taking the air out.

I water when they need it, so I think, meaning when the soil is getting dry. I stick my finger and it it feels dry two inches down then water it is.... Remember this is not coco alone and it also has compost and EWC.

I add the CO2 for 15 minutes every three hours, during the lights on hours, for one hour in total with the regulator set a 3 CFPH; I meant to say cubit feet and not pounds... turning off the fans during those three hours. During the night times ventilators and extractors are on at all times.

The reason the temps are higher at night is because I turn off the AC at night and it is summer time here where I live so in order for my temps to be higher at night I would have to have the AC on 24 hrs per day... meaning that my plants wake up at 6 pm at night and go to bed at 6 am in the morning.

They are in one gallon pots and as far as air circulaion goes, I do not have any means to increase it, like I said, they are in a closet...

Now my question would be, would a PH inbalance be causing those brown spots?

Thanks a lot Bonjo!

Saldaw said:

could those spots be from foliar feeding?
temps should be colder at night and the fact that it isnt may harm your yield.
your plants look fine so just see if the spots progress they may be Mg defisiency you should feed your plants.
over all nice looking setup + rep

Click to expand...

I do not think foliar feeding is causing them but hey, I might be wrong, and the reson I say that is because if that's the case the spots should have appeared long time ago, they have been foliar fed for two months now.

I will start turning on the AC at night and see how it goes.

I will also monitor them closely and see the progress in terms of a possible MG deficiency.

Thanks a lot Saldaw!

BB.

yo baseball nix the co2 until you flower and then only use it when your lights are on. you need a co2 test kit . my 20 pound tank comes on for 2 min every hour while the lights are on and a 20 pound tank lasts two months co2 ppms should be no higher than 2000 ppm. coco fiber is a hydro mix so you will have to adjust your water to around 6 im guessing. try a general hydroponics ph test kit its around 15 bucks and makes a huge difference unless you have a ph pen. also check for bugs under the leafs being spring time they will start showing up. hope this helps. one more thing that might help you because your growing in a small space try less daylight hours try 11 on 13 off.it will keep the plants smaller and they will bud faster.

Dear Smokealot,


I appreciate your input. I did some testing for soil PH and realized my soil was around 7.5 PH, being a little bit on the high end I decided to flush and leave for a few days and then water feed using the same Hydro solution I have been using to foliar feed and add a molasses to it, being it is very acidic. I think it was a Mag deficiency due to high PH so after flushing and feeding with my hydro solution which has calmag in it along with the molasses with also contains calmag have resolved the problem. The result was the brown spots stopped appearing and the plants look very healthy green now as they were very pale when I posted this. I have continued to feed on every watering every 5 days or so and flowers are starting to form nicely. I also let the air conditioning run 24 hours per day so temperatures are lower at night than they are during the day as it was the opposite before. I have only used molasses once and plan on useing it every other feeding as I do not want my PH to lower too much either.


Now, with regards to the CO2, I have the regulator set at 4 SCFH injecting 25 minutes of CO2 every three hours. For what you are saying, I am injecting way too much CO2 to my plants, correct? If that is the case, and I do not have a CO2 meter nor the means to buy one right now, how harmful would it be to my plants? I actually increased it as soon as I started flowering as I had it running for 15 minutes every three hours as opposed to the 25 minutes every three hours it is running at now. There are ways to find out how many PPM of CO2 you need to inject to your growing space to reach the ideal 2000 PPM without having a CO2 meter, but I have been doing it without regards to that theory (stupid me) as it could be causing me to have too much CO2 in my growing space and therefore spending too much money in CO2 along with the consequence of possibly harming the plants. But honestly the main reason I do this is to compensate for CO2 loss due to leakage in the growing area.


I have also checked for bugs as that was one of my main concerns but there is nothing under the leaves and I have a very good tool to do this...


Now with the lights cycle. They have been in 12/12 for 15 days, do you think it would be good to change now to 11/13 for the rest of the flowering cycle? let me know and I will definately follow your advice as I was planning to do this but maybe two more weeks from today, meaning that I would change to 11/13 after a month fo being in 12/12.
I do not have problems with the space and I can adjust vertically every time the plants get to a half and inch of the lights. When this happens, I move the plants down about 3-4 inches. I have a 6 foot vertical space in total.

I will post pics of my plants later on tonight when they wake up!


Thanks a lot!


BB

Some pics of my plants at 15 days of flowering:

Foliar spray nute burn is my vote.

Quit foliar feeding and turn the co2 off. Co2 is for flowering and high intensity light. Without bigtime photosynthesis, supplemental c02 is pointless and wasteful. Foliar feeding can be devastating to a crop if humidity gets even a little too high. Mold and powdery mildew love foliar feeders.

Capt. Stickyfingers said:

Quit foliar feeding and turn the co2 off. Co2 is for flowering and high intensity light. Without bigtime photosynthesis, supplemental c02 is pointless and wasteful. Foliar feeding can be devastating to a crop if humidity gets even a little too high. Mold and powdery mildew love foliar feeders.

Click to expand...

Do you even look at pictures? Their plants are flowering so suggesting turning off the co2 is absurd smh. With that many cfl's and the led running there is plenty enough photosynthesis to run co2.

jpockets420 said:

Do you even look at pictures? Their plants are flowering so suggesting turning off the co2 is absurd smh. With that many cfl's and the led running there is plenty enough photosynthesis to run co2.

Click to expand...

Lol. Co2 enrichment below 80 degrees under less than 7500 lumens a sq ft, or above 50% humidity is pointless because plants will not photosynthesize fast enough to use it. Plus take into consideration the plants are going to stretch, the light will have to be raised, losing light intensity across the plants ( 7 plants total) in the process. Really man, read up and make sure you're right before saying something is absurd.

[video=youtube;pele5vptVgc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pele5vptVgc[/video]

that looks like a magnesium def.

you should stop spraying the plants It will only cause problems like stickyfingers said he is rite about that. molasses and sugars are used to feed microbes in the soil spraying it on a plant does nothing except attract ants maybe gnats. you see your not actually feeding the plants you want to feed the microbes in the soil they poop and the poop feeds the plant. now for the co2 thing you need one of these and your cab needs to be sealed if your using co2 you dont want that gas leaking. any thing over 3000ppm can be toxic to people. I use co2 but im running 300000 lumens at least. ill give you an idea of what im talking about my flower room is 500 cubic feet I have a regulator hooked up to a timer that has 8 on and off settings. it comes on for two minutes every hour and that keeps my room at 1500ppm long enough to make a difference. leaving a co2 tank on for 15 minutes is not a good idea. before I got the regulator and a test kit i was just cracking the tank for a few minutes one day I tested it and come to find out every ten seconds I was raising the ppm by 1000.

they look good baseball sometimes simple is better.

timer was 20$ regulator 150$ test kit 14$ that comes with two test tubes. and a ten pack of test tubes might be about 50$ saving your life is priceless.

Hi guys,

Thanks to all for your input I wil post pics of my plants tomorrow.

Cheers!

BB.