Expert advice needed

MrMarbles

Member
P1010003.jpgP1010025.jpgP1010005.jpgP1010001.jpgP1010015.jpgP1010004.jpgP1010027.jpgP1010010.jpgP1010014.jpgP1010012.jpgP1010013.jpgP1010024.jpgP1010009.jpgP1010002.jpgP1010026.jpg I have literally tried everything to cure this problem without much success. Photos and extensive description below.

Strain :White Widow
1000w HPS
Air Temp - 75-78*f
Water temp - 70*f
Humidity - 50
Fert - Golden Bloom (currently 1500 PPM) 3 part solution
PH - 5.9
Room - 3' x 4' x 10' in height

These plants are currently (4) weeks into flowering which is where I start to have this issue every time. They grow like gangbusters for the first four weeks and then they seem to stop. These plants were nothing more than 10-12" clones when they were put into this room, and up until 4-5 days ago looked great, but now I'm getting some yellowing and some rusty brown spots along the leaf veins. The pictures say it all. Most of this is the early stage yet as I'm trying to remedy it as soon as possible.

Soon the leaves will get get rustier, brown and brittle, and as usual I'll end up with about 10 oz's, but something isn't right and if I can just figure it out I'm sure I can double that. The buds always look good and resinous, but they're never as large, full and tight as they should be.

The only thing I haven't changed yet is the watering system. All previous grows have been done with the water pumping 24/7, but this time I changed it to 30 min on and 30 min off during the light cycle. They get just one or two 30 min cycles during lights off. There is no medium inside the tubes. Despite the nutes in the photos The only thing I really use in these photos is the ZONE and to my knowledge I've never had any root rot issues despite the very wet environment.

The air pump in between the two tubes is attached to some tubular aerators, not stones, that aerate the water as it passes over during the watering cycle. These run 24/7 as I thought continuously pumping air into the tubes would help offset the wet environment. The water never gets more than about an inch deep and drains almost completely. I've also had the exact same issues when using air stones in the reservoirs, so I think those are not likely the issue. I've also ran this system with deeper water in the tubes, but deep or shallow doesn't seem to make a difference.

In the photos you'll see the room and the various stages of this "deficiency", the photos run in sequence tops first and then the bottoms.

I've even been changing the water and nutes every (5-7) days and like I said, in just the last couple of days the spots started showing. Up until a few days ago the leaves were reaching for the lights, but as you can see they are now starting to curve downward, have lost their luster and suppleness and just along their serated edge start turning up, where as before they we nice and flat.

I haven't seen anything exactly like this in all my research, but it most likely resembles a magnesium deficiency, but I've even been adding a half strength mixture of Cal-Mag this time and I'm still having the same problem.

So all I'm left with is the root environment. This system is accessible enough that I could still fill or partially fill the tubes with Hydroton and cut the watering to just two or three a day. At this point however, I'm just throwing my hands up in the air and screaming WTF!

Thanks for your suggestions in advance.
 

Jonus

Well-Known Member
Week 4 into flower is when indica plants usually have shut down all of their leaf and stem growth and seriously begin the bud production. A few things usually crop up around week 4 of flowering that usually begin a few weeks earlier but take a week or two to appear. This most common is calcium deficiency. Many bloom products do not have calcium in them, or if they do, the calcium is not chelated enough to move around all the parts of the plant that need it, or there is just not enough calcium for the particular strain you are growing.

If your nutrient does contain calcium or as you state you are using the cal-mag additive, then the solution may be fulvic acid which acts as a chelator and helps micros including calcium move throughout your plants. Plants demands for calcium almost doubles when it goes into flower and it takes a few weeks for the plants to fully switch and to use up all its calcium reserves, at which point if there are calcium/magnesium issues you will start to see the cal-mag deficiencies which envariably lead to deficiencies of other crucial nutrients....even though you may have all the numbers set correctly.

You would want to start adding fulvic acid as soon as you switch to the bloom cycle.

Thats about all I can think of considering the great detailed description you have given tells me you are doing everything correctly and by the numbers.
 

MrMarbles

Member
I have added some fulvic acid as of today. Could it be that plants are experiencing this deficiency due to their size and the fact that each row of three plants has just one 16 gallon reservoir (32 total)? Thus, whatever nutrient/s is deficient is so because that nutrient/s being sucked out of the solution in rather short order (i.e. Phosphorous, Mag,Calcium) and my problem has nothing to do with the root zone conditions?

I think maybe I'm getting thrown off by the fact that when I measure the PPM throughout the week and I don't see it dip much I assume there is still plenty of each nutrient still available in solution, which as I'm starting to suspect, may not be the case.

Every time I discuss this issue with someone I always point out that I used the exact same nutrients 15 years ago that I'm using now, in a similarly scaled grow, and never had a nutrient issue, ever. However, I never point out that the reservoir back then was seventy gallons and now is only sixteen.

Since I run two reservoirs I have the luxury of experimenting one tank against the other, which in part is why I went this way. My intention of this built in "test lab" was to fine tune and maximize my yields, but instead has just been on ongoing up hill battle just trying to get even a respectable yield. now that I think about it, in a way I guess its a parody of a Frankenstein movie. (not an actual quote)"It was suppose to be a thing of beauty, but all I've managed to do is create this cold, callous monster."

I think I'm just going to jack one tank up with some bloom booster and see what happens? I'm pretty much at the fuck it stage at this point and have never nute burned them. In other words "will it blend?" LOL!

Stay tuned, I'll report back in a week or two. Feel free to post some tips if you can think of any.

MM
 

woodsmaneh!

Well-Known Member
Could be Nutrient toxicity or botrytis blight.

IMHO it's blight you could try treating with a fungicide, not sure how much that will help (read the labels and make sure the active ingredient will treat botrytis). if you maintain monitoring/removing damaged materials, the plants should recover (may not look that great for a bit, though)

Peace
 

MrMarbles

Member
Now look at these photos. It's been just eight days since the previous photos were taken. With all the information I've provided previously someone out there has got to be able to tell me WTF is going on. I swear I'm going to grenade this f'ing room if someone can't tell me what the hell is going on. Like I said before, this same shit starts at about week four of flowering, now look how bad it is.

C'mon, I'm begging for advice. Someone has got to recognize this problem. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh! 033.jpg029.jpg031.jpg
 

Rtoke

New Member
fucking flush that shit asap right now !!!!!!!! flush like 4 times, then hit up a bita epsom salts
 
Top