Overfeeding: toxic salt accumulation or ph causing lockout?

Hi Guys,
Some of these ideas seem complicated, and are if you look at the chemistry behind it. But really, in practice it can boil down to very practical and useful knowledge. I'm going to at least try to summarize what I find and learn so that it becomes more useful.

An example of antagonism might be someone who is giving too much Epsom salts when their nutrients already have enough...yet their plants show a Ca deficiency. Mg is antagonizing Ca.

@vostok...indeed foliar feeding could prevent lockout and also is a useful tool when lockout is already present.

Anyway, I ran into another useful link...

The bottom two subjects on this Mandela link are over-fertilization and multi nutrient block

http://www.mandalaseeds.com/Guides/Marijuana-Nutrient-Problems

JD

Even though it may be a little inconvenient to do drain to waste for some folks this is a key to a smooth grow. The feed feed water method has used with a great deal of success. The idea being the water washes away the salt left behind. There should be run off regardless. PH is so much more important. An occasional check of pH and ec will give a better but ultimately an untrustworthy idea of what's going on in the root zone.
hope this helps on some level.

Peace

JohnDee said:

Hi Fishindog...coco guys have a slightly different set of variables but overfeeding certainly can occur. Let me ask you a question. Was there any one thing that clicked for you to make coco work? So many noobs are using it and getting into trouble.

Cheers guys,
JD

Click to expand...

Ummm I don't know if there was really one big thing. I started growing in dirt, then moved to dwc, then moved to aeroponics, now with the garden Im running Im using all coco in a drain to waste system.....I really liked my aeroponics and I will be going back to that, not completely but I miss it so Im going to set up a few aero systems soon. I cant say one thing clicked, it was definitley a huge transition to move to a whole new line of nutes and back into a soil medium. Its turned out great tho Im having excellent results.

Thanks Fishindog,
Not everyone has such a smooth stransition from system to system. Nothing like experience to make things easy. I can imagine the frustrations that some of the new guys experience killing plants right and left. That was my purpose for this thread...to understand the whole issue of overfeeding and nute toxicity so I could help them better.

I learned to grow from my wife who was a master gardener and an expert at houseplants when we married. So I actually haven't had very many sick plants in my lifetime of growing. When I switched to hydro...I had some issues due to hard water which were resolved with RO.

I'm working on a summary of what I've learned from the posts and from my research. My basic premise is flawed. There does not appear to be a causative relationship between toxic nutrient accumulation and ph (at least not a low ph). It can go either way depending on the many variables...such as medium and nutrient brand. But if an out of range ph is causing lockout, then that can lead to nutrient build up in the medium, as Silky Shagalot suggested. So at least there's a clear cut cause there. I'm going to pause here for now...
Later,
JD

My biggest advice is test the runoff as often as you can, I test mine every watering before hand so I can feed properly, or flush properly

^^^imo, you couldn't choose a worse way to decide anything, especially ph or feeding. that's waste, and is not going to determine plant health.^^^ only even consider checking this, when the plant is displaying an issue. if the plant is looking good, i don't care about runoff, why would i?

Another noob here doing my first grow and I have had 2 problems so far. Approx day 15 after my seed popped out of the soil I started to get brown/rust spots. I flushed the plant and then gave calmag water and it came around within 2-3 days. So now on day 16 of flower I seem to have gotten crazy with the feeding and possiable overfed and bam brown spots/ rust. I flushed last night with calmag water and will wait 3 days or so too start a light feeding again. Do you guys agree this is the best steps for a first timer? I did have the leqf tips turned down and its in a Soilless mixture.

Nfld320 said:

Another noob here doing my first grow and I have had 2 problems so far. Approx day 15 after my seed popped out of the soil I started to get brown/rust spots. I flushed the plant and then gave calmag water and it came around within 2-3 days. So now on day 16 of flower I seem to have gotten crazy with the feeding and possiable overfed and bam brown spots/ rust. I flushed last night with calmag water and will wait 3 days or so too start a light feeding again. Do you guys agree this is the best steps for a first timer? I did have the leqf tips turned down and its in a Soilless mixture.

Click to expand...

Lol i was reading thru this whole thread thinking it was recent but it's from 2014. Then saw your post and realized.

But anyway, yeah that should do. Nice plants btw