worried about loss of leaves

I'm about a month in and while I've seen nice growth it seems as if most of the bottom leaves have fallen off (i know normal) but now the higher leaves seem to be loosing color and becoming brittle...i took a few pics, does any1 have any ideas...is a 4" pot good enough for 1 plant?

while the pics aren't that great you can see the discoloration and the spotting im getting on the bottom leaves.

I'm curious if i need more/less water, more/less light, bigger pot or is it time for more fertilizer/nutrients.

any thoughts?

That is a classical N deficiency. You should have started a while ago with adding nutes. After 1-2 weeks, seedlings are ready for a 1/4 strength solution of nutes. The concentration should be gradually raised so it's full strength when the plant is 1 - 1 1/2 months old.

The pot seems large enough. The standard ratio for plant height/pot size is 1 foot/gallon.

Also, I believe you're overwatering just a bit. The right way to do it is to give your plant so much water that about 20% of the water accumulates in the dish under the pot. After a few days stick your finger in the soil. If the first 2 inches of soil are dry you can water your plant again.

Edit: Leaves should start falling off only after the plant has at least 6-8 internodes. In other cases it's just a deficiency.

thank you for the advice I hope i haven't damaged the plants too much... any recommended nute solutions? New to this and don't wanna kill my plant.

For one your plants do look starved for nutes. What have you been feeding them, if you have been feeding them and how often have you been feeding them if you have been feeding them?

I would be curious what type of lights you are using and what the wattage is. Also is that aluminum foil that I see being used for a reflective material? If so that it a major mistake and if you are lacking enough light, which can also cause or make worse lower leaf loss, and then have very poor reflective material that will only compound the problem.

When it comes to pot size remember that the portion of a plant below the surface will very closely equal the above soil portion of the plant. That means small pots are fine for small plants but as the plants grow you need to bump them up into larger pots …. which I do not advise and I do not do and instead advise to start your plants in the largest sized pots you will use for the grow.
　
Each time you repot you risk stress and damage. Also once a plant’s roots begin to circle a pot they are then under a degree of stress and as the circling gets worse the stress increases. If you end up with a root-bound condition there is a list of problems you can and likely will find yourself confronted with. Also when you do repot a root-bound plant unless you score/cut the rootball the roots will want to continue to circle the same areas rather than grow down into the new deeper soil and spread out as they should so that will cause a continuation of some or all of the problems plus it will slow/lessen your overall growth and production.

im using 2x2ft t55 but there should be enough light even w/o them...sadly I haven't been feeding em anything but water so I need to go run out and get a good quality nutrient solution or fertilizer, any suggestions? Thanks for the advice on the pot size I'll keep that in mind as they grow and when i go supply shopping.

nj12nets said:

thank you for the advice I hope i haven't damaged the plants too much... any recommended nute solutions? New to this and don't wanna kill my plant.

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The damage is fixable, no worry about that. You should go for a nute solution with more N and a bit of P and K. Check your garden shop for nutes for leafy plants and just follow the instructions on the packadge. Add nutes to the water every other watering.

nj12nets said:

thank you for the advice I hope i haven't damaged the plants too much... any recommended nute solutions? New to this and don't wanna kill my plant.

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I use Fox Farms products. I use Grow Big for vegging and Big Bloom and Tiger Bloom (together) during flower. For amounts/mixtures I follow the instructions on the product containers other than I do combine the Tiger Bloom and the Big Bloom for each feeding and I have yet to get any burn.


Also I always add one drop of SuperThrive to every watering/feeding. Some people claim SuperThrive is pure crap and others swear by it. In my case once I began using it I saw improvement in my plants and in their production so on that you will need to decide for yourself.
　
There likely will be differing opinions to follow. Lucas Formula Advanced Nutrients are very popular with some people as are any number of others.

Some people say the only way to go is totally organic and others like myself will follow a mostly but not totally organic nutrient regiment.
　
While they will work I would suggest that you stay away from totally chemical fertilizers.

As I said they will work but it is much easier to burn your plants using them than by going mostly or totally organic.

Chemical fertilizers will normally need a good bit more flushing before harvest and if that is not done the taste/smoothness of your smoke will suffer.
　
But you need to decide what is best for you.

nj12nets said:

im using 2x2ft t55 but there should be enough light even w/o them...sadly I haven't been feeding em anything but water so I need to go run out and get a good quality nutrient solution or fertilizer, any suggestions? Thanks for the advice on the pot size I'll keep that in mind as they grow and when i go supply shopping.

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I hope that you are correct about the amount of light because I am a bit dubious about it myself, especially is that was aluminum foil I saw as a reflective material. It has poor reflectivity so if there is a lack of light aluminum foil will only compound the problem … and can do so in a number of ways.
　
The best of luck!

One more thing. If you go pot shopping check into the air pruning pots available. I might suggest staying away from the ones that do it chemically but if you are buying pots and have the extra to spend on them air pruning pots are worth the price.
　
I do not use them yet myself, but I will be using them, but we have experimented using them with trees and bushes at our nursery and they most definitely work and from what I have read from herb growers who have switched to them they are the greatest thing since the invention of pussy.

thanks for the great advice...i have alot to keep in mind when I go shopping. I have a rather small area a little less than 3x3 to use so the two 55watt high output bulbs seem to be pretty good... anything more than that would make my case into an oven

well the plants seemed to flourish since I bought some high Nitrogen nutrients. I bought the miracle grow all purpose water soluble plant food. I think most plants are doing great but since I've used it I've been having loads of baby flies around my grow area.
I had a few gnats before from over watering but they didnt stay at the plants and these do. these plants stay in the grow area and land on the plants. I sprayed some zero tolerance and I might've seen some improvement but i'm not sure.
On my youngest plant I've noticed I'm missing pieces of leaves and I was curious what I can do to prevent any more flies and to stop the leaves from becoming disfigured.

heres some pics

the third pics of my youngest plant...its sorta hard to see but the end of some of the newer leaves are missing the ends (point) and I wanna make sure these damn flies arent eating away at the plants...it started the day after I watered with nutrients so i'm guessing that could've had eggs in it but is that common? I heard throwing any soil or plant type product in a ziplock and freeze it over night or 2 nights to make sure they all die off.

the last picture shows some slight dots of discoloration on the leaves...this is also new and I think is from the flies eating...you think its possible?
any ideas guys?

Actually, I think those are spider mites. In that case, you can use any of the following:

Any insecticide with dicofol,
hot pepper wax
neem oil
tobacco juice (let 2 string cigs soak in water overnight, in the morning boil for 2-3 minutes, let cool, spray on plant... don't get it in your eyes!).

ur foil is backwards

the foils not backwards....the other side is actually less reflective...spider mites fly? i have some zero tolerance natural pesticide...that wouldn't work to kill these pests?

If it's strong stuff and made for plants, go for it. You should take care of this problem before you start flowering, cause afterwards you can't spray any insecticide on the buds, unless you plan on selling them to dumb ass high school kids.

yea I definitely dont want to contaminate the buds when it starts...it seemed to leave just 1 fly living but it could just be a temporary thing til the new ones hatch ...I started a seperate thread in the bugs section for this issue https://www.rollitup.org/bugs/237181-loads-flies-after-using-nutrients-new-post.html when I realized this wasn't really the right section and I'm posting more pics on there too