GR0WL0
Well-Known Member
I am growing Cinex in Roots Organics soil ALMOST 100% organically. Prior to this entire experience, my leaves had exhibited interveinal chlorosis and heavy ridging leading me to believe it could be a zinc deficiency. Very cautiously I added a small amount of zinc, which did seem to correct the symptoms. However, I suspect at this time something else was happening with the plant as the leaf color has never made a full return. This leads me to my current challenge to be overcame.
About three weeks ago, my plant started experiencing a few brown spots on a few leaves. I ended up falling extremely ill around this point in time and had to take care of myself and not my plant. Returning to proper health, I went to check on my plant about a week later (it was being tended to by someone inexperienced). The spots had spread to cover more of the leaf, more leaves were tainted by the spots, and the overall canopy (ScrOG) had begun to yellow again. The overall condition and especially the way the brown portions of the leaf were looking led me to conclude it was a phosphorous deficiency. So I went to the farm supply and picked up some fish emulsion with a healthy amount of phosphate, watered it in, waited, and it seemed to correct some of the yellowing—temporarily. The yellowing returned and the leaves continued to be assaulted with brown spots. Looking under the plant, which for some reason I hadn’t considered before, I noticed there was a multitude of dead, brown, crunchy leaves. What is interesting to me is that these shriveled up leaves still have green spots, which you can see on the leaf to the far right of the image. I guess somehow when the leaf died, some chlorophyll survived.
More research ensued and a feeling of hopelessness yielded me watering with a small amount of epsom salts due to suspicion of magnesium deficiency. So, watering with all these different missing nutrients has got to solve the problem, right? Well, I certainly thought so. Personally I had a hard time believing that I had ignored the needs of my plant so much as to be missing sufficient amounts of 3 different nutrients. I am not experienced in the pursuit of growing by any means, but I really thought I was consistently hitting good levels of all nutes (as my past two grows had indicated). It drained my confidence as a grower heavily, and I felt defeated. In one last attempt, I looked into pH. I had heard about nutrient lock-out before but hadn’t taken the time to research it. Reading about it, it made a lot of sense. If my soil pH was too high or too low, it wouldn’t be able to absorb the proper nutrients, thus expressing deficiency symptoms, even with ample amounts of nutrient in the soil. So I whipped out my pH test and went to work testing my water and runoff. The runoff pH was a a decent bit lower than my water, indicating the actual pH of the soil to be EVEN LOWER. My pH test kit only ranges as low as 6.8 but visually, the pH appeared to be far lower. So I tested distilled white vinegar, diluted at 5%, which has a pH of 2.4 and surprisingly, it didn’t look that far off from my runoff test. However, with a little quick search of phenol red, the pH indicator that came with my kit, I learned it only reads and displays a gradient if pH is in the range of 6.8 to 8.2 and shows bright yellow below the range and fuchsia above the range (which I should have known since that is the range on the tester). So all I know is that after pouring 7.5ish pH water through my soil, the runoff was lower than 6.8. At this point figuring out soil pH seems like a guessing game, but to have a drop from 7.5 to below 6.8 means the soil has to be significantly acidic. Indicating my soil pH to be lower than 6.8, which is about what I am aiming for, I went to the farm supply again and bought some calcium carbonate. As an amendment, it will raise the pH of the soil without adding magnesium (since I had already added some). I tilled up the topsoil with my hands and mixed around the calcium carbonate. Unfortunately, because of root growth I couldn’t get deeper than an inch or two so the carbonate has not penetrated deep into the soil. I watered with 2 gallons of pure water and called it a night. This is where I am at with this whole thing: I think I have a phosphorous deficiency because although the plant naturally has slight purple stems from genetics, they are VERY red/purple stems, in addition to the browning of the leaves in this specific manner. I am not sure if I have a magnesium or zinc deficiency however, maybe even both. The ridging leads me to believe it could be zinc. The interveinal chlorosis can be a symptom of both zinc and magnesium, and the plant is exhibiting multiple other magnesium deficiency symptoms (old leaves dropping off at the bottom, twisted growth, leaves curling, and a slight droop/wilt to the overall plant). So with this information, I am assuming it is a low soil pH locking out multiple nutrients. I am hoping the calcium carbonate brings the pH up, but I think that is a slow process. I might look into a quicker solution as it is getting worse by the day, but am worried with the now added carbonate, if I add more pH raising substances, it will surge and then I will have a high pH and the same problem.
Reflecting, I realize one of my largest mistakes was reacting to each set of symptoms with a different solution (aka nutrient). What could have helped me sooner would have been stepping back, considering why my plant was exhibiting signs of 3 different nutrient deficiencies, and finding a solution to nutrient absorption of the plant, and not how much of each nutrient is in the soil.
So what do you think my next move should be?
A few things I forgot: I have poured a few gallons of clean water through it, but I don’t know if I consider it a real “flush"; I think I should flush more. I JUST switched to flowering last night. I had to or things would have been disastrous, space-wise. Also, I think this issue has either stunted my plant or just slowed growing extremely. The leaves in general feel dry even though the humidity is fine, and the yellowing seems really concentrated on the vegetation exposed to light (undergrowth is still really green aside from the select leaves that wilt and die).
About three weeks ago, my plant started experiencing a few brown spots on a few leaves. I ended up falling extremely ill around this point in time and had to take care of myself and not my plant. Returning to proper health, I went to check on my plant about a week later (it was being tended to by someone inexperienced). The spots had spread to cover more of the leaf, more leaves were tainted by the spots, and the overall canopy (ScrOG) had begun to yellow again. The overall condition and especially the way the brown portions of the leaf were looking led me to conclude it was a phosphorous deficiency. So I went to the farm supply and picked up some fish emulsion with a healthy amount of phosphate, watered it in, waited, and it seemed to correct some of the yellowing—temporarily. The yellowing returned and the leaves continued to be assaulted with brown spots. Looking under the plant, which for some reason I hadn’t considered before, I noticed there was a multitude of dead, brown, crunchy leaves. What is interesting to me is that these shriveled up leaves still have green spots, which you can see on the leaf to the far right of the image. I guess somehow when the leaf died, some chlorophyll survived.
More research ensued and a feeling of hopelessness yielded me watering with a small amount of epsom salts due to suspicion of magnesium deficiency. So, watering with all these different missing nutrients has got to solve the problem, right? Well, I certainly thought so. Personally I had a hard time believing that I had ignored the needs of my plant so much as to be missing sufficient amounts of 3 different nutrients. I am not experienced in the pursuit of growing by any means, but I really thought I was consistently hitting good levels of all nutes (as my past two grows had indicated). It drained my confidence as a grower heavily, and I felt defeated. In one last attempt, I looked into pH. I had heard about nutrient lock-out before but hadn’t taken the time to research it. Reading about it, it made a lot of sense. If my soil pH was too high or too low, it wouldn’t be able to absorb the proper nutrients, thus expressing deficiency symptoms, even with ample amounts of nutrient in the soil. So I whipped out my pH test and went to work testing my water and runoff. The runoff pH was a a decent bit lower than my water, indicating the actual pH of the soil to be EVEN LOWER. My pH test kit only ranges as low as 6.8 but visually, the pH appeared to be far lower. So I tested distilled white vinegar, diluted at 5%, which has a pH of 2.4 and surprisingly, it didn’t look that far off from my runoff test. However, with a little quick search of phenol red, the pH indicator that came with my kit, I learned it only reads and displays a gradient if pH is in the range of 6.8 to 8.2 and shows bright yellow below the range and fuchsia above the range (which I should have known since that is the range on the tester). So all I know is that after pouring 7.5ish pH water through my soil, the runoff was lower than 6.8. At this point figuring out soil pH seems like a guessing game, but to have a drop from 7.5 to below 6.8 means the soil has to be significantly acidic. Indicating my soil pH to be lower than 6.8, which is about what I am aiming for, I went to the farm supply again and bought some calcium carbonate. As an amendment, it will raise the pH of the soil without adding magnesium (since I had already added some). I tilled up the topsoil with my hands and mixed around the calcium carbonate. Unfortunately, because of root growth I couldn’t get deeper than an inch or two so the carbonate has not penetrated deep into the soil. I watered with 2 gallons of pure water and called it a night. This is where I am at with this whole thing: I think I have a phosphorous deficiency because although the plant naturally has slight purple stems from genetics, they are VERY red/purple stems, in addition to the browning of the leaves in this specific manner. I am not sure if I have a magnesium or zinc deficiency however, maybe even both. The ridging leads me to believe it could be zinc. The interveinal chlorosis can be a symptom of both zinc and magnesium, and the plant is exhibiting multiple other magnesium deficiency symptoms (old leaves dropping off at the bottom, twisted growth, leaves curling, and a slight droop/wilt to the overall plant). So with this information, I am assuming it is a low soil pH locking out multiple nutrients. I am hoping the calcium carbonate brings the pH up, but I think that is a slow process. I might look into a quicker solution as it is getting worse by the day, but am worried with the now added carbonate, if I add more pH raising substances, it will surge and then I will have a high pH and the same problem.
Reflecting, I realize one of my largest mistakes was reacting to each set of symptoms with a different solution (aka nutrient). What could have helped me sooner would have been stepping back, considering why my plant was exhibiting signs of 3 different nutrient deficiencies, and finding a solution to nutrient absorption of the plant, and not how much of each nutrient is in the soil.
So what do you think my next move should be?
A few things I forgot: I have poured a few gallons of clean water through it, but I don’t know if I consider it a real “flush"; I think I should flush more. I JUST switched to flowering last night. I had to or things would have been disastrous, space-wise. Also, I think this issue has either stunted my plant or just slowed growing extremely. The leaves in general feel dry even though the humidity is fine, and the yellowing seems really concentrated on the vegetation exposed to light (undergrowth is still really green aside from the select leaves that wilt and die).
