Leaf Discoloration

Got a few plants going. on day 14. most are pushing about 4 nodes already.

1. Bag random seed / Closet Grow
2. 230w CFL grow
3. Ph 6.7
4. Seeded in MG Potting mix (bad iknow ) in solocup then trasnfered to MG Organic w/ perlite at day 9 once the roots where starting to turn.
5. Day 14
6. Watered only. no nutes. well water for all waterings but once i retested my ph i noticed it was 8.2 after my last watering on our well so not sure if that aids in any problem. now using distilled/RO water only.Just watered on day 14 with new water.
7. temps 79-81 48-52% humidity

Starting to noticed some small tip burns and these necrosis spots around some of the leaves. my 1 large plant has the spots on both of the single blade leaves. few other small plants are starting to show 1 or 2 spots as well. the spots where only on the first set of single leaves so i wanst to worried but now i am noticing another popping up on higher growth

Some of the leafs on the plants are starting to get a faint light green color between the veins. possibly early sign of calmag def? not sure what the spots could be. I have a fan circulating on the light so it cant be light burn.

I did come to find out when i test my well water again it was reading like 8.2 ph. Could that have affected these guys on my last watering? I watered them about 4 days ago, everyone seemed to kinda stun growth for 2 days but now its picking back up. but as growth is picking up im starting to slowly notice the spots/discoloration. Id just rather catch it early then late.

Not sure if it still have enough N from the MG potting mix ( was only in solo cups so not a large amount of that soil ) or if its telling me it wants some N now. Pics below for any help. The spots pictured havnt really continued anywhere else. Just some very tiny tip burns ive seen on few plants
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Check on my little ones about 10hrs later. I finally got a soil ph tester as well. Plants are on day 14. Watered only right now.

everyones ph is at 6.6-6.7 so they should be uptaking well. i see great visual growth everytime i check but the discoloring of the leaves is what im pondering on now. each plant is getting very tiny burns on some tips. Does that mean to much N? is it telling me it needs more N now with the discoloring between the veins? doesnt look like a calmag discolor but more like Nitrogen. but being that this is my first grow, im very new to what im looking for. ( but i have read through all of threads on defficiencies, watering problems,and so forth. only prob is these threads pictures are now missing and cant compare)

I did have a problem that last watering my water ph was around 8 - 8.2 based on the strip test. ( i have order a ppm and ph water meter ). So im not to sure if the watering 4 days ago caused lock up at all or not. They did stop growth for a day or 2 as i stated above but now everything is back to normal. The big one got a watering with RO water this morning and looks to be doing well.

Id just like to catch anything earlier then later. Maybe im over analyzing, but the tiny burns on some tips is what has me curious.

Any help is great. Im just not sure if its time to feed them or not.

few more pics to help

slight tip burn and the discoloring in the leaves.

discoloring and notice the hard cupping/razor edge to the leaf? calcium signs? cal def does say serated edges, necrosis spots and such.

well the spots stopped the whole week but now some new ones are popping up again today. Both times it seems to have shown on leaves like 12hrs after watering. watered with distilled. didnt fully water til runoff. just until i started to see some slight run off then i stopped. Most of these are popping up on older growth ( single blade leave, 1st set ) but some are on like the 3rd node now.

any help? Calcium problem? rest of the plant is still growing very fast along with new growth looking good. slight slight cupping on the leaves tho, possible overfert from the crappy MG soil.

any insight is a great help and thanks in advance!

new spots pictured
both are from same plant. spots start out as a faint blemish then moves to white/light yellow then after another day itll move to copper colored. No major tip burns on this plant really tho so doesnt lead me to believe nute burn, but i do tihnk the soil was to hot for this plant being a seedling. Its on day 16 from seed right now.

tested soil ph and its at 6.7 right now.

greatly appreciate the quick response. early nute burn it what i was leaning towards.

I seeded in MG potting mix ( anxious to start and stupid. too hot for theplant ) i then transplanted to MG organic ( soil/coco mix ) and did about 30% perlite. I will be transplanting to 3gal pots this weekend.

how heavy of a flush do you recommend? 20% run off? I thought about flushing last nite but as i posted, i only watered until i saw very tiny amount of run off starting. I can do another flush once its dried up again if thatll help. Should i transplant first then flush or do a flush and let it dry out before transplanting?

thanks for the help!

oops just saw your blog link. will deff give that a try!

crawlintbss said:

I finally got a soil ph tester as well.

Click to expand...

If that's one of those $5 two-prong probes they're notoriously inaccurate. The most accurate ways to find your soil ph is the NCSU Pour-Thru Method. (Google for it.). I have a $60 Control Wizard Accurate 8 probes. It's pretty good, but still subject to the vagueries of hitting wetter (or dryer) areas of soil. It's a little faster than the Pour-Thru Method, but still time consuming. Unlike the Pour-Thru, you can see the ph as the soil dries. I think it's a good tool. But, I don't think the $5-$20 cheap probes are useful.

uncle ben has a good sticky on Plant moisture signs and symptoms.
I agree with vostok, the perlite will aerate the soil and make it less concentrated , but is this the problem?
If heat is an issue, and is causing the plant to dry the soil out really fast, you may be watering 2-3x as much as you should be. Since your watering much more, the slow release ferts are releasing quicker, and your plant is now trying 2-3 times as hard to keep itself at the right temperature (homeostasis for plants?) in turn, not growing as fast, and not using as much nutes, just much more water.

if this has been happening the fix is only to flush out the remaining nutes and add in your own after the ppm going in is the same as coming out. Flushing is a very careful process and will shock the plant, but it will shock it less if you have extra perlite as it will aerate the roots better during the flush rather than letting the water suffocate them.

if this isn't what has been happening (heat stress/plant moisture stress syndrome) then i would point my finger at the MG. You should cut it (like said above with either perlite/vermiculite/coco/peat) or only use some on the bottom and use a better mix throughout.

If you think PH is an issue, look at what the bag includes to buffer the pH to 7. I notice fox farms ocean forest uses powdered oyster shell, which really buffers my soil for about 3-6 weeks dep. on watering cycle, Happy frog uses dolomite lime which I like to transplant , wait a week, then flower. I barely have any problems with their soil and I don't cut it with perlite because i use suspended air pots with fans circulating air around them.

If you find yourself watering a small plant like that every day or two, id say what happened was too much water, resulting in slow ferts releasing faster, resulting in an N toxicity. the cupping is from heat stress / root burn


my fix right now on this plant would be buy some happy frog and stick that plant into a 7 gallon with that and give it a good watering then wait a week

what can also happen with these pots is called root circling or spinout, then when the soil starts to dry out the outside dries first (especially because black pots heat up more from light , i insulate my regular black pots) and gets hit with a lot of air, and a much higher concentration of nutrients (as soil moisture decreases, soil salinity increases) hits the roots, thus burning them and reducing uptake. This is why experts will recommend clay pots, air pots, or the product "spinout" (copper hydroxide?) Uncle ben has another sticky if your interested in the root inhibitor paint called spinout



also wanted to mention a good way of controlling a heat spike is to add an off cycle to your veg period. Alot of people do 24 hours day, i recommend shutting off 4-6 hours a day during normal heat peaks of the days

figured i'd add in i bought both ppm and ph meters with cleaning and calibration kits. I run an aerocloner then go straight into soil. I wasted a lot of times trying to pH my soil and after a while found out all that matters is good soil, and balanced nutrients. PPM of my tapwater for my situation had nothing to do with any problems i found out it was just a bunch of bullshit. The only thing PH and ppm pens are good for IMO is hydroponics, and even for that you'll have problems unless you get hydro specific nutes, pH and ppm meters can indicate a problem, but don't actually correct the problem. I have a hard time keeping the probes hydrated because i never use them, what a waste of 400$ , seriously..
Not saying it won't help you find your "baseline" and whatever but i find it more important to have active microbes for the beginning of the plant cycle, and make sure whatever is going into the soil is being broken down and benefiting the microlife. Veganic gardening is a very balanced way to grow and you can just keep reusing the soil because things that break down have so much less bad stuff in them.
My technique is a little different than veganic but it really helps to understand these concepts and that pH isn't so important, but is something good to know about for certain things

Just thought I'd repeat that those last couple pictures are definitely heat stressed. I still haven't figured out how to get rid of the brown spots but I recognize heat stress in half a second.

CFL's have a really small sweetspot between the too close for heat and too far because of poor light penetration. I would pull them back a bit. The cool thing about this problem is you should be able to see the change in the leaf after just a few moments.

Good luck and please come back and say what worked for those spots.

greatly appreciate all the responses everyone! All my meter i bought are digital so none of the 2 prong cheapy thing.

I think im deffinitely going to lean that this has to due with the MG soil. after flushing last nite, almost 30mins later the plant was reacting and creating more spots on the lower leaves. tested the ppm run off and it was 1400ppm... and that was with 6.5 ph distilled water put in. no nutes. im really shocked at how much fert was in the solo cup worth of MG soil. They started in solo cups then got moved to 1gal and when they got moved to the 1gal it was a new MG Organic ( coco/soil mix ) with 30% perlite. they deff liked the new soil. Going to move up to 3gal pots tomorrow with more new soil so lets hope that levels them out a bit.

I did do a flush on the big one last nite ( its in a 2gal pot ) got the ppm runoff to end around 800. didnt feel comfortable pushing anymore water in after that. Soil is hanging around 6.6ph so uptake should be good. I ended up building a grow tent last nite to move to the basement so i raised the lights up quiet a bit to enduce some stretching anyway. It was on its 6th node and only like 7 inches take. now shes stretching out a bit.

all in all i tihnking im leaning towards my answer lies in the MG soil overfert. I dont think heat was really a issue. Plants where 2-3inches from light, with a fan directly on the light and a fan up above exhausting air. will post back later tonite after shes had some time to hangout.

thanks as always!

few pics. Heres within an hour after watering how it was reacting already.
they start out looking like a light green circle. like a faint scabbing to it. then itll slowly dry out to the copper color. Im still seeing some tiny tiny tip burns as well which is leading me to beleive my prob lies in the MG crap.