A little advice on deficiency

[Wingnut]

Three of my ladies...all soil grows about 14 days old seem to have some yellowing in the leaves....
The soil is Promix HP amended with OF, HF, perlite, worm castings and dolomite lime...ph seemed good...feeding 1/2 strength EJ grow, bloom, catalyst bubbled and ph'd to 5.8-6.0...
No dying leaves on the bottom just seem lighter green than my two girls in waterfarms, no red in the stems either...????

Am I overreacting...??

 

[Chester]

W/ healthy lil' bushes like these I start Calmag at 10 days ...

 

[Wingnut]

Thanks Chester...hadn't been adding cal/mag yet. I did do a little chesterizing to the tops.

 

[Waira]

-- Promix is a "soilless" medium, peat based, and nearly devoid of nutrients; basically, you've added some nutrient richness to it by adding the soils..however, that soil co. has been notorious for badly acidic soils these days... a soil pH is needed to check if a lockout is happening,... symptoms look pH related to me, but generic enough that I can't say exactly what it is,... pH for nutes should be higher, over 6.0,...

 

[Wingnut]

Thanks Waira...I use the soil ph test kits after mixing my soil and letting them sit for about a month...it didn't seem totally out of wack, it was on the alkalinic side. I've been trying to feed around 5.8 and have been checking the runoff...I've upped the N and staring some cal/mag...it doesn't seem to be worsening. I have two plants that seem in affected and three that are...all are different strains...I'll be watching the ph. Closely as you suggested, thanks!

 

[Wingnut]

So, I've been looking at all kinds of pictures of deficiencies and their descriptions and the closest is zinc, which looks almost identical in some of the pictures. The recommendation was to flush with 1/4 to 1/2 strength nutes
(Which obviously have zinc as a micronutrient) ph'd @ 6.0 to help if lockout is an issue...so, this was done yesterday and hope to see if this helps.

 

[namvet25]

The ideal PH for soil is around 6.5 but a few points higher or lower is fine.

 

[Habitual]

With promix I feed @6.5 and leave it swing lower in the media.It hits all the good stuff on the way down. JMHO

 

[Waira]

... -- hey bud, that's not Zn defc. , wrong symptoms, wrong area of the plant.. Zn is immobile within the plant, meaning it can't be taken from established tissue and translocated to new growth, so when it's deficient, it hits newest grwoth first.. check here to see what I mean: https://www.autoflower.org/threads/...panded-to-include-other-issues-as-well.43164/
... well, what you put in for pH doesn't mean the medium takes that pH as well,..too many influencing factors,... checking direct run-off, especially collected from a unclean saucer will not give accurate pH at all! it might give crude acidic/alkaline estimations, but for treatment purposes, it's not wise to base your fix on it... For in-soil readings, I recommend the Accurate 8 soil pH probe... otherwise, the alternative is a modified run-off and calculation test... this one at least addresses some of the many sources of measurement error inherent with run-off testing-- https://www.autoflower.org/threads/...-for-run-off-testing-and-ph-estimation.41733/
... peat is naturally acidic, and soils are dubious as mentioned,.. so, I'm betting it's a bit too acidic in there... what's you water source? do you know it's hardness, ppms?

 

[Wingnut]

Thanks so much for the input..! I realized that I've been shooting to low on my ph...I was under the impression that 5.8 to 6.2 was ideal for soil and didn't take into account the acidic nature of peat. I was aware of some of the issues but, it never seemed to be a problem in past grows. My water is from an aquafer and the ppm is around 120 with a ph range of 6.8 to 7.2. This is my first grow with my new set up, different soil mix, different lights and trying a couple waterfarms (which are doing great and don't have the issues the soil grows do). I'm going to pick up a legit soil ph meter and take the guessing out of it. I read the links to your posts and were very helpful.