First Grow Durban Poison autofem

This is incorrect,... run-off is a lousy way to test pH to begin with in soil (conditionally soilless too), it's not an accurate representation of the actual pH in the root zone...
First of all, pH can vary place to place within a pot due to microbial activity and root exudates, nute build-up or lack of, and other factors... This is why direct in-pot measuring is the best way to test it,... slurry a close second but very impractical and damaging to the roots, having to mine up enough soil from mid-pot zone...
Run-off collected from the first seeping is literally concentrated, analogous to making coffee with a cone filter... This is one reason why this first batch of run-off isn't to be trusted..
Secondly, to get even a ball park estimate of soil pH via run-off, you need to use pure water, low ppm, no pH adjusting...This assures no influencing buffering action between the water and what-all is in the pot that's in the equation, so to speak. Anything you do to alter the buffering chemistry of the water and therefore pH will skew the accuracy of results. Pouring in pH adjusted water causes interactions with pH buffering, and what comes out is the net result of all this messy chemistry, not the "snap shot" of the true pH...

Run-off testing at best, even using the method in the Infirmary Sticky article section, will only really tell you if it's more or less OK, or badly off enough to indicate corrective measure to be taken.. I have tried and tested this myself with pots, confirmed with both slurry tests and pH probe (not a meter, liquids only on them) made to test directly....

Roo, cool T's adversely affect many nutrients uptake and transport, P and micronutes in particular... Looking at those leaves, it screams P defc. which makes sense, due to in part at least the lower than OK temps.... Auto's especially do not like cool T's, it really slows them down,... stunts them, poor bud development...

You may also have some of what's called antagonistic uptake issues, where too much of one nute element interferes with the uptake of another(s).. This can happen well before actual toxicity levels are reached. Have a look in the Infirmary section, the Defc, Pic Depot diagnostic thread, and go to page 2 midway down and check out the charts on this,...
Knock off the epsoms, that unnecessary unless you have either Mg or S defc., which you don't that I can see... Be sparing with the CaliMagic too, your base nutes cover Ca/Mg well enough generally, and you're not in pure coco... true soil will also have lime in it (Ca source)...
pH adjust you feed solution last, not the water itself before... the nutes will alter the pH, so that's why you adjust if needed last - :thumbsup:
At 360ppm, I strongly recommend you cut that tap water with pure water, RO/Di, or even those self-fill units at stores... I do this myself even for my outdoor girls, the tap water here is hard as hell! I like to get the net ppm down to around 150...
Sodium levels are also too nasty! It's toxic at low levels for cannabis, and cumulatively it can build up in there and cause problems... the plant doesn't really use Na at all, so what goes in, stays in!
...looks like you have enough P going in... switch to Tiger Bloom now... things can get wonky if you start chucking in multiple sources of nutes, top dressing, etc,... and remember organic stuff takes time to become available, and you need warm T's and good microbial activity to make that happen properly...

Have you calibrated your pH meter recently, and kept it from drying out? They are sensitive instruments, easily knocked off calibration or damaged (dry-outs can ruin them potentially)... This is a must-do mate, or you'll be getting bogus info and acting on it! I've lost count over the years how many folks flailed around with issues, only to find out the key link to the problem was bad readings off their gear! ....They also need a storage solution made to preserve the electrode bulbs function while not in use....
TDS/EC meters need it too, but much less often,.. Both need to be fullt rinsed before storing, never put away "dirty"

With all this going on, it's hard to be sure your soil is too acidic, but it's a fair bet regardless... This can also lockout P, BTW....
Stay away from Fuxfarms soils, they are proven losers anymore for what was once a good brand. I have measured bag after bag in the low 5's! :yoinks: That is instant shit-show pH... lots of bummed out growers learn the hard way... They have hodge podge sourcing all over, a lucky few get OK bags, the rest get garbage....

The tea you make, from earth worm castings (EWC)? I ask because you need some sort of microbial inputs with the right cast of characters going to to work the goods,... inoculants are a smart thing to include here....

I have soil pen, I've done slurry, I've done runoff. Slurry and soil pH pen/probe being the worst, imo. When using water that is your target pH, imo runoff is close second to just squeezing enough liquid out of the medium itself to test. When doing back to back minor adjustments to alter a mediums ph (hopefully not for a pot with a plant in it), squeeze/runoff has proven fast, accurate and no questionable readings (ever, since I am doing ~a lot of them I 'got better' at it), which alone is much more than I can say for my soil pen also biggest buffer of medium. All that you need is a $10 regular pH pen (calibrated), is another great thing about this and most of us already have that or can afford it.

With the plant in the pot, runoff is fine/great when using water at your 'target' (the pH you want to be) pH, watering (already saturated medium), slowly and testing starting and ending water for any fluxuation that may indicate 'the coffee filter effect' is taking effect would be a good thing to do. Taking out just enough medium carefully will not harm the plant in any meaningful way. Again, all that you need is a $10 regular pH pen (calibrated), is another great thing about this and most of us already have that or can afford it.

Your soil needs to be well saturated for at least a couple hours prior to using any testing method, imo, and the more diverse the medium, the longer I would let it be wet before testing. You for sure don't want the coffee filter effect mentioned in the previous post, it will be caused by watering to fast and/or the medium being to dry prior to starting runoff test.

here is an auto, outside,in the shade all day, with near freezing temps at night. (The one in the back has had bad pH for a long time).

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That Blue Lab unit is one of the best out there, but needs to be used as directed... If you're thinking it's giving you bad readings (based on what?!), then you're not using it right... Right off the bat that pot it's in there is way too dry for proper measurements...
Slurry is what many soil pro's go with regardless, if done correctly (even Blue Labs offers a tutorial on this),...so strike two on that....
When using water that is your target pH, imo runoff is close second to just squeezing enough liquid out of the medium itself to test. When doing back to back minor adjustments to alter a mediums ph (hopefully not for a pot with a plant in it), squeeze/runoff has proven fast, accurate and no questionable readings (ever, since I am doing ~a lot of them I 'got better' at it), which alone is much more than I can say for my soil pen also biggest buffer of medium. All that you need is a $10 regular pH pen (calibrated), is another great thing about this and most of us already have that or can afford it.

With the plant in the pot, runoff is fine/great when using water at your 'target' (the pH you want to be) pH, watering (already saturated medium), slowly and testing starting and ending water for any fluxuation that may indicate 'the coffee filter effect' is taking effect would be a good thing to do. Taking out just enough medium carefully will not harm the plant in any meaningful way. Again, all that you need is a $10 regular pH pen (calibrated), is another great thing about this and most of us already have that or can afford it.
No it isn't, which tells me you have poor understanding of the chemistry of carbonate buffering... It will skew the results, why do you not get this?!
Anytime you add in another unknown, like how strong of a buffering capacity that solution has and what it will do "downstream" (and you'd need genuine equation work and data to do that), you're blowing up the margin of error because what that solution does to the rest of what's going on in there can't be accounted for; that's why you're supposed to eliminate it from the mess to begin with by using low ppm water. That has zero buffering capacity, therefore will not skew results!
You can slop around all the anecdotal gibberish you like dude, but you have neither facts nor established protocol by trusted tested procedures to back any of it up.
If you get half way reliable readings with your gig, then likely the pH wasn't off much to begin with and can't conclude much from that, much less extrapolate it to other's grow troubles and solutions...

This could become a lecture series, but I'm not going to waste my time... After seeing your posts at that other thread in Sick Bay about using handfuls of epsom salts for pH correction, it's clear you're a hot mess waiting to happen to others and that ain't allowed here at AFN...
Do whatever you want with your our gig and threads, but from here out don't wade into others threads with this nonsense... I warned you there, another Mod has done the same, there will not be a third time, get it? We understand that you want to "help', but you're not really, as per the several Reported Posts we've received about you recently...That is to say, others have expressed serious concerns about your "advise" and waved in the Mods to deal with it before you ruined their grows.
Stick to your end of the pond for now on, hey? :pimp:
 
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This is my first Grow
Seeds from growers choice (not great from what I read later) Durban Poison autofem.
Grown in a mix of Coco,peat,perlite 40% FFOF 30% regular bag top soil 30%

Used a little calmagic at week 4 or so and 1 light feeding of diluted FF grow. Watered with compost tea a few times now on day 40 showing distress.

Light watering of epsom salt the other day and some grow nutes on plant 1 to see if that helps, nothing for the others.

I try to pH my water to 6.5 but may be anywhere in the 6 range. Tap water is high at 8 to 9 After it sits for a couple days usually still 8.
PPM of tap is around 360. Water report from city says Cal,mag,sodium run about 35ppm each.

In day 35 top dressed soil with Roots organic bloom and uprising. Also watered with their seabird guano made a tea it is high in phosphorus 0-12-0 I believe.

Thoughts?

First pics early on
You already have some experts that have given great advice so I will keep it short. You have to much going on. I use coco/soil and peat/soil for different reasons but never all three like @Mañ'O'Green said you are creating issues before you even start. Add that to using fox farms soil and well its going to be rough. The cold temps will lock you out just as fast with the issues you are starting with. Simplify your set up you do not have to try everything on the first grow. I always tell people to use a good living soil mix amend and use teas. I haven't phed a soil grow ever it saves time and headache. Especially when you are learning.
 
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You already have some experts that have given great advice so I will keep it short. You have to much going on. I use coco/soil and peat/coco for different reasons but never all three like @Mañ'O'Green said you are creating issues before you even start. Add that to using fox farms soil and well its going to be rough. The cold temps will lock you out just as fast with the issues you are starting with. Simplify your set up you do not have to try everything on the first grow. I always tell people to use a good living soil mix amend and use teas. I haven't phed a soil grow ever it saves time and headache. Especially when you are learning.
I wholeheartedly agree with you @AJrexxx . I tell peeps all the time if I could lift a pot of dirt I would go TLS in an earth box.
 
@Mañ'O'Green @AJrexxx
Thanks for your input, I'll definitely heed your advice to keep it simple, started 2 new plants with a good organic soil mix amended with roots organics. Here's pics of the 3 plants I've been having issues with. They're on day 60, I continue to have leaves yellow and die. I cut some small lower flowers and bud sites off along with leaves that had completely yellowed and died. Any suggestions as they come down the home stretch, also how much mass should they pack on from this point on if any, or do they just ripen at this stage?
 

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Here's a different plant that has been doing good then suddenly these spots showed up
 

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I have no idea about the chloride but if that is not the issue you need to figure out the pH of your medium.

Purple stems like that is usually caused by pH being off and causing 'lock out' of nutrient/nutrients.

You can test your soil/medium pH however you like, there are many methods (slurry test, squeeze some wet soil and test liquid that comes out, use a soil pH pen/testing device, run off test, send your soil to a lab, variations of all these and more that I don't know/am forgetting).

you said you are doing a runoff test. If you are doing a run off test, you must use water that is the pH you want the soil to be, i.e. If you want the soil to be 5.9pH, use 5.9pH water for your test. Then if the run off comes out, outside of acceptable range, you know you need to adjust your soil/medium pH, so, it becomes back in range. Water slow, and test the first run off and the last run off to test and compare but I also think to only have enough runoff that there is much to test also. I think to stay in 5.7pH to 6.2pH, but others use different and I'm still testing to see what I think is ideal.
Purple stems can mean any number of things. My plants always have purple stem and it's because my fan blows on my plants too hard. Same reason my leaves curl under at the tips. It doesn't really hurt the plants although it's not ideal. My leaves are always green and my plants are happy.
 
Here's a different plant that has been doing good then suddenly these spots showed up
IDK if this has been asked, but, do you have any possible bugs? I've seen spots like that on my outdoor plants in the past and it's always 100% a pest issue. Maybe in the soil? Especially when they appear suddenly. I am new to growing indoors so I'm just sharing from my older experiences.
Had to add. Your soil looks really dry in a lot of your pics. Like the Sahara. I would definitely water more.
 
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@Mañ'O'Green @AJrexxx
Thanks for your input, I'll definitely heed your advice to keep it simple, started 2 new plants with a good organic soil mix amended with roots organics. Here's pics of the 3 plants I've been having issues with. They're on day 60, I continue to have leaves yellow and die. I cut some small lower flowers and bud sites off along with leaves that had completely yellowed and died. Any suggestions as they come down the home stretch, also how much mass should they pack on from this point on if any, or do they just ripen at this stage?
At this point you are not going to add much mass as in size it will be more density than anything.


Man should probably speak more on this because he is more of an expert.

At a minimum it appears to be an N deficiency (probably others). Now I am not an expert at diagnosis but your leaves should be way darker than that. Did you check the infirmary quick diagnosis thread? I still use it for a reference and there are plenty of pictures and examples.

How you are going to narrow that down for a treatment I am not sure due to all the possible reasons (mainly your soil mix). Possible PH, Low Cation exchange ect. If this is my grow I would but some benies in the soil with some worm castings and ride it out to chop. Your going to end up with something smokable more or less. Probably not top shelf but it will get the job done.

When you go to do your next soil mix go to my random thoughts thread in my signature on page 3 or so @Suki813 and I discuss organics easy simple soil mixes that work, worm bins, castings, and other things you might find helpful.

I do some other stuff with KNF and Bokashi and such, but everything there is very basic and simple to understand. If there is something you have a question on you can post it in that thread.

Simple is easy to adjust and understand then once you have that foundation in place you can start experimenting and adding and taking away to build your own grow style. This will narrow down likely problems and make it easier to find solutions.

I always tell people calm down with being an alchemist your not Merlin. Do not look at is a making a magic formula, look at it as giving your soil a balanced diet.
 
3 weeks later, now on day 80. They've continued to have issues, however the buds have fattened up a lot. Trichomes have remained clear to cloudy for a long time not an Amber in sight, thought I'd be harvest about now but maybe more development to come. Any thoughts on timing for harvest, this is a straight sativa Durban poison so maybe a while longer yet, not sure.
 

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