Indoor MasonJar’s Indoor Adventure

[MasonJarOG]

Plants look nice to me. But I'm a newb so I think they all look good as hell if they are alive. Still impressed with y'all growings!

That said, how did you know it was a micronutrient def? I read back up a couple posts and saw the TM7 label. What is that stuff?

1. The "Root" Cause: Systemic pH Lockout (Alkaline Drift)

The primary driver of 90% of the symptoms was the soil pH drifting to 7.01+, caused by the "Salt Elevator" effect in my Tray2Grow system. This created a chemical blockade preventing the roots from accessing specific micro nutrients.

• Symptom A: Iron Deficiency (The "High Contrast" Look)
• Where: Newest top growth (specifically on the Blue Dog).
• Leaf Sign: Intense Interveinal Chlorosis. The veins remained dark green, but the space between them turned bright lime/yellow.
• Meaning: At pH 7.0, Iron turns solid. The plant could not move Iron to the new leaves fast enough to produce chlorophyll.
• Symptom B: Magnesium Deficiency (The "Tiger Stripes")
• Where: Middle and older fan leaves (specifically on Galaxy Brain and Boss Hogg).
• Leaf Sign: Yellowing margins that crept inward between the veins, creating a striped appearance.
• Meaning: Unlike Iron, Magnesium is mobile. The plant cannibalized these older leaves to send Magnesium to the top shoots.
• Symptom C: Boron Deficiency (The "Texture" Change)
• Where: New expanding leaves.
• Leaf Sign: Twisting or sideways curling of leaf blades, accompanied by a "puffy" or quilted texture between the veins.
• Meaning: Boron regulates cell wall structure. When locked out by high pH, cells form unevenly, causing the leaf to crinkle.

2. The Secondary Conflict: Potassium (K) Toxicity
While the plants were starving for Calcium and Magnesium, they were overdosing on Potassium, likely from the "Slow n Steady" I added in two separate feedings.
• Symptom: The "Rust" Spots (Necrosis)
• Where: Scattered on fan leaves that were also yellowing.
• Leaf Sign: Brown, crispy, necrotic spots appearing inside the yellow areas, along with burnt tips on the serrated edges.
• Meaning: This was a "Potassium Blockade." Excess Potassium chemically blocks the uptake of Calcium and Magnesium. The brown spots were tissue death (Necrosis) caused by the resulting Calcium deficiency.

3. The Environmental Stress: Light Bleaching (DLI Overload)
While the roots were locked out, the lights were driving the metabolism too hard.
• Symptom: The "Pale" Top
• Where: The very tallest tips of the canopy (Blue Dog).
• Leaf Sign: A generalized, washing-out of color (bleaching) that looked like the plant was fading to white.

• Meaning: DLI of 49.5. The light engine was running at 100mph, but the fuel line (roots) was clogged. The plant began breaking down its own chlorophyll to survive the intensity. So I raised the lighting higher in the tent to lower the top of canopy DLI as I run these lights 24/0 and occasionally shut them off for and hour or two when I foliar spray.

I bounced this off some other growers I know to validate findings. A lot of this is based on reading and info from Ed Rosenthal's book Cannabis Growers Handbook. https://a.co/d/hakO5Ui

 

[MasonJarOG]

I would not be having to flush the bags with low ph water if I had tested my soil prior to planting. I’ll probably consolidate this mix into a tub at the end of the grow and send a sample to Logan labs to see what was going on.