Seeking much needed expert advise, yellow brownish blotches and twisted curling leaves on WOS NNxBB
- Thread starter nikki2087
- Start date
I've run
OF, LW, HF.. OF is a hot soil. Even FoxFarms, if you call them, will admit it's a hot soil and not to run it unless you dilute it with another product, like Light Warrior for young plants. Some can take it like a champ, some can't. All females are different. 
Secondly, I don't understand your advice - you're saying to flush it and stop feeding just cal/mag. Realize, he's only feeding cal/mag with distilled water - he needs more calmag. You often use full dose cal/mag every watering with RO or distilled water. It has no micro/macro nutrients in it and
OF does not have enough cal/mag in it. That is one thing the entire line (from the liquid nutes to the soil) are rather skimping in. Where I believe the issue is coming in, is the alternated waterings with the spring water. It's more than likely dropping the pH. Flushing will not correct this fast enough without causing damage by drowning the roots. There's no need at all for him to flush his soil if he's fed no nutrients. There's no way that's cal/mag toxicity as he's using distilled water and feeding half dose every other watering.
I would not start over, I would foliar feed as it's the best way to stop the deficency fast, then I'd start feeding full dose cal/mag every watering as well as the nutrients for the phase your plant is in. Starting over when you hit a speed bump makes absolutely no sense, how will you learn and correct your problems if you don't take the time to fix the issues that arise?
As well,
OF does not have enough buffer in it and HF has practically none. I'd water with dolomitic lime stone a couple times to try and get it worked into my soil if I were you. Other wise you need to be 100% sure your water going is ON POINT. as you have no real buffer. Running 50/50
OF/HF up top and 100% OF on the bottom woo man, that's some hot stuff.I've used
products, the entire line.. it's not the most forgiving line of products.Stick to one kind of water. Distilled is best as you do not know what's in that spring water, spring water pH can range from 5.0 to 7.5... where distilled water is typically 6.5 to 7.0. Ditch the spring water.
Anyways, need some more information -
How far are the lights from the plants?
Are there fans blowing on the plant?
How often do you water, how do you know when it's time to water?
Do you have the ability to get a new pH meter, a more reliable one? (the funds to do so, some of us do not have those funds) - honestly the soil probes are crap, there's one good soil probe out there that growers here use, the rest of them typically suck.
Excess calcium may produce deficiencies in magnesium and potassium. The necrotic spots remind me more of a magnesium problem. But the 2 are so much alike. Not saying it can't be a cal def, but seeing as how he's only feeding calmag I would think that would be the last thing the have a def.
Flush soil to start over clean. Why leave the soil the way it is when it's not what the plants liking. Flushing won't hurt it if its amended correctly after the flush.
Yes he's watering with RO but he's not feeding the plant any nutrients besides cal-mag. I believe after 2 weeks ff soils are not enough to feed a plant. Feeding with a grow fert will suffice enough for cal-mag, atleast to correct the problem. Yes I agree with you about alternating waterings with plain water. I feed every time.
Also, the high ph may be causing a lockout wich could be causing the whole problem. Wich would require a soil flush to adjust ph back down. I keep mine around 6.3.
Flush soil to start over clean. Why leave the soil the way it is when it's not what the plants liking. Flushing won't hurt it if its amended correctly after the flush.
Yes he's watering with RO but he's not feeding the plant any nutrients besides cal-mag. I believe after 2 weeks ff soils are not enough to feed a plant. Feeding with a grow fert will suffice enough for cal-mag, atleast to correct the problem. Yes I agree with you about alternating waterings with plain water. I feed every time.
Also, the high ph may be causing a lockout wich could be causing the whole problem. Wich would require a soil flush to adjust ph back down. I keep mine around 6.3.
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My question to you though, is where do you get the excess calcium from? ... Typically spring water is softer than most other drinking waters and contains minimum calcium/magnesium.. the soils themselves do not contain much in the way of calcium addititves.. HF having very little dolomitic lime (it often runs <6.0pH from the bag) and OF having crushed oyster shells.
I honestly don't see how it could be excess calcium feeding half dose cal/mag every other watering... I understand that calcium can lock out magnesium and potassium.
I still firmly believe that the issue here is the alternating water causing pH swings and locking out particular nutrients. After two weeks typically soils are not enough to feed plants, but he has two highly fertilized soils running at the same time.
I say not to flush because the plants are already quite stressed and already going into shutdown mode, every time you flush a soil container you're stressing the plant. You're drowning the roots, water uptake becomes limited / screeches to a halt temporarily - therefor no nutrients will be taken up until the soil starts to dry out.. It will take longer to dry out since the plant will be stressed and won't be taking up as much..
It is a weed, but it's a plant.. there's no plant you can pour a bucket of water on and fix it. I would agree with flushing if he hasn't done it at all before and had a meter to check the pH of the water going in. If his intent was to flush to help raise the pH, that'd be somewhat okay - don't forget though, huge swings in pH cause much the same issue.. so let's say his soil is running at 5.5 right now, he does a 3 gallon flush to get it up to 6.5.. that huge swing can cause more issues. IMO, having no way to check his feed pH, doing a flush would be counter productive at this point.
I honestly don't see how it could be excess calcium feeding half dose cal/mag every other watering... I understand that calcium can lock out magnesium and potassium.
I still firmly believe that the issue here is the alternating water causing pH swings and locking out particular nutrients. After two weeks typically
soils are not enough to feed plants, but he has two highly fertilized soils running at the same time. I say not to flush because the plants are already quite stressed and already going into shutdown mode, every time you flush a soil container you're stressing the plant. You're drowning the roots, water uptake becomes limited / screeches to a halt temporarily - therefor no nutrients will be taken up until the soil starts to dry out.. It will take longer to dry out since the plant will be stressed and won't be taking up as much..
It is a weed, but it's a plant.. there's no plant you can pour a bucket of water on and fix it. I would agree with flushing if he hasn't done it at all before and had a meter to check the pH of the water going in. If his intent was to flush to help raise the pH, that'd be somewhat okay - don't forget though, huge swings in pH cause much the same issue.. so let's say his soil is running at 5.5 right now, he does a 3 gallon flush to get it up to 6.5.. that huge swing can cause more issues. IMO, having no way to check his feed pH, doing a flush would be counter productive at this point.
I do have a meter and all my waterings have went in at 6.4-6.8, I adjust with gh ph down, it is hard to collect run off in the fabric pots I'm using so I have not checked that yet, didn't want to water enough for runoff on these pots, I like to water till the bottom of the pot does become wet entirely but never have run off, I water every 3-4 days when the soil down as far as my finger can go which is bout 2-1/2 inches is dry and the pot feels light.. I will def not use any more spring water and from here on out will ph all distilled water and nute mixes to 6.5.. My WOS NNxBB auto is ready to be fed.. She is spitting out bud sites. All 6 of my girls are, so does anyone know with this auto which part of foxfarms trio I should begin to feed? A little grow big and big bloom or just some grow big? Shall I cont to add cal mag when feeding the nutes?
Well before I left for work I turned the mh off and gave a foliar spray with 200ppm cal mag ph of 6.5, i turned some cfl's on to keep em awake and will be home at 11p to turn mh back on, tomorrow will foliar feed a low dose of grow big, how's this sound? Anything else I should do or change at the moment?
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