experienced grower stumped

currently i have white widows from nirvana. no matter what i do, the lower leaves still yellow and fall off. i can control this to a point in veg, but in flowering, i get a few leaves every other day. ive bumped up the nitrogen to the point where it had tip burn. i dont have ppm, ph is 5.8-6.3. food is 4-13-10 in flowering using almost full nutes on the prev mother cause she showed def until then, but the leaves keep falling. i dont know if thats just how this strain works, but ive never had or seen a plant turn yellow at the end either. roots show slight tan tinge to them. i dont know if theres something more advanced i need to look at like cell structure. im sure theres some type of supplement for this, i just dont know what.

Test the runoff, you may have crept up around the high 6's, low 7's especially if you haven't been monitoring ppm. Flowering is natural for a few to yellow, progressing more-so during the mid and ripening phase.

Add having the right tools like a ppm/TDS meter to your 'experience' lol.

you probably have salt build up i would just flush your plants with plenty of water
i take it your in soil obviously it is a ph issue many nutrients wont activate if ph is to low lockin out what plant needs
in flowering you need more P and K so adding nutes like 0 - 51 - 33 and 1 -2 -1 SuperB max and your flowering A- B will give it all the N it needs also investing in a Ec meter should be on the list of things you should get ASAP

what i would also look at getting is Zinc and iron will help with any defs ( foilage spray )

i dont trust alot of meters, if there was a test strip method for ppm i would, but ive heard horror stories from the meter being fucked up cause they dont want to buy a $200 meter. i test the ph every other day, small res-one is a 5 gal bucket, one three and one 14g tote. i have to test so much cause they suck up a gallon each in 2 days. this is the one im having to watch the most:
just tested ph, 6.4 i already pulled the yellow leaves today, just want to give an idea of the plants im working with.

edit: and there in dwc

"roots show slight tan tinge to them."

Just a shot in the dark,,, getting enough oxygen in the water / mix?
I'm assuming the roots are in the dark, temps good and all (tank too).

Maybe try a clear glass full of in use mix and see if bubbles form inside on the glass? Good indicator of good air in the mix. - Like I said, shot in the dark guess.

well its not like your plant are burning but seriously think your ph is flucuating and thats whats causeing most of your issues
what about adding some H2O2 to ur system

DrFever said:

well its not like your plant are burning but seriously think your ph is flucuating and thats whats causeing most of your issues
what about adding some H2O2 to ur system

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ya know, regardless if its an 02 issue or not, i think im gonna make an air ring in the buckets with pinholes. i do know h202 adds oxygen to the roots, but never could convince myself that a nonpolar solvent wouldnt kill them. well try with the smaller ones first.

good idea do things slowly pin point where the problem is

http://www.using-hydrogen-peroxide.com/peroxide-garden.html

I've gotten into the habit of using it all the time now. (and I'm back in dirt)

thanks for that link i was about to ask how much to use

you have a magnesium def. could be caused by a ph out of ideal range. if you wanna try to fix it a little bit, you can water with 1 tablespoon epsom salts per gallon water. Or, since you are into flower, try 1/4 tablespoon epsom, and one tablespoon molasses per gallon water. the epsom will provide you def. solution, and the molasses will give a little shot of cal/mag, plus put a little sugar in the soil for the microbes, helping burn up those nutrients remaining there. i've been where you are. good luck!

for future reference, add some pulverized lime to your soil to keep the ph ideal. look around and you will find out how much to use. also check your source water to see if that is part of the ph issue. nice little grow there!

ill pick up some cal-mag but i use dwc not hydro.

The NPK of your bloom nute is really low in nitrogen. I know you said you upped the N levels, but with what form of nitrogen? If it's urea based it can't be used by the plant unless broken down by microbes in the soil, so I'd recommend using only nitrate nitrogen in flower as it's immediately available and is actually good for use during bloom. Hope that helps. I doubt this one is pH related.

And I don't see any picture posted here that would indicate a Magnesium deficiency, so I'm not sure how the above poster arrived at that conclusion.

Wolverine97 said:

The NPK of your bloom nute is really low in nitrogen. I know you said you upped the N levels, but with what form of nitrogen? If it's urea based it can't be used by the plant unless broken down by microbes in the soil, so I'd recommend using only nitrate nitrogen in flower as it's immediately available and is actually good for use during bloom. Hope that helps. I doubt this one is pH related.

And I don't see any picture posted here that would indicate a Magnesium deficiency, so I'm not sure how the above poster arrived at that conclusion.

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yellowing from bottom up, is a mag def. your plants have some sort of def. didn't see ur doing dwc. ph would be correct for dwc. better pictures of the entire plant would help. obviously the plants nitrogen uptake is locking out. you could be locked out on lots of things. i give no more advice do to backlash of fellow "experts". good luck!

captain chronizzle said:

yellowing from bottom up, is a mag def. your plants have some sort of def. didn't see ur doing dwc. ph would be correct for dwc. better pictures of the entire plant would help. obviously the plants nitrogen uptake is locking out. you could be locked out on lots of things. i give no more advice do to backlash of fellow "experts". good luck!

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It's not "backlash", man, relax. It's ok to disagree, I mean no disrespect, but I disagree with your opinion. The ratio of his bloom nutes is not ideal at all.

I've found that magnesium deficiency usually shows on middle leaves, with the yellowing starting at the margins and working in, but it's a very distinctive pattern. When severe you can get Chevron stripes between the veins. Nitrogen deficiency works from the bottom up, and the yellowing is very uniform over the entire leaf, they get soft and drop off. There's no way to diagnose an Mg def from the pics he posted and the info provided.

If the nitrogen he's adding is in the form of urea, the plants won't absorb it in time and deficiency will progress. Which is pretty much what the OP is describing. If we work together as a group, there shouldn't be any problem we can't solve for everyone, but when people get all defensive and pissy (don't mean you in particular) whenever someone disagrees this becomes one giant pissing match. Nobody wins.

Knowledge should be shared freely, and civil debate encouraged.

well today guess what? they showed early signs of potassium potash and zinc. this tell me that they yet again need more freakin nutes. ph is back to 5.8 after i added a mix of veg and flower to even it out to 5-12-5.5 and a cup of h202 for 2gal h20. ive never had a strain take so much nutes. im almost at the highest mix the bottle recommends 3tsp per gallon.

hughesresearch said:

well today guess what? they showed early signs of potassium potash and zinc. this tell me that they yet again need more freakin nutes. ph is back to 5.8 after i added a mix of veg and flower to even it out to 5-12-5.5 and a cup of h202 for 2gal h20. ive never had a strain take so much nutes. im almost at the highest mix the bottle recommends 3tsp per gallon.

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Seriously, check the back of your nutrients to see what form of nitrogen they contain. Especially since you're adding h2o2, because it kills the beneficial bacteria that break down urea nitrogen and make it available. You could keep giving them more and more, still not fix the problem, and end up burning them in the process.

yeah im just stoned. dont know much about dwc

yea had the same thing happen to me once use peroxide it helps especially in dwc

well its a mix of .5% ammoniacal 1.6% urea and 2.3% nitrate and it has .5% water soluble mag