Strange Yellowing on New Growth and Splotches of Yellow on Older Fan Leaves

Hi guys! I am 3 weeks and a couple of days into my grow. I am growing Auto Assassin and Auto Blue Himalaya. They all have budsites as of right now and the main cola on all of them is starting to fill in. I am using 6x6x7 square pots and straight Fox Farm Ocean Forest Soil. I water with 6.8ish PH balanced distilled water. For light, i use 6 x 42 watt CFL's raised 6" above the tops of the plants.

I am noticing the same symptoms on all the plants. The leaf tips of some of NEW growth is a almost gold in color and i'm talking about the very very tip.

a few older leaves have spots of yellow and it makes them look blotchy.. I took pics of the problem areas so you guys could help identify the problem a little better.

I have not given them any nutes yet and just watered them 05/14/2011 yesterday with PH balanced distilled water. PH runoff is fine at 6.5ish.. I water them every 3 or 4 days when the soil gets dry.

My thoughts are nitrogen difficiency or heat/light stress. The nitrogen diff sounds more plausable as the lights are 6" from the top of the plants with ciruclating air in the growbox and temps not exceeding 82F and ideling at 79F to 80f throughout the day with 44% humidity.

i have Fox Farm nutes (tiger, grow big, big bloom)

Thanks in advance for the assistance!

Try to even out the ph. could be a pk problem. could also be over watered.

haloman420 said:

Try to even out the ph. could be a pk problem. could also be over watered.

Click to expand...

Thanks for responding but did you even read my post before responding? I notated in there everything that I was doing.. "Balance out the PH?" it's a 6.5... "Over Watered?" i've been watering them once every 3 to 4 days when the soil gets dry.. and i don't mean just dry on top, i actually stick my finger in the dirt and i feel the weight of the pot..

as for the pk issue.. thats a possibility as I stated before.. anybody else wanna chime in ?

I'm with you that heat stress seems unlikely w/cfls 6" away and your temps are fine.
I think they've prolly just used up all the nutes in the soil. Maybe try a 1/4 strength
dose of the Grow Big and see if things improve. It's got all the micros too (if I'm not
mistaken) so if it's a mg deficiency or anything, you're covered. I grew Auto Assassin
in FFOF before and I think I started with the nutes about where you are now.
Hope everything works out.

Ocean forest is very nutrient rich and your plant is showing signs of nutrient burn and pH fluctuation. The yellow spotting and tips along with small curly bright new growth is normally a sign from pH being imbalanced. This is kind of a mystery because you say you haven't fed and you are pHing your water. The symptoms don't look that bad though, peat based soils can sometimes shift more acidic when drenched. I've experienced this when i used to use ocean forest. If the new growth slows and becomes curled or stunted, its a sign things are getting worse. Continue watering as normal if it recovers so be it if not we'll have to try something new.

Edit: its probably not N def or heat stress. Ocean forest is super rich and the dark green leaves point more towards nitrogen overdose. Heat stress starts by leaf tips curling and browning of the edges similar to K def.

Can we see a whole pic of the plant please? It will help for the over all diagnoses.

well guys, thanks for all of your responses and suggestions! Last night, I went ahead and gave them 1/4 Strength Fox Farm Grow Big. This morning, the yellow spots turned lime green as opposed to yellow and no new spots anywhere.. I guess thats a good sign? i would imagine that returning to health it would go from yellow to green..

I don't think the FFOF soil was too HOT as I'm already 3 weeks in and wasn't experiencing any type of (yellowing) nute burn before and as stated, had not given any nutes whatsoever. Just distilled, PH'd water.

Plants blew up over night so it seems we may be back on track, although i hadn't really noticed any stunted growth. I think they stretched about 1/2" or more overnight..

Yer lets have pics of the whole plant to see if it can yeild any more answers, like to see the bottom leaves and top leaves together in the same pic. Is distilled water the best type of water to give a plant when you are not yet fertilizing?? The older leaves starting to spot and yellow may suggest a nute deficiency but i am reserving judgement till more pics of the whole plant.

Kingrow1 said:

Yer lets have pics of the whole plant to see if it can yeild any more answers, like to see the bottom leaves and top leaves together in the same pic. Is distilled water the best type of water to give a plant when you are not yet fertilizing?? The older leaves starting to spot and yellow may suggest a nute deficiency but i am reserving judgement till more pics of the whole plant.

Click to expand...

i will get pics up later tonight of the entire plant as the girls are sleeping right now.. thanks for input and I appreciate all of the input you guys are providing.

ok.. so i'm not showing any more NEW yellowing but growth has exploded! I took some pictues of the problematic plant as the other plants do not seem to be exhibiting any of the yellowing leave symptoms any longer..

This was the problematic leaf that I posted a pic of yesterday. you can see that most of the yellowing has dissapeared. earlier during lunch, they spots were lime green and now, 5 hours later, they have blended in with the color of the leaf but still retains a couple of small yellow spots that I would think would go away in the next day or so.

Dude that plants look great do not change a thing! The yellowing you started to see was just the plant growing really fast and slightly burning the very tips and the yellow on the smaller plants was the same thing. Nice job!

sparkafire said:

Dude that plants look great do not change a thing! The yellowing you started to see was just the plant growing really fast and slightly burning the very tips and the yellow on the smaller plants was the same thing. Nice job!

Click to expand...

LOL! Awesome! like i said, i had given them some FF GrowBig for the first time a couple nights ago. i will wait until the watering after next to give them nutes again. i'll probably start on the flowering nutes regime..

sparkafire said:

Dude that plants look great do not change a thing! The yellowing you started to see was just the plant growing really fast and slightly burning the very tips and the yellow on the smaller plants was the same thing. Nice job!

Click to expand...

Please explain the problem the plant had for me sparkafire, i was really intrested to see what the problem with this leaf/plant was and only half understand what you said, i didn't have any clue what the problem was anyway but have seen it before on one or two of my plants, would really help me out. Thanks.

Kingrow1 said:

Please explain the problem the plant had for me sparkafire, i was really intrested to see what the problem with this leaf/plant was and only half understand what you said, i didn't have any clue what the problem was anyway but have seen it before on one or two of my plants, would really help me out. Thanks.

Click to expand...

I didnt really think anything was wrong with it until i saw the whole plant. from just the first pics it looked like N overload but when you put the all the pictues togther it just shows a plant that is growing really fast. Yes it was running hot but with just the very tips being burnt and the yellowing inside the newer leaves tells me that it was just growing fast. How do I know this? Its happening to me right now.

And you can call me Sparky

Looks great dude I can only hope mine turn out as well.

pcn3rd said:

well guys, thanks for all of your responses and suggestions! Last night, I went ahead and gave them 1/4 Strength Fox Farm Grow Big. This morning, the yellow spots turned lime green as opposed to yellow and no new spots anywhere.. I guess thats a good sign? i would imagine that returning to health it would go from yellow to green..

I don't think the FFOF soil was too HOT as I'm already 3 weeks in and wasn't experiencing any type of (yellowing) nute burn before and as stated, had not given any nutes whatsoever. Just distilled, PH'd water.

Plants blew up over night so it seems we may be back on track, although i hadn't really noticed any stunted growth. I think they stretched about 1/2" or more overnight..

Click to expand...

I think they will be fine, this sounds almost like what I went through. Mysterious little yellow spots etc etc. So about 3 weeks into their permanent homes with 100% FFOF was when about my girls started needing their nutes and yah once I started feeding them everything was as right as rain. hah get it!

a bit late to the party but if you're only using the FF nute line make sure you pick up some cal/mag additive as I found I needed some. Or buy a 4$ jar of Grandmas Unsulfured molasses. Works just as good. Although.... It is a bit sticky.... but we like sticky things right?

sorry way too high to be posting.

Hah we have the same Thermo/hydro-meter... Careful that plastic faceplate is a POS. I just think the heat from my Mh/HPS melted the glue and it fell off lol.