Deficiency using COCO + Led Strips??

eyderbuddy

Well-Known Member
Hey Guys!

I haven't grown in COCO for a while since i've been running aero, but for this grow i had no choice but to go for the COCO/perlite route. That said, i seem to have a deficiency in all of my veg plants. For this tent i'm running 150W of 3500K Bridgelux Gen2 strips

I'm trying to clear for sure sure whether it is a Magnesium deficiency or a Nitrogen deficiency (or both?) but i'm a little confused.

WhatsApp Image 2018-11-18 at 7.36.41 AM(1).jpeg WhatsApp Image 2018-11-18 at 7.36.41 AM.jpeg 989-9b4dc955.jpg

Any help will be appreciated. Also, they look droopy because i had just sprayed a 100 PPM Magnesium solution. But maybe i'll need to foliar some Nitrogen?
 

eyderbuddy

Well-Known Member
Forgot to add:
  • Tap water comes with a PH of ~7.5 & 70 PPM
  • To this i add 100 PPM of Epsom Salts
  • Then i add 1.3 EC of Megacrop and the PH comes down to 6.3 which should be OK.
  • Other than that i just feed some Fungi & Bennies once per week
And this is what my elemental breakthrough according to the megacrop calculator:
  • Total Nitrogen (N) 264.6225
  • Nitrate Nitrogen (NO3-) 254.0250
  • Ammonical Nitrogen (NH4+) 10.5851
  • Phosphorous (P) 63.5130
  • Potassium (K) 318.5055
  • Magnesium (Mg) 50.2774
  • Calcium (Ca) 172.0012
  • Sulfur (S) 29.1082
  • Iron (Fe) 2.1172
  • Zinc (Zn) 2.9104
  • Boron (B) 2.1172
  • Manganese (Mn) 2.1172
  • Copper (Cu) 1.3230
  • Molybdenum (Mo) 0.2644
  • Silicon (Si) 2.6460

    Total PPM 911.5460
I've been adding 100 PPM Epsom Salts to the water before putting in the MC for the past few days, but i doesn't seem to have helped... So maybe It's a Nitrogen Def?
 
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Forgot to add:
  • Tap water comes with a PH of ~7.5 & 70 PPM
  • When i add 1.3 EC of Megacrop the PH comes down to 6.3 which should be OK. Also at this EC i
  • Other than that i just feed some Fungi & Bennies once per week
And this is what my elemental breakthrough according to the megacrop calculator:
  • Total Nitrogen (N) 264.6225
  • Nitrate Nitrogen (NO3-) 254.0250
  • Ammonical Nitrogen (NH4+) 10.5851
  • Phosphorous (P) 63.5130
  • Potassium (K) 318.5055
  • Magnesium (Mg) 50.2774
  • Calcium (Ca) 172.0012
  • Sulfur (S) 29.1082
  • Iron (Fe) 2.1172
  • Zinc (Zn) 2.9104
  • Boron (B) 2.1172
  • Manganese (Mn) 2.1172
  • Copper (Cu) 1.3230
  • Molybdenum (Mo) 0.2644
  • Silicon (Si) 2.6460

    Total PPM 911.5460
I've been adding 100 PPM Epsom Salts to the water before putting in the MC for the past few days, but i doesn't seem to have helped... So maybe It's a Nitrogen Def?
6.3 is to high of ph, bring it down to 5.8 with half strength nutes for a few days
 

Olive Drab Green

Well-Known Member
Hey Guys!

I haven't grown in COCO for a while since i've been running aero, but for this grow i had no choice but to go for the COCO/perlite route. That said, i seem to have a deficiency in all of my veg plants. For this tent i'm running 150W of 3500K Bridgelux Gen2 strips

I'm trying to clear for sure sure whether it is a Magnesium deficiency or a Nitrogen deficiency (or both?) but i'm a little confused.

View attachment 4235070 View attachment 4235071 View attachment 4235072

Any help will be appreciated. Also, they look droopy because i had just sprayed a 100 PPM Magnesium solution. But maybe i'll need to foliar some Nitrogen?
Overwatering, probably leaching a big of P, K, and Mg. If not that, then it is an authentic deficit of the same.
 

eyderbuddy

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the support everyone, i'm still trying to get a consensus... I'll definitelly start watering a little less. But i've heard it's bad to let coco dry out too much.

What is the size of the pot?ratio of perlite to coco? And how often are you watering currently?
1 Gal pots (for now) when they're ready im going to be moving them to 3 gal pots

55% coco 25% perlite 20% expanded clay

As of this week i'm watering once per day, using 200-250 ML per plant. Some drink much more than others, they're never really droopy, they did that for the pictures because i had just given them a 100 PPM foliar Mag feed

This is how they look usually, they're all 18 Days old from seed

WhatsApp Image 2018-11-18 at 3.07.58 PM.jpeg
 

eyderbuddy

Well-Known Member
Also, what do you guys think? Apart from the 2 on the top right corner (Church CBD), they're all good genetics that got mixed up in a bag, so i'm pretty much growing regular mystery seeds. Other than the runt on the bottom left corner (which is actually catching up)...

which ones would be keepers? They're only 18 days old, but i'd love to hear what the community thinks

WhatsApp Image 2018-11-18 at 3.07.58 PM(1).jpeg
 

eyderbuddy

Well-Known Member
Only watered 100 ML per plant today just to see how it progresses. So not even a liter of water for 9 plants

I'll keep the thread updated, thanks everyone
 

Warpedpassage

Well-Known Member
They look good for 18 days. Only way to determine keepers as far im concerned is after harvest and sampling for effects. I think you should be heading towards watering twice a day soon. As the above poster mentioned how dry is the container when you water it?
 

eyderbuddy

Well-Known Member
When you lift a pot up do they still feel heavy when you are adding more water?
Only one that constantly feels heavy is the Runt's... All others dry out enough to make the pot "light" (although this is relative)

What exactly is 100ppm Epsom in Grams per Gallon?
I'm not really using grams per gallon as i haven't even mixed in a gallon of feed for my babies yet.
My tap comes out at 75PPM, and to that i added 100PPM (barely nothing) of Epsom Salts

If your elemental ppm is actually that high, its way to much (N and K) How many grams per gallon are you using of both epsom and megacrop?
I'm mixing nutrients every time i water as i don't want to leave them standing for longer than necessary. I scoop megacrop into a 2 lt container until the EC is at the point i need it to be (1.3 currently).

I used to grow using Maxigro and never really went over 1.1 EC or 770 PPM. This is my first time using megacrop and they actually recommend a much higher EC value, starting at 0.55 for seedling and 1.67 towards the end of flowering.

They also mentioned this:

Step 1 – Dialing In Nitrogen levels through MEGA CROP dosage by monitor your plants coloring:

  • Pay close attention to the green coloring of your plants leaves. Nitrogen levels in MEGA CROP are strongly related to how green your plants leaves will appear
  • If your plant leaves are light green or yellow, then increase your dosage of MEGA CROP to boost Nitrogen levels and increase green color
And since my plants seem a little light green to me, and seem to be developing some sort of other deficiency i figured i had to keep raising the nutrient concrentation until they started responding...

So far the plants have been growing, but the problem has become more and more noticeable with the size.
 
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eyderbuddy

Well-Known Member
I've been doing some research and found this:

The chemical balance in the coco is critical in 3 basic ways.

  • First the pH of the coco as a natural product is not ideal and must be adjusted.
  • Second, the CEC spoke of earlier are not real CEC in the classic sense, because while they will loosely hold monovalent cation elements (ions with a single positive charge) on a matching negative charge, they bind more tightly a divalent ion such as Calcium or Magnesium making them unavailable to the plant, and they come and go as decomposition moves forward.
  • Third, the give off of other ions by coco degrading upsets the ratio of the elements to each other causing many to become unavailable. The established buffer spoken of temporarily fixes this issue by filling the sites with divalent elements while stabilizing the pH at the range desired and setting the correct ratio of elements to each other.
 

Prawn Connery

Well-Known Member
EC1.3 seems a bit low to me. The giveaway is that your smaller plants are greener and healthier than your bigger plants. That suggests a nutrient deficiency as opposed to a lockout.

I don't agree that N and K levels are too high. Potassium levels are a little high for veg, but not Nitrogen. An NPK ratio of 2.6-0.6-3.2 suggests those nutrients are more suited to flowering than growth. You'd be better off using a high Nitrogen CalMag supplement rather than Epsom salts, as you already have plenty of Sulfur, and the plants would benefit from the extra N.

pH6-6.3 is fine for coco, and in fact helps with Ca availability.

You can water coco as often as you like and - as long as you have good drainage - you won't have any issues. Unless you are recycling your coco, and it has started to decompose, the coir is coarse enough to keep large amounts of air in the root zone. If you are recycling, then as coco degrades, the granules get smaller, the medium denser, and there is less room for air.

But that only happens after you recycle a couple of times and leave old root mass in the coco. Also, fresh coco should not decompose so quickly as to affect cation exchange. Once you have pre-buffered coco with sufficient calcium and magnesium, it won't bind as much, and so these elements will be available with each watering. Magnesium is less mobile that other elements, and as others have mentioned, the lower temperature of LEDs compared to HIDs can affect transpiration and transport within the plant.

Coco benefits from more waterings - I feed mine five times a day on an auto timer - as the more you water coco, the more oxygen you introduce to the root zone, as it is pulled into the coco through the action of soaking capillary action and drainage out the other end. Drainage is most important, as it flushes the coco with each watering.

Likewise, if you water often, you must also use a reasonably high concentration of nutrient (upper end of the suggested scale), as you are constantly flushing, and so there is no build-up of nutrient. Conversely, if you do not flush often, there will be a build-up of waste nutrient that can lock out other elements.

By mixing perlite and expanded clay into your coco, you are effectively reducing your pot size by filling it with inert materials. So your plants will root-bind faster and may also show signs of nutrient deficiency - that is something else to consider (though your pots seem to be a good size for those plants).

My suggestion at this stage would be to bump your EC to around 1.6, replace the Epsom Salts with a higher-N Cal-Mag supplement (N Ca Mg 4-6-2, or something like that), and ensure you get a little bit of runoff with each watering and DO NOT let you pots sit in the runoff only to soak it up as the pots dry out - a sure way to increase waste nutrient build-up in your pots.

Other than that, they are not too bad. My opinion you just need to feed them a little more. In fact, if you pH test the run-off, and your pH is quite high, then that is a generally a sign the plants are using up most of the nutrient you have been giving them and may require more. I have been growing in coco for a long time.
 

eyderbuddy

Well-Known Member
Then you really don't know what the elemental ppm is. EC is just a guess of nutrient concentration and is typically no where close to elemental ppm. Try weighing some out next time you mix to get an idea if where your at then we can go from there..
I'd love an explanation of this my man, just because i want to learn... If you've got any links where i could spend a few hours reading, that's fine by me

Coco add's K and sucks up your Ca, so you want a fert with less K and more Ca, the Ca you'll have to add an additive like calmag.
What i'm thinking of doing is just keep using megacrop at a slightly lower concentration, and combine it with some cal-nit from Jack's. I have everything for Jacks 321, but i wanted to use up my megacrop first

Magnesium.
Are the lights new to you?
They are. I only had one HPS crop and the heat was unbearable so i moved to COBs as soon as i could...

But then i moved on to use bridgelux strips, i've grown other crops (greens) with them and they grew just fine, but never the good stuff until now
 
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