First Living Soil Grow - Plants Not Happy

jHands

jHands

Active Member
This is what the beginning stages look like of what I have going on here. Golden brown, almost copper or metallic in appearance. Eventually leaf curls up and dries out it seems. This pic of newly affected growth is on a plant that has been growing very vigoriusly over the last few days. One half of my 4x8 isn’t digging what’s going on here. The other half, different genetics, seems to be chillin. Another pic shows this gold metallic burn the plants are experiencing.
 

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Amazon Blaze

Amazon Blaze

Active Member
jHands said:
Leaning towards Nute Burn and nitrogen toxicity due to the fact that these are in soil that isn’t cooked all the way. Thoughts?
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The first pic looks like too much water to me, how much are they getting? The second pic looks like nitrogen toxicity, as the leaves are clawing, combined with the very dark green leaf color which would usually indicate, that is the problem.

When I get problems like this, that could be multiple issues, I go back to basics and check the water run off, or root zone soil PH, and start from there. If that is good then its either too much or not enough of something providing your environment is under control properly.

Until you know the PH in the root zone is good, you are really just making educated guesses, for growers with lots of growing experience, they can see these problems because they have had to deal with them on many occasions, but if you lack that experience you have to work from the soil up with a process of elimination.

I have no knowledge of C02 issues, so that may be the cause or a contributor as suggested.

Your humidity is a bit high, maybe due to the amount of water in the soil evaporating off, which is not helping your situation.
 
dubekoms

dubekoms

Well-Known Member
How close do you have the leds and how many watts? When and where did things start looking abnormal? Are the symptoms mainly showing at the top or bottom of the plant?
 
jHands

jHands

Active Member
dubekoms said:
How close do you have the leds and how many watts? When and where did things start looking abnormal? Are the symptoms mainly showing at the top or bottom of the plant?
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The LED’s are 700 watts currently dialed down in red and yellow spectrum to 25%, 50% in blue. They’re 24-36 inches from canopy depending on plant height. Following manufacturer’s lighting guidelines as I have some friends that have followed them successfully when starting out with no LED experience.
 
jHands

jHands

Active Member
Amazon Blaze said:
The first pic looks like too much water to me, how much are they getting? The second pic looks like nitrogen toxicity, as the leaves are clawing, combined with the very dark green leaf color which would usually indicate, that is the problem.

When I get problems like this, that could be multiple issues, I go back to basics and check the water run off, or root zone soil PH, and start from there. If that is good then its either too much or not enough of something providing your environment is under control properly.

Until you know the PH in the root zone is good, you are really just making educated guesses, for growers with lots of growing experience, they can see these problems because they have had to deal with them on many occasions, but if you lack that experience you have to work from the soil up with a process of elimination.

I have no knowledge of C02 issues, so that may be the cause or a contributor as suggested.

Your humidity is a bit high, maybe due to the amount of water in the soil evaporating off, which is not helping your situation.
Click to expand...
Humidity has been dialed back to around 50 and is holding steady. My best educated guess (and I’m no dummy) is nutrient burn and nitrogen toxicity. The plants on one half of the bed showed symptoms first. Explosion of growth, once transplant shock was over and roots established, followed by drying out and the gold brown spots following. The second half of the bed with different genetics is now experiencing this, leading me to believe that those genetics simply took longer to establish their root systems. Their sickness as progressed the same. Bushy healthy growth for a couple days with dark green leaves, followed by tips starting to burn and the leaves getting the black/brown spots.

I’m collecting soil sample tomorrow from root zone to send to a lab, as well as a sample from my pile which is yet to fill another bed and some other containers for mother’s.
 
ShLUbY

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
jHands said:
Correct. Coot mix. 1/3 EWC 1/3 cspm 1/3 pumice amended. It’s on the previous page of this thread.
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ok, it's not possible for you to have nutrient burn with this mix. like 0% chance. i've run this mix (and stronger) slight variations of it with no issues ever. I'm willing to bet it has more to do with the immaturity of the mix. so at this point... i'm not really sure what to tell you other than to give it time.
 
jHands

jHands

Active Member
ShLUbY said:
ok, it's not possible for you to have nutrient burn with this mix. like 0% chance. i've run this mix (and stronger) slight variations of it with no issues ever. I'm willing to bet it has more to do with the immaturity of the mix. so at this point... i'm not really sure what to tell you other than to give it time.
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Will do. In the mean time, soil sample going out tomorrow. And I’m going to fill that other bed in my other flower room sooner rather than later to better prepare for when that room gets planted.
 
Amazon Blaze

Amazon Blaze

Active Member
ShLUbY said:
ok, it's not possible for you to have nutrient burn with this mix. like 0% chance. i've run this mix (and stronger) slight variations of it with no issues ever. I'm willing to bet it has more to do with the immaturity of the mix. so at this point... i'm not really sure what to tell you other than to give it time.
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When I built my soil, I thought, where is the nitrogen in all this, there's never going to be enough to get them through veg lol.

Mine will burn tips if the humidity drops to low for an extended period but if my environment is good they are fine.


jHands said:
My best educated guess (and I’m no dummy)
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Sorry, I wasn't implying you were a dummy, if that's how it came over. I was trying to say, you have to have a known baseline to work off, until you know how a plant strain responds in living soil, to different stresses. You can generalize but there are exceptions and you can waste a lot of time, without knowing if the soil PH is good. As its a new build then it may just need a fine tune to get it running on all cylinders or as shluby says, your soil might just need to mature more, and balance itself out. Putting the cover crop in will speed that process up.

Your soil makeup is slightly different to mine.
1:1:1: Sphagnum Peat Moss, Lava rock, Compost, which was a 50/50 split of sheep manure and worm casts.

Amended per cuF with:
1 cup Neem or Karanja
1 cup Kelp
1 cup Crab/Crustacean meal
1 cup MBP (Malted Barley Powder)
1/2 cup Gypsum
5 cups Basalt
7 cups Biochar.

The only problems I have had using this soil, was when I left my daughters boyfriend, to water my flowering plants over Christmas. He also watered my veg plants that didn't need it, as I had already loaded them up, so they wouldn't need a top up :roll: I ended up having to mix that soil in with some new drier stuff to get it back in shape.
If you haven't made the recommended Neem and Kelp meal tea yet, your in for a wonderful surprise lol :spew:
 
ShLUbY

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
Amazon Blaze said:
When I built my soil, I thought, where is the nitrogen in all this, there's never going to be enough to get them through veg lol.

Mine will burn tips if the humidity drops to low for an extended period but if my environment is good they are fine.
Click to expand...
that's interesting, i've never had that problem in my garden and the RH gets low here during the midwest winters.
 
jHands

jHands

Active Member
Amazon Blaze said:
When I built my soil, I thought, where is the nitrogen in all this, there's never going to be enough to get them through veg lol.

Mine will burn tips if the humidity drops to low for an extended period but if my environment is good they are fine.




Sorry, I wasn't implying you were a dummy, if that's how it came over. I was trying to say, you have to have a known baseline to work off, until you know how a plant strain responds in living soil, to different stresses. You can generalize but there are exceptions and you can waste a lot of time, without knowing if the soil PH is good. As its a new build then it may just need a fine tune to get it running on all cylinders or as shluby says, your soil might just need to mature more, and balance itself out. Putting the cover crop in will speed that process up.

Your soil makeup is slightly different to mine.
1:1:1: Sphagnum Peat Moss, Lava rock, Compost, which was a 50/50 split of sheep manure and worm casts.

Amended per cuF with:
1 cup Neem or Karanja
1 cup Kelp
1 cup Crab/Crustacean meal
1 cup MBP (Malted Barley Powder)
1/2 cup Gypsum
5 cups Basalt
7 cups Biochar.

The only problems I have had using this soil, was when I left my daughters boyfriend, to water my flowering plants over Christmas. He also watered my veg plants that didn't need it, as I had already loaded them up, so they wouldn't need a top up :roll: I ended up having to mix that soil in with some new drier stuff to get it back in shape.
If you haven't made the recommended Neem and Kelp meal tea yet, your in for a wonderful surprise lol :spew:
Click to expand...
Forgot to add that to soil. I did include biochar charged with hydrolysate. Keep forgetting I put that in.

I really do think it’s Nute Burn. I’m taking soil samples tomorrow morning and sending them out.
 
Amazon Blaze

Amazon Blaze

Active Member
jHands said:
I’m taking soil samples tomorrow morning and sending them out.
Click to expand...

If you have a PH meter/pen it will take you you 15 minutes to do it yourself. Just take the soil from the root zone, dont need much, couple of table spoons full in a clean container. Put in some RO water with a PH of 6.5 enough for the PH pen to get a reading. Leave the soil to soak for 10 minutes stir it about. strain off the soil and measure the PH of the water again, which ever way it swings and by how much shows where the PH of the root zone is fairly accurately.
 
Amazon Blaze

Amazon Blaze

Active Member
ShLUbY said:
hat's interesting, i've never had that problem in my garden and the RH gets low here during the midwest winters.
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It may be the 3.3.3 sheep manure. My soil cooked for about 6 weeks before I put it in pots, and sowed a cover crop. Then put the weed plants in 3 weeks later. That was the first time around, and I had N toxicity as well rite up through flowering, thought it might interfere with the bud development but didn't notice any problems, but it was a new strain I was trying Island sweet skunk crossed with blue berry, I got nearly 7 ounces, dry, off of one of those plants, so I dont think it did cause problems.
 
jHands

jHands

Active Member
Soil analysis came back. Plants are more healthy now though, go figure. Some of them didn’t make it, but the ones that did are taking off. Time to get creative with the canopy management.

Anyone have any insight on what to do with these results?
 

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ShLUbY

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
jHands said:
Soil analysis came back. Plants are more healthy now though, go figure. Some of them didn’t make it, but the ones that did are taking off. Time to get creative with the canopy management.

Anyone have any insight on what to do with these results?
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which test is this... soluble ions or total mineralization (solids)?
 
ShLUbY

ShLUbY

Well-Known Member
jHands said:
I have no idea. How can I find out lol
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ahh just ask them. the key to soil tests is getting both types. you need to know what's immediately available (soluble) and what's in the bank (still awaiting decomp).
 
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