Guide to Nutrient Deficiency or Toxicity

Thedillestpickle said:

Hey nick I just watered my plants with 600ppm straight epsom salts into coco. I've been having so much leaf drop yellowing and necrosis it's starting to get scary. If this doesn't fix it I will be back with a bombardment of pictures and questions/info. Hopefully I got it right

Click to expand...

i dont get it. leaf drop, yellowing, necrosis... so you added epsom salt? post up some pics and lemme see what ya got going on man.

Great thread nick! Very helpful stuff! +rep

After reading through this I think I may have to try some cal/mag. Some of the pictures that are posted, and some of your explanations lead me to believe this is the issue (no pics at the moment). It looks almost like rust on the leaves, which get very brittle and dry. The weird part is that this only happens to one strain I'm working with. I currently have TGA Cheesquake (no issues), GHS The Church (no issues), Serious Seeds Kali Mist (no issues), TGA Jillybean (no issues), but my Serious Seeds Bubblegum looks like hell. It's growing, and otherwise appears OK, but some of the leaves have a ton of necrosis on them.

I'm going to try some epsom salts, and if that doesn't work then I guess I'm stumped!

treesnowski said:

BuddGreen your stash looks pretty good, here's something that popped up today in my garden, I'm guessing it's sun burn, I sprayed her down with SPF 30.
View attachment 2080324
And here's a plant that could use some viagra, right? Or is it me?View attachment 2080325

But seriously, I'm dealing with an ass backwards problem. When the temperature outside gets too cold, my a/c doesn't work, and the sealed room cooks, and the humidity gets up to 80% or so. I should have got a mini split instead of a window banger, or otherwise I could have made an intake and exhaust, and saved a thousand dollars by not purchasing a/c, dehumidifier, co2 tanks, regulator, and ppm controller and prevented daily winter headaches. Running a/c in the winter, and it is still reaching 100* when it's 40* outside. I have to leave my garage wide open with the co2 off to keep the temps down when it's cold outside. But maybe these photos don't show heat stress at all, I don't actually know, so if anyone has answers, let me know. I should have learned to crawl before I tried to run....run into a 10,000 dollar sealed room setup. Oops.

Click to expand...

What type of plant is that in your first pic?

The reason I ask is that a while back I germinated 5 dutch passion master kush seeds, got 4 females, flipped them to 12/12, and about 3 weeks in started noticing some of the leaves on one of the plants getting holes in it, and what appeared to be bite marks. Like a caterpillar was nibbling on the fan leaves or something. I searched that mofo with a fine-tooth comb, and there was nothing. Not a bug in sight. It grew out completely healthy, and was otherwise a very vigorous plant.

I wonder if genetics can play a role in some cases?

st0wandgrow said:

I wonder if genetics can play a role in some cases?

Click to expand...

yes.

each strain requieres a different balance of food/temp/ph, etc... the goal is to get a good balance where they are all "pretty good". if you focus on making one strain perfect, youve neglected + killed the others...
i dont freak out if i see a little deficiency, or a little toxicity on one plant, if i go to add/remove that nute, next time its a dif plant with the deficiency/abundance. you just gotta find a happy medium, or spend more time caring for them.

it makes it a lot easier if you have them all labeled, and keep notes. the main thing is deficiencies are somewhat ok, they happen all the time, especially in nature. toxicities really arent ok. best to underfert and over water then the other way around. so dilute a bunch, feed a little, and with some luck, youll get good nugs.

Thanks Nick I read everything in this post and I see my mistake. I am in a ebb&table with coco and not likening it at all.I flood once every 3 hours. LOL tfs is 900 in veg! Kicking myself

i found this chart from another site that might be useful here.

It's a Super Skunk from Sensi Seeds. I'm sure it's not bugs. I'm still convinced it is from when my room cooked. I installed an intake fan connected to a temp controller, that will only turn on when the a/c fails (when it's too cold for a/c to work). a/c is set to 76* and fan at 85* I also added air cooling. Now with my room modified, I am having perfect control. The temps are easy to manage, I was even able to add two more 1000 watt lights. My main issue I'm trying to solve now is clawed leaves on the Shiva Skunk. First I thought it was from heat stress, but after more research, I'm beginning to think it's nitrogen toxicity. I used Liquid Karma, and I heard that fulvics and humics cause the plants to intake nitrogen better than normal, so maybe that pushed Shiva over the line. I'm also doing White Russian and White Widow, and they each have slight clawing on some leaves on some plants, as do a couple Super Skunks, but mostly this is Shiva's problem. I am now using RO water, 5ml/gal of calmag, and 12.5ml/gal of 2-2-3, no more additives, they might be hurting more than helping.

the post above is addressing the person who asked what strain the first pic is, I must have not quoted their post properly.

thanks for ya help nick
changin the reservoir and leavin the door to the grow closet every once in a while til i put another vent hole in there has help a bunch

here a couple a pics of her now

i've done some bendin an tying down to get the light all over the plant an cause the aero garden light only goes but so high

only thing i cant figure out yet is my nute mix
i used 2.ml Growbig, 3.5ml Tigerbloom and 8ml bigbloom so we'll see in a day or so if i got it right this time
oh and thanks for that chart truckerda

Phosphorus deficiency?! Tried adding small amout of bloom nutes with 2-7-7 NPK ratio and also lowered the PH of the water a bit. It's been a day and it looks like it hasn't spread very much since, but I can't be sure yet. Lemon Skunk fem, 4 weeks (give or take) into flowering.. Any opinions? Thanks

truckerda said:

i found this chart from another site that might be useful here.View attachment 2092384

Click to expand...

ya this is great, notice: yellow tips = ONLY way to tell if theres overferting!

Dop3yd33 said:

Phosphorus deficiency?! Tried adding small amout of bloom nutes with 2-7-7 NPK ratio and also lowered the PH of the water a bit. It's been a day and it looks like it hasn't spread very much since, but I can't be sure yet. Lemon Skunk fem, 4 weeks (give or take) into flowering.. Any opinions? Thanks
View attachment 2095284View attachment 2095285View attachment 2095286View attachment 2095297

Click to expand...

yea add some phosphorus, dont even worry about those 2-3 yellow/dead leaves on the bottom. thats normal. its odd, but now untopped plants seem odd to me, probably becuase i top mine, over and over and over. youll be ok tho, adding stuff usually takes a few days to really show the effect. and as long as the tips arent yellowing (overferting), then you can add a little of everything safely to boost growth a bit.

Yeah, she seems pretty fine now. Just time for a bigger pot for the last month I'd say. Thanks a bunch!

yea no problem. bigger pots = always good. my last pot size they go into before flowering are 30x30x30. big pots. and they get to about 4-5 feet tall, topped multiple times so i have around 6-10 tops, and i have never seen the roots touch the bottom of the pots. besides, it gives them more water to drink, more nutrients, more of a buffer for irregularities like pH being off or over/under ferting.

smal pots are great for clones/seedlings, but once they are big, and going into flower, the bigger the pot = the less the headaches later.

hi there. i have been going through so many def guides im going crazy. i think i have this figured out but want make sure. i just turned my lights off for 3 days to switch into flower. my temps at night were getting around the 50'f. its mostly on new growth, and i already know i have pretty good amount of nitrogen ( dark leaves, only sign though) now on the new growth, it started on the fan leaves that were about 4-7 days old so pretty new. ( this is a northern light BUSh about 2.5- 3 feet in height so big tree) now i started getting brown necrotic spots in between vein, then moved to more of a purple the last day of darkness on the very new growth. i usually ph my water to 6.5 or so, im in pro mix myco soil, AGE old organics, grow and bloom. this started when i fed with bloom nutes then a day later went to lights off. my guess is phosphorus due to cold temps. sorry this post is EVERYWHERE. i have yet to medicate today.

oh ya my pot size is a 20 gal.

well i just foliared with some kelp at a LOW dose. it has a supply of micro nutes, and has an NPK of .3-.25-.15. this should correct it, if not at least help it.

ElectricPineapple said:

well i just foliared with some kelp at a LOW dose. it has a supply of micro nutes, and has an NPK of .3-.25-.15. this should correct it, if not at least help it.

Click to expand...

yea foliar feeding rocks. you just have to dilute it more than usual, i try to stick at 50% strength of the strength i would water with. also, aim for the underside of the leaf, and make sure its early in the day, or your HID lamps are off or you could burn the leaves.

ya i turn my lamps off before i spray. well after a lot of research i think i have concluded what it is. i had an abundance of nitrogen, locking out calcium. i took some pics with my light on, and in the pics, it looks just like calcium deficiency. plus it is the most likely.

BeefSteak said:

I find it gives little consideration to most using a two part fertilizer where simply adding more A or B so to say will cure most problems. Most two part fertilizers are pretty complete for the competent grower and it should be easy to work out your Cal/Mag levels too so i find a lot of this merely confuses the grower more over just learning to use his ferts properly and checking Cal/Mag levels.

Some ask whats this deficiency and the answer is not necessary Phosphorous or Calcium over add more A or B to vary the nutrient levels. Lots of blooms or B dont contain enough nutrients to make it complete hence why most nutrient companies advise on their chart to run veg ferts through the flowering but simply upping the bloom ferts till the P/K is higher than the N. Without the grow yer you probably are Cal or Mag deficient not to mention the abuse of Phosphorous and Potassium. Thanks

Click to expand...

Thanks it,s not just me then ? imo messing around with these ferts seperately causes more probs than it ever fixes, as beefsteak said most a+b nutes are well balanced and if you can,t get that right then you have little chance with individual elements. I can,t comment on soil as i,ve never used it also i don,t mean to impune your eforts i actually respect your eforts but in the hands of new growers it,s a recipe for disaster imo. thanks TCD

Dop3yd33 said:

Phosphorus deficiency?! Tried adding small amout of bloom nutes with 2-7-7 NPK ratio and also lowered the PH of the water a bit. It's been a day and it looks like it hasn't spread very much since, but I can't be sure yet. Lemon Skunk fem, 4 weeks (give or take) into flowering.. Any opinions? Thanks
View attachment 2095284View attachment 2095285View attachment 2095286View attachment 2095297

Click to expand...

Looks like overwatering. Not that your giving them too much when they need it, rather watering too often.......