Is this a Nitrogen deficiency?

Hello,

I have a consistently prevalent deficiency on all 6 of my plants. I would be grateful to set some extra eye-balls on it! And maybe reach a consensus. Or did I just make you laugh with the word consensus with this being the Internet and all? Haha.

Stage: Veg (20-24 inches)
Strain: Lemon Tree (clone)
Medium: Coco coir Big City Hydro-Mix
Indoor: HPS 600 W
Nutes: RO
+ House and Garden (H&G) whole line according to directions (including Roots Excel, DripClean, etc)
+ Kelzyme (less than 1/2 rate)
+ Mammoth-P (as directed)
+ Great White ( < 1/3 rate)

PPM @ pH: 1100 - 1400 @ ~ 5.3 (based on my meter's calibration)
Water to Waste: By hand, 3-4 days as temps relatively low, btwn 60-68

Notes:
Kelzyme element XX: a calcium rich mineral composite
Silly that can't post link before being liked.
Search Google: "kelzyme element-xx-2"

I notice after mixing of everything (and before the calcium supplement) the pH comes to about 4.7 - 4.8.
Adding the kelzyme, it rises to above 5.6 or 5.8.
After adjustment down to the 5.2-5.3 range, hours later, the pH continues to rise.

With this feeding, the girls start praying at angles of over 50, maybe 60, degrees . Later the leaves flatten out but still perky and higher than 5 - 10 degrees. No noticeable curl anywhere. And it does appear that a deeper green is making its way into the lower middle of the plant.

For a comparison, I'll follow-up with a post of a pic of what this strain looked like in FFOF soil with supplemental feeding of a low rate of HG Nutes.

Question: Does pH rising the natural way of things due to beneficial bacterial life?

I was close to acquiring and trying GH calmag but wanted to check in with you folks first; to see what deficiency I truly may have.

I am eager for recommendations. Thanks for reading! I want to fix this before switching the photoperiod.

Additional request for recommendation:
Watering Wand: I'd love to get a recommendation of where to find a light-weight but yet high quality watering wand with a valve to disable flow? A little "shower head" on the end would be helpful. I want to make a little pond pump system to speed up the hand watering until I work out a plan and infrastructure to automate feeding/watering.

-Zeem

Im not positve but first guess after seeing red stems is calmag .Not a pro,i had similar in dwc and more calmag juice was the answer.

zeem said:

Hello,

I have a consistently prevalent deficiency on all 6 of my plants. I would be grateful to set some extra eye-balls on it! And maybe reach a consensus. Or did I just make you laugh with the word consensus with this being the Internet and all? Haha.

Stage: Veg (20-24 inches)
Strain: Lemon Tree (clone)
Medium: Coco coir Big City Hydro-Mix
Indoor: HPS 600 W
Nutes: RO
+ House and Garden (H&G) whole line according to directions (including Roots Excel, DripClean, etc)
+ Kelzyme (less than 1/2 rate)
+ Mammoth-P (as directed)
+ Great White ( < 1/3 rate)

PPM @ pH: 1100 - 1400 @ ~ 5.3 (based on my meter's calibration)
Water to Waste: By hand, 3-4 days as temps relatively low, btwn 60-68

Notes:
Kelzyme element XX: a calcium rich mineral composite
Silly that can't post link before being liked.
Search Google: "kelzyme element-xx-2"

I notice after mixing of everything (and before the calcium supplement) the pH comes to about 4.7 - 4.8.
Adding the kelzyme, it rises to above 5.6 or 5.8.
After adjustment down to the 5.2-5.3 range, hours later, the pH continues to rise.

With this feeding, the girls start praying at angles of over 50, maybe 60, degrees . Later the leaves flatten out but still perky and higher than 5 - 10 degrees. No noticeable curl anywhere. And it does appear that a deeper green is making its way into the lower middle of the plant.

For a comparison, I'll follow-up with a post of a pic of what this strain looked like in FFOF soil with supplemental feeding of a low rate of HG Nutes.

Question: Does pH rising the natural way of things due to beneficial bacterial life?

I was close to acquiring and trying GH calmag but wanted to check in with you folks first; to see what deficiency I truly may have.

I am eager for recommendations. Thanks for reading! I want to fix this before switching the photoperiod.

Additional request for recommendation:
Watering Wand: I'd love to get a recommendation of where to find a light-weight but yet high quality watering wand with a valve to disable flow? A little "shower head" on the end would be helpful. I want to make a little pond pump system to speed up the hand watering until I work out a plan and infrastructure to automate feeding/watering.

-Zeem

Click to expand...

Nice write up and pictures.

I only skimmed and saw ppms were 1100 to 1400. That sounds high.
I've used this type watering wand from home depot with a small pond type pump with success in the past.

Someone who grows in coco will eventually stop by.
Good Luck!

Doesn’t nitrogen deficiency start at the bottom leaves and progress upwards?

It was more like this one from Walmart with a handle.

I've never done coco, but I see it as being a cross between hydro and soil in that it has no nutrients in it like water, and hold a lot of water like soil. IMO, ppm way to high as coco will hold nutrients. pH too low if it's below 5.8. You're using too much stuff.

Old Thcool said:

Doesn’t nitrogen deficiency start at the bottom leaves and progress upwards?

Click to expand...

yes,in the pic u see green veins and yellow leafs towards top of plant.Mg i think is whats lacking.

myke said:

yes,in the pic u see green veins and yellow leafs towards top of plant.Mg i think is whats lacking.

Click to expand...

It does look like Mg deficiency but much more likely is that it is a lockout due to salt build-up and maybe ph.

Why are you adding extra P in veg?

You probably should be at half your current ppm. IMHO
JD

You're using way too much stuff. Cut out everything but base nutes pH'd to 6.0 for awhile. Any deficiency is being caused by nutrient lockout from dumping too much stuff through your grow medium. You must be using ten different products and the plants look like shit. That should tell you something. But by all means get yourself some calmag and dump that on as well despite the fact that between all the products you're using there should be plenty of Mg available.

Less is better

my understanding of coco is you water too run off every time yes?then just straight water every 3 rd or so watering?so once a week they get flushed completely
? so by removing the extra additives and just go with npk at half you should see a difference in the plants quickly?

myke said:

my understanding of coco is you water too run off every time yes?then just straight water every 3 rd or so watering?so once a week they get flushed completely
? so by removing the extra additives and just go with npk at half you should see a difference in the plants quickly?

Click to expand...

You don't want to run plain water through coco during the grow. Always use at least a weak nutrient solution watering.

I had the same problems in coco. Plants looked just like yours.
Do yourself a favor and just use a coco specific nutrient line. RO water makes calmag mandatory.

Thanks to every person for help. The collection of advice made me think. I decided to pursue the idea of this being a Mg deficiency.

To provide some perspective on what might be possible, I am sharing pics of the Mother. The clones I made from her went into the Coco grow which is the topic of this thread. The mother was a clone from Dark Heart and was labelled as Sour Diesel x Lemon Kush. The nice color greens on the Mother were produced with FFOF soil that was supplementarily fed with the same HG "coco" nutes but at a lower 700-1000 ppm plus some Mammoth-P. I feel like Lemon Tree could easily feed regularly on 1500 ppm or more.

During the last few days, I've read that OG strains require large amounts of Mg.

Incidentally, I want to grow more OGs. I was fortunately enough to get experience with Ghost OG which really helped my ADD; but this was before the Weed Apocalypse of 2018. Hadn't seen it since for less than 480/oz.

BTW, I am using HG A+B formulation for Coco.

Thanks for the wand suggestions!

Gnats! Also during my reading I learned that a certain kind of flying pest has larvae that create a root problem that can manifest as a Mg- in the leaves. The reason I mention this as I had one container with the absolute weakest runt-looking plant eva! The growth appeared stunted and a leaf had some severe physical damage. Lots of gnats coming out of the coco too. I pulled this container from the garden. Other containers do not appear (yet) to have as tremendous infestation as that one. But I will give it time and plenty Neem cycles. I'm doing foliar Neem and foliar Nuke-Em, separately. Also spaying the top layer of coco. I am hesitant to drench my coco and root zone with Neem.

With respect to the runt that was tossed in the garbage, the plant in the first post is very vibrant and growing the thickest stalk of all. So, for now, I assume it's root zone is ok.

Tomorrow I will post pics of the plant with the Mg-, so that you may see the results of recent feedings and what the supplemental Mg has done for its chlorophyll production.

I'd like to add that I made the mistake of letting my Coco get too dry between waterings. I read that this causes problem. Maybe more rapid salt build up.

Hint: I found some Epsom Salts under the sink and a ten year old bottle of Sugar Daddy. I also found an old bottle of Calmag but decided to toss that as it did not look so good.

-zeem

JohnDee said:

It does look like Mg deficiency but much more likely is that it is a lockout due to salt build-up and maybe ph.

Why are you adding extra P in veg?

You probably should be at half your current ppm. IMHO
JD

Click to expand...

^^^THIS^^^

@Dr Who: Is the Mammoth-P where you are saying I am adding extra P macronutrient?
Please google Mammoth-P

Regarding changes:
I will see what happens when I lower the PPMs after I change the Mg.
I like to change only one input at a time so that I can determine which change has the effect I am seeking.

-zeem

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There ya go

zeem said:

the pH comes to about 4.7 - 4.8.
Adding the kelzyme, it rises to above 5.6 or 5.8.
After adjustment down to the 5.2-5.3 range

Click to expand...

I have a question, could you explain why when your pH gets 5.6 - 5.8 you lower it to 5.2 - 5.3 ?

The flying pests are likely fungus gnats, yellow sticky strips will help control them but they'll also show you the severity of the infestation, and there are certain measures that can be used to control/eradicate them going forward

I would be interested to know what your run off ppm/ec is measuring. I imagine its fairly high.

Too much calcium can decrease the availability of Magnesium. So the kelzyme is a bad idea.

I think I would get myself a bottle of cal/mag, it has the correct ratio and with RO water you really need it especially in coco.

Once you have some, flush the pots with a low dose of nutrients and feed with less overall nutrients and cal/mag every watering going forward.

I wouldn't waste my money using mammoth P in veg.
Until you have them looking healthy I would stick to base nutrients and cal/mag.
Ph should be 5.8 at lowest, I like it to be around 6 give or take.

zeem said:

...with FFOF soil

Click to expand...

Correction:
Regarding the mother in soil (shared as reference point), the soil medium was actually E.B. Stone's Recipe 420, not FFOF. Sorry for my error.

I will update with pics of plant in Coco (1st post) within 48 hr, after the addition of Mg to feeding regimen.

Seems like chlorophyll is showing more properly in the new leaves, and "flowing" into older mid-level leaves beginning at the petiole.

I’m in first week of flower in coco my ppm is 600 and that the max my plants will take so far . I feed every day haven’t flushed once likly never will.