Browning around leaf edges

[Ups]

Wow guys, just blown away by all the suggestions, tips, and general good sense all around. Even if it does feel sometimes a bit contradictory, I feel like I’m getting closer to narrowing down the issue here.
Based on what @ed the head and @Emeraldo say about the pH, I know now that I definitely need to check that pH runoff because there was one watering I had to do without my pH pen (dead batteries ) and it could have very well have been a bit on the low end. The bloom nutes usually bring down the pH as well but never too low. However if they do get any sort of build up + the older soil, I think reason has it that my pH is probably dropping a bit too low. Which would explain what @Growings mentioned about a lack of K which I also agree with by what have researched.
So I’m going to start by measuring the pH and next watering I’ll aim a little higher in the pH scale to try and balance things out. Otherwise I’ll see what I can do about adding lime or dolomite to the topsoil to give an extra nudge in the right direction.

I have a dolomite raw powder material that I use in my ceramic studio for mixing my glazes, would any of you be able to tell me if that could work? It’s literally ground Dolomite. I even have a technical formula for it’s exact molecular makeup if that helps, I’ll link a photo… let me know!

 

[Emeraldo]

@Ups, make sure you use lime, there is a very good variety called dolomite lime (Home Depot has it), but if you can't find that, then just get regular garden lime. I put 1 cup in my 20 L pot mix, but you'll learn over time that lime is your best friend when it comes to keeping pH stable.

Forget water pH. It's not the water pH level you need to be concerned about, it's the soil pH. You need to get a soil pH meter and test the soil pH. You can add water of almost any pH between 5 and 8 and you'll be ok as long as the soil pH is between 6 and 7. Testing the runoff from watering does give an idea. Cheers

 

[BakedARea]

Love this forum for exactly this reason. We get an opportunity to learn from various experiences. Although the contradictions may occur, it is still good to see other perspectives. Reading the pH explanation was excellent. I also agree that living soil can handle many runs as long as you give it back some inputs to breakdown. Thanks everyone for the wisdom!

 

[garybo]

I've used the same soil many times over, three years in a row

Emeraldo, I fully concur with you about using the same soil and as you I'm into my third year with mine. When growing season is over I store the soil in large plastic garbage pails.
Interesting recipe for restoring the soil. With respect I would like to add that there is a product called "Recharge" which helps to keep the soils microbial life strive, which helps in nutrient exchange to the plants root zone. Basically your feeding the soil. I'm sort of the lazy type of guy so using Recharge all I do is add something like a table spoon of it with my normal feeding process every couple of weeks.
Spark up

 

[ed the head]

@Ups, make sure you use lime, there is a very good variety called dolomite lime (Home Depot has it), but if you can't find that, then just get regular garden lime. I put 1 cup in my 20 L pot mix, but you'll learn over time that lime is your best friend when it comes to keeping pH stable.

Forget water pH. It's not the water pH level you need to be concerned about, it's the soil pH. You need to get a soil pH meter and test the soil pH. You can add water of almost any pH between 5 and 8 and you'll be ok as long as the soil pH is between 6 and 7. Testing the runoff from watering does give an idea. Cheers

Would love a recommendation to a good soil pH test device if possible. I've been advised to continue the water runoff method but am open to trying something new if it works better.
Thanks!!

 

[ed the head]

Wow guys, just blown away by all the suggestions, tips, and general good sense all around. Even if it does feel sometimes a bit contradictory, I feel like I’m getting closer to narrowing down the issue here.
Based on what @ed the head and @Emeraldo say about the pH, I know now that I definitely need to check that pH runoff because there was one watering I had to do without my pH pen (dead batteries ) and it could have very well have been a bit on the low end. The bloom nutes usually bring down the pH as well but never too low. However if they do get any sort of build up + the older soil, I think reason has it that my pH is probably dropping a bit too low. Which would explain what @Growings mentioned about a lack of K which I also agree with by what have researched.
So I’m going to start by measuring the pH and next watering I’ll aim a little higher in the pH scale to try and balance things out. Otherwise I’ll see what I can do about adding lime or dolomite to the topsoil to give an extra nudge in the right direction.

I have a dolomite raw powder material that I use in my ceramic studio for mixing my glazes, would any of you be able to tell me if that could work? It’s literally ground Dolomite. I even have a technical formula for it’s exact molecular makeup if that helps, I’ll link a photo… let me know!

I think this is what you need.
I've also been told the ingredients in the antacid tablets 'TUMS' have the same ingredients and (in a real pinch) can be ground up and used as emergency lime.
At 100X the cost of lime it would need to be a true emergency

 

[garybo]

Would love a recommendation to a good soil pH test device if possible

Catch the beginning of the run-off and read the ph. This will give you a "general" idea of the soils ph. Do this every time you feed. Eventually you will see a pattern of intake vs run-off. If runoff is light, then give the plant a tad more ph and if low, lower the ph in the food.
Or pay some big bucks and buy a ph soil test devise, don't waste money on the kit. Tried if a few yrs ago and it turned out to be trash.
Spark up

 

[MohaveCannasseur]

Ed, I've used the same soil many times over, three years in a row, easy. I always added organic nutrients, fishbone meal, blood meal, alfalfa meal etc. and mike o'rizey. But in particular I would always add a cup of lime to keep pH stable between 6.5 and 7. Used soil is great, it's alive, it has micro-organisms. So I don't agree completely.
Mike O’Rizey. Fantastic.

 

[Ups]

UPDATE:

Hello again,
Just keeping you all posted on the progress.
Since my last post I’ve only watered once being careful to monitor ph runoff. I added some lime to the soil as suggested and found the ph around 6.8 in the runoff. I didn’t feed either but it seems the issue is now effecting the top most leaves just around the main cola sites. I poured about 3L of clear water as per usual but I can’t tell if the plants are simply locked out, or if there just aren’t any nutrients left in my biobizz all mix soil that the plant has been sitting in for over 2 months now. The symptoms are slow acting it seems, but still we’re not going in the right direction for the girls to be as healthy as they could be.
It’s mainly this one plant that I’m seeing the most symptoms, the others have some symptoms as well but not as much.
Anyway here are some pics.

 

[ed the head]

Great news the pH is good.

Looking back, seems the first shots where 6 days ago? If so, I think she's improved quite a bit, no?

Anyhow thanks for the update and wishing you a fantastic harvest

 

[Emeraldo]

The light green looks like healthy leaf. Overall I'd say they are looking better. Is it not improving? It's not yellow or crusty brown looking like a deficiency, and I wouldn't expect the original edges to improve. Good pH number. Actually, your plants look pretty good and you'll have a good harvest methinks.

 

[SmokingWings]

I’ve had the signs for about a week now but haven’t been able to get any positive results so I’m turning now to you my fellow pot growers to help me get the best out of these buds.

The photos in the first msg look like the classic signs of a 3 to 4 week old Phosphorus deficiency. This is a common problem and we seem to see a message with similar photos show up every week to 10 days.

The plant needs more Phosphorus when it begins to flower and in the limited amount of soil in the current sized pots it can not get as much as it needs as fast as it needs it. The leaves suffer and yes, the buds will suffer. I really don't remember what can be done to slow down the problem and eliminate it and bring the plant back to a healthier condition. Maybe spending an hour or so scrolling through threads in this sub-forum and in the forums for soil grows and some of the threads from the summer will have suggestions. Just dumping a bunch of some nutrient mix into water is easy but is not the solution to the problem.

There are several charts or diagrams of common problems. It is would easy to find them when searching through messages. Store a copy on your computer or cell phone if phones can do that. Find a few copies of Mulder's Chart and save those. They will help with understanding the relationship between one macro or micro nutrient and another; as in to much of one can create a problem where the plant is unable to get as much as it need of another.

Catch the beginning of the run-off and read the ph. This will give you a "general" idea of the soils ph.

It will not tell the pH of the soil. It tells the pH of the water at that time. Add some more water, catch the run-through and measure again and the pH is changing. Wait an hour and do it again. Checking the water that runs through the next pot, which has the same soil mix in it, will probably give a different number.

I hate to bug @Emilya with this but she does have experience in explaining why a simple test of the water that runs through the soil does not tell us much, in anything. What really matters is that the pH of the water or the water & nutrient mix going in is acceptable; usually a reading close to 6.3 and the soil does the rest of the work.

There are some very experienced soil growers on this message board and many of them have not tested the pH of the water trapped in the saucer under the pot of soil mix in years.

 

[Emeraldo]

Would love a recommendation to a good soil pH test device if possible. I've been advised to continue the water runoff method but am open to trying something new if it works better.
Thanks!!

Ed, I bought one on amazon, wasn't cheap, around $60. But for me knowing the soil pH is worth that amount. I've stopped using the water pH device as it apparently adds little.

 

[ed the head]

Ed, I bought one on amazon, wasn't cheap, around $60. But for me knowing the soil pH is worth that amount. I've stopped using the water pH device as it apparently adds little.

Thanks, and understood posting the device probably prohibited under sponsor police guidelines. A little frustrated with this lately, seems to be doing more harm than good.

 

[Emilya Green]

I hate to bug @Emilya with this but she does have experience in explaining why a simple test of the water that runs through the soil does not tell us much, in anything. What really matters is that the pH of the water or the water & nutrient mix going in is acceptable; usually a reading close to 6.3 and the soil does the rest of the work.

There are some very experienced soil growers on this message board and many of them have not tested the pH of the water trapped in the saucer under the pot of soil mix in years.

Not a problem @SmokingWings, I am glad to help. I have NEVER checked my runoff pH because it makes no logical sense to do so. This is a technique that is used with COCO to tell how many nutes are in that water based system, but coco doesn't break down like soil does, and the runoff reading there does have significance. In soil, the organics break down in the fine little bits that flow out with the water to become part of the runoff. It works much like coffee through a percolator... the more water you use, the weaker the coffee becomes. The same thing happens with runoff in soil... that first little bit (that you heard was recommended to measure) is the strongest, and the more water you allow to flow through, the weaker the readings get. It is also to be noted that you are not measuring just nutes and water as in a COCO system, but you are also throwing into the mix all of the organic fines that flow through. At what reading does it relate to the soil pH? Since the pH of the soil is a function of how wet it is in any particular region or what organics happen to be in that part of the container, the functional pH of the soil is different, depending on where it would be measured. Another problem is that the base pH of the soil, or the average pH of the soil when it is dry, is not able to be measured by simply sticking a probe in there... at least not one that can be afforded by most of us. The common Slurry Method to measure a representative sample of the soil pH, does not give you the working pH... or the pH that the roots are seeing.

As said accurately above, by setting all of your incoming fluids to 6.3, you guarantee at that moment that the pH of your entire system is 6.3... because the water massively outweighs the soil and the pH of the entire column of saturated soil that you get after watering, has no choice but to be 6.3 pH. Shortly after watering, the buffers in the soil, mostly the lime in the soil mix, start to adjust the pH of that column of water/soil mix and the pH will begin to slowly rise. Also, as the plant starts to use the water, the top part of the container begins to dry out, and without the influence of the water, it will achieve the base pH of the soil, typically set to the high end of the 6.2-6.8 soil pH range. By using this system that soil was designed to provide for you, it is possible to water and 6.3 and then see the pH in any point in the container drift upwards toward 6.8 pH, allowing maximum uptake of each of the minerals needed. PH is presented to us as a range for a reason. Your goal should be to drift through the entire range with each watering cycle. The desired PH is a range, not a single number.

 

[Emilya Green]

Ed, I bought one on amazon, wasn't cheap, around $60. But for me knowing the soil pH is worth that amount. I've stopped using the water pH device as it apparently adds little.

Since the pH changes in the container depending on where you measure it, trying to measure local soil pH is really not going to tell you a lot about what is going on. Save your money... there is a better way, and that way has been used since we started using synthetic nutes that needed to be in a narrow pH range.

 

[Emeraldo]

The photos in the first msg look like the classic signs of a 3 to 4 week old Phosphorus deficiency. This is a common problem and we seem to see a message with similar photos show up every week to 10 days.

The plant needs more Phosphorus when it begins to flower and in the limited amount of soil in the current sized pots it can not get as much as it needs as fast as it needs it. The leaves suffer and yes, the buds will suffer. I really don't remember what can be done to slow down the problem and eliminate it and bring the plant back to a healthier condition. Maybe spending an hour or so scrolling through threads in this sub-forum and in the forums for soil grows and some of the threads from the summer will have suggestions. Just dumping a bunch of some nutrient mix into water is easy but is not the solution to the problem.

There are several charts or diagrams of common problems. It is would easy to find them when searching through messages. Store a copy on your computer or cell phone if phones can do that. Find a few copies of Mulder's Chart and save those. They will help with understanding the relationship between one macro or micro nutrient and another; as in to much of one can create a problem where the plant is unable to get as much as it need of another.

It will not tell the pH of the soil. It tells the pH of the water at that time. Add some more water, catch the run-through and measure again and the pH is changing. Wait an hour and do it again. Checking the water that runs through the next pot, which has the same soil mix in it, will probably give a different number.

I hate to bug @Emilya with this but she does have experience in explaining why a simple test of the water that runs through the soil does not tell us much, in anything. What really matters is that the pH of the water or the water & nutrient mix going in is acceptable; usually a reading close to 6.3 and the soil does the rest of the work.

There are some very experienced soil growers on this message board and many of them have not tested the pH of the water trapped in the saucer under the pot of soil mix in years.

@SmokingWings I mentioned the possible potassium deficiency in my first reply to this thread and am glad to see you think the same. But I would not advise ups to actually add K to the soil here. For one thing, there might be sufficient K in the soil but the plant cannot take it up because of lockout (too much fert can result in an excessively acidic soil, low soil pH, and the K that is there cannot be used). So adding more nutes isn't going to help. For another thing, just water might be enough (pH it if you want to, doesn't really matter, it's just busy work). If plain water doesn't bring them around, flushing the soil might help. But as several have mentioned, @Ups your plants don't really look all that bad.

 

[SmokingWings]

@SmokingWings I mentioned the possible potassium deficiency in my first reply to this thread and am glad to see you think the same. But I would not advise ups to actually add K to the soil here. For one thing, there might be sufficient K in the soil but the plant cannot take it up because of lockout (too much fert can result in an excessively acidic soil, low soil pH, and the K that is there cannot be used). So adding more nutes isn't going to help. For another thing, just water might be enough (pH it if you want to, doesn't really matter, it's just busy work). If plain water doesn't bring them around, flushing the soil might help. But as several have mentioned, @Ups your plants don't really look all that bad.

A little bit of confusion I guess; nothing major. You mentioned a Potassium (K) deficiency and my thoughts are that it is a Phosphorus deficiency (P). I am recommending a search of the other msgs discussing this same problem, at least by the way it looks, first before dumping more nutrients; mostly because I do not remember what can be done once the problem is seen in already flowering plants.

For one thing, there might be sufficient K in the soil but the plant cannot take it up because of lockout ...

Which is why I recommended we all find copies of Mulder's Chart and keep them handy. Some are easier to read & follow than others. Some of them are geared up towards the macro nutrients and some towards the micro nutrients. Looking at the charts I see that they all say that to much (P) can cause problems with how the plant takes up (K). And, (K) is more important to the life cycle of this plant than I originally gave it credit for when I first started a perpetual Cannabis plant grow in the basement in late 2017.

 

[Emeraldo]

Since the pH changes in the container depending on where you measure it, trying to measure local soil pH is really not going to tell you a lot about what is going on. Save your money... there is a better way, and that way has been used since we started using synthetic nutes that needed to be in a narrow pH range.

I see the source of our misunderstanding, @Emilya I grow using plain water; the nutrients are organic supplements mixed into the soil before and during the grow. It isn't necessary to pH the water, and knowing the soil pH is all that is needed. If using synthetic nutes, then pH and EC need rigorous attention, clearly.

 

[Ups]

Well I’ll be damned,

Thanks a lot everyone for your input and encouragements. There are a lot of things I know I’ll be doing differently my next grow. I’m not all that worried for my girls, but I do want to give them the best treatment. This has definitely generated a lot of good discussion and insights to what it takes to grow. I’ll be happy to update further down the road to keep you all satisfied for your time here on the thread.
I’ll keep doing my best and hopefully have some beautiful buds to show for it by harvest!
Thanks to everyone for the shared knowledge and experience!
Lighting one in your honor… as soon as I have some