I fed them 5 days early and that was last Monday and I havent really seen much improvement. I think the big mistake I made was flushing at the flower transition, it may have washed all the nutrients out of the soil. This is my first organic grow and until that flush everything was watered a good amount but with no runoff. Just makes me mad because everything was going so well, but now I know what not to do on the next one. Growing pains lol
Hey
@Costanza - so based on your comment in the other thread I was checking out the Zkittlez journal and got this far. I thought this was the appropriate spot to share one nugget I have learned about growing organic in soil....
I never flush organic.
I rarely water to more than a 1/4 inch of runoff
Exactly for the reason you're musing on here. There's not enough window time with autos to wash all the microbes out and start over. Not that you can really wash all the microbes out, but you see what I mean. I don't take the chance on "diluting my soil of nutrients" by flushing. Unlike liquid nutes like Fox Farms, when you reapply a new feeding after a flush of the microbe rich nutes, they still take a few days to multiply and inhabit the entire pot, and begin to work as they're supposed to. So with photos - fine. Not autos. The only reason to flush, ever, with soil is to eliminate salt buildup. That's it. With organic, at least I have found, there isn't any. I have worked my Sohum soil plants (all autos so far except the Slurricane in the photoperiod tent journal), as well as the photos in flower that live outdoors but are getting
@GeoFlora Nutrients, basically anything organic, in the same way and following those two "maxims." I might make one exception if I had been using a ton of molasses in flower for weeks on a plant, which I do sometimes, and do a one time 7 or 8 gallon flush for a five - like a pot and half's worth of water. But I would only do that if the plant started showing me signs of a problem, and a ton of molasses, in my experience at least, can sometimes give you that. If you flush at the very end one time it wouldn't affect anything, and I suppose another exception would be if you're crazy like me and are doing things like adding chemical nutes in flower to boost otherwise organic plants. If you do that stuff, as I do, then you might consider a flush at the end. Just my two cents on this.
Here's a couple other things I do relative to using Geo nutes for you to toss around your brain if you like that might help you with Geo nutes. As you know the prescribed schedule is to feed one cup (for a ten gallon container) every two weeks. I adjusted the schedule in two very small ways, and have taken to doing a few other thing that seem to work really well.
1. I feed every 13 days, not 14. Small upwards adjustment.
2. I'm in 7s, so I should be giving 70% of a cup with each feeding. I give 3/4, ie 75%. Small upwards adjustment.
3. I add to the Geo nutes a "bud boost" I kinda made up in the first couple weeks after they begin to show actual buds. My current Raspberry Parfait got this treatment the other day with her second Bloom nute application - it's outlined in my outdoor journal if you wanna check it out. I haven't had an issue on a single plant with this extra nute bump yet. I also have yet to see a blemish at any point on any plant that got this treatment.
4. I consistently give the plants sugar in bud. Once they have formed actual buds, maybe three-four weeks into flower, I start with a tbsp. of Terpinator and a tbsp. of molasses per gallon of water with each nute feeding. Generally I don't have to water this plant, nature does, but I do when I feed cuz duh, you just top dressed/amended, right?
All of this post are things I do that seem to be keeping me from developing the (what looks to me like) yellowing and stunted growth from underfeeding that could have been what happened here. Consistently yellow leaves like that often mean the plant is out of nutes and has begun to feed on itself, drawing the nutes out of the lower leaves first. It could have been underfed for a while. It also appears that affected your density, as I'm sure you expected and should have denser buds, yes? Or am I wrong?
I did to my first try at Pineapple Express exactly what you did to these plants. The exact same thing happened. i put them outside to finish for the last three weeks, and kept them watered and upped the nutes, and they recovered a bit and still produced decent buds. With autos you can get away with that crap, so there's one idea if you can do it outdoors where you are to try and "save" an auto a little bit. The sun seems to have a rejuvenating effect on any auto I started in LED and moved outside for whatever reason.
Anyway, I ain't got much, but there's a little of what I do have you may find helpful.
