Help with Ace Panama strain - She's acting up

[Weaselcracker]

I'm wondering if anyone who has grown this strain has some tips or can guess what I'm doing wrong with it.
I would not create this thread if I didn't care about this strain. But there's something about it I love. This is my first time growing it and I have one 2/3 of the way through flowering. I also have three young clones in veg which are showing spots and what looks like calcium deficiency for no good reason.

The problem in a nutshell - Panama is showing all kinds of issues. All the rest of my plants are happy.

My first theory was that she liked a slightly different ph from all the other plants. Which would be weird, but not impossible I guess.

Now I'm wondering if I'm not just starving her. I have been feeding her at the same levels which have worked well for my other sativas for years, including Mama Thai, Golden Tiger, and Malawi among others. That's about 1.4 EC.

I just recently read Carestaker say that he fed his Panama 'heavily'. So I'm second guessing myself now. It would make more sense than the ph idea. I've just never grown a sativa that was happy being fed anything close to heavily.

It's been showing spots for over a month, which at first I thought were calcium deficiency. I think maybe some of the issues actually are Ca def but now it has progressed and there is a mix of stuff going on and it's obvious that I'm not meeting her needs.

Maybe she has different needs than the other plants in my grow?

I started a thread about the suspected 'calcium deficiency' and I'll plagiarize that for this thread. The photos shown mostly are not calcium def I realize now.

This problem is only showing up in my Panama. I haven't had any calcium issues in years, it's just this one strain.
This is my first round growing Panama. I have 15 other strains growing right now including a couple other pure sativas.

I am growing in sunshine mix - peat moss and perlite soilless. HPS lights. All plants are getting about 5 ml/gallon of calmag and I don't think lack of cal/mag is the issue.

My operating theory was that this strain likes a slightly different ph than the rest of my strains. I usually ph around 5.6 and everyone has been happy with that till now.

Young clone leaf

The one in flowering.

Ok here are some pics of the flowering girl. It does look different than the typical calcium deficiency rust spots now that i have her in better light and I'm there taking photos....or maybe I'm just second guessing myself again.
In real life the spots look slightly browner than in the photos. Hmmmm. ...

Ok that was eight days ago. Here are some pics from tonight.

-Flowering Panama-

-The rest of the flowering plants all look happy. Panama is to the right of centre, if it's not obvious.

Thanks if you made this far.

 

[Richard Richardson]

I had a Jack Herer Sativa pheno and had issues like that, but much earlier, just before flowering. Added a scientific amount of Palm ashes and Bat Guano to her water and the issues mostly cleared up.

It could be her position, right below the exhaust, causing more transpiration?

Maybe she is just a heavy feeder and you are starving her!

I would pinch off all the zombie leaves, they are an invitation to a party.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Thanks RR. Yeah I'm thinking you are probably right. You know how you kind of work out the answer to a problem as you're busy explaining it? The starvation theory would explain a lot. I never had any sort of a sativa heavy feeder before. She got slight nute burn in early flowering and I've been going even a little lighter than usual on this one. Up until a few days ago it was just spotting and minor issues, but I fed pretty light on the last feeding as well. Maybe she just got hungrier as flowering progressed, and I wasn't there for her.

 

[Richard Richardson]

Is she in a slightly smaller pot than the others on her side?

 

[Weaselcracker]

Ok I got an email from Ace in reply to my stoned ramblings last night, which confirms the feeding theory.

Good morning.

Yes, Malawi and Thais need much lesser EC levels than Panama,
Malawi and pure Thais usually work well around 0.6 EC (with soft N for the whole cycle),
although some Malawi phenos can accept higher levels of nutrientes (of around 1-1.2 EC) especially in the last 2/3 of flowering.

Panama needs really high levels of nutrientes for both macro NPK and micronutrients, an EC around 1.2-1.8 is recommended for their flowering.

I don't know if Luis has his actual EC numbers right or not because they seem a little off, and I know the Ace grow is more of an organic style soil style and they probably don't deal with EC, but it tells me everything I need to know, in a relative sense.

 

[Weaselcracker]

Is she in a slightly smaller pot than the others on her side?

Good eye. Yes she is. Seven gallon and most of the rest are ten.
Before Christmas I put her in flowering and went away for the holidays leaving my lovely assistant to hold down the grow. When I got back she had bolted. Both of them actually. One girl had gone off to party somewhere in a different town, and the other had grown a little too big for her pot, and stretched a bunch. I've debated transplanting her ever since but it was borderline so I left her.
The other girl is doing fine.

 

[Richard Richardson]

I've debated transplanting her ever since but it was borderline so I left her.

Something in the way you feed her won't' let her be She doesn't want to be your prisoner, so Weasel, won't you set her free?

You just kept on pushing her roots over the borderline

 

[Weaselcracker]

So, on another tangent, I wonder wtf am I going to do with this monster I have created?
Neanderthal with x-acto knife who didn't do homework goes grafting.

A -chop the Panama head off her, and just have the Panama rootstock, and maybe graft something else on there instead.
(Might still not make a difference to the feeding level disparity - since I've still got the Panama root system )

B -carry on and hope that they'll equalize their diets somehow, since they share a body.


EDIT- got some good advice and it sounds like the rootstock (Panama) is what calls the shots, and the grafted on strains will follow without ill effects. So that's good news.