Hey BK909 how are you? Hope all is well outside of the growing. Regarding some of the things you said, I may or may not be able to help, but I'll give it a shot. It would be a lot easier to help you for me and anyone else if you post a picture of the damage you are referring to, just fyi. So....
- Do you have more than one plant in the living soil? I thought it was the Slurricane but now I'm confused
Answer: My Slurricane is the only photo in the Sohum living soil, but the Sour Apple auto in the Auto rig is also in Sohum. Both are doing amazingly well. I would argue that the Sour Apple, which I am quite familiar with by now, is frosting up at a significantly faster rate than in the past. The frost also appears to be a thicker coating than I have seen on this strain in the past. Keep in mind that I have grown this strain under the EXACT same conditions on every level, but in my Fox Farms soil mix with Fox Farms nutes. Definitely more frost in the Sohum. So I'm getting sold on the Sohum rather quickly and will be using 4 cubic feet of it in the outdoor grow.
- Slight rust on some of the fan leaves which I'm not happy about but all in all they are a huge improvement over the previous 4.
Answer: It sounds from the sum of the post as if you are using Cal Mag, and maybe the plus Iron, regularly. Is this the case? If so, I would suggest discontinuing that practice. Try not using it for a week or a couple waterings. The rust you are referring to MAY, and let me stress MAY, be a result of an excess of Iron. And if you are experiencing a slowdown in growth, or stalling of growth altogether, that may be a sign of Calcium and Magnesium overload. Are your leaves especially dark green? That's almost a sure sign of too much Magnesium. If they are dark green ( I'm talking darker green than they should be ) AND they are wilting, it's a pretty fair indicator that there's too much Calcium too. I stopped using Cal Mag and particularly Cal Mag plus Iron that I use, as a preventative, for exactly this reason. Now I use it only when it seems the plants need it. For example, I had to water Chunky this morning. I looked at her closely. While the upper leaves are beginning to green back up properly a little since I moved her down from the light to the correct level, I felt that overall the entire plant could and likely should be just a little greener than she is. That says to me Magnesium deficiency just starting, so fix it. I did. I added a tsp. of the CalMag plus Iron to her gallon today. Now I will see what the difference, if any, there is in a couple days.
- The damage looks similar to what you showed in your post above, but much more pronounced.
Answer: If you just switched out the light and you know you had the plants too close before the switch, it may, and again I say MAY, be a combination of light related issues. One, the too close to the light. It sounds like maybe you have corrected that. What, if anything, are you testing the par level at canopy level with? Did you download that Phototone app? Or are you using your eyes? DOWNLOAD A PAR METER is my strong suggestion if you haven't. Here's how I look at it: you wouldn't guess at when you reached 6.3 ph with Up and Down, would you? Of course not. That's why you have a PH test pen. Would you guess at when the pot is dry enough to water again? I wouldn't. That's why I have the same water gauge that almost everyone seems to use, with the long tongs and the green head that you stick in the soil as deep as you wish to test the moisture level. If you don't have one of these, get one. That is not a maybe, that's a do it today. They are ten bucks on Amazon. Don't guess about watering, test. As you seem to be. So all that said, why would anyone CHOOSE to guess on their lights? That's the single most important element of the entire grow!!!! So you are well served, trust me on this one, to use a par meter to dial in the lights. If you have the app or one like it that works, for your budding girls, you can't go wrong if you set the par level at 1000-1100. That will not be too much light for any plant in budding. It's safe and effective. The other light issue to be aware of is heat. You can't, and let me stress CAN'T, let the temperature of your leaves get higher than 85 degrees without Co2. If you do the plant will almost entirely cease to grow properly and you will start to see first the damage like what you are describing. So test the temperature at the upper most tip of the tallest bud. If it is higher than 85 degrees in an otherwise properly temped tent, you need to move the plants further away from the light. Again, trust me on this one. On this, I know what the hell I am talking about. If you attend to these two issues you MAY see an improvement. The bounceback to proper green on the upper leaves is dependent entirely on when you caught it and fixed it. In my case I caught it way early and the leaves are bouncing back to proper green. If yours is worse, it's possible they never get green and will die and crisp off over time. That's okay. If you fixed all the light issues you should see the new leaves to be popping out green and staying green.
- I think I'm going to abandon the sunlight portion of this grow
Answer: I faced a similar decision last time. I chose to abandon the outdoor portion for exactly the reasons you describe. The plants need consistency. IF you have a good light and IF you can easily move the plant from sun to LED (I'll be showing this in the outdoor grow, wait til you see what I am working on now...), then yes, I would stay with the natural sun. But it sounds more like the outdoor isn't particularly effective at this point, and given the season it won't get better, only worse. So if I were you, I would go all LED as you suggest. Sounds to me like it'll both be way easier and more effective. And I suspect the plants will respond favorably to the consistency of the light.
I think that covers all the things I MAY be able to help with. I'm not an expert on anything, but you know that. That said, if you think I'm onto anything with any of this, my suggestion would be to bounce it off someone else who knows better than me, which is most people. Lol. If you get a few "yeah, that's probably rights" you'll feel more confident than just depending on one person's answer. If not, you'll know how little I actually know.
Go for it man! Love the attention you're paying to the girls.
