Nitrogen Toxicity With Organic Hot Soil, Kind Soil: Please Help!

[Tfrank11498]

Hey guys, this is my first grow. I recently became a medical patient in Illinois and have just started to learn the basics of growing. So far I have 5 autoflower White Widows currently 8 weeks 2 days from seed. I also have 1 photo-period plant Big Tooth which was germinated and planted with the 5 other autoflower seeds but I didn't switch it to flower until I could cut my next round of clones from it. The Big Tooth is currently on week 2 of flower, just starting. Now for the set-up. I have 1 LED California Light Works Solar Storm 400w in my 5X5 grow tent. I followed the kind soil recommendations when planting and only filled my air-pots 1/3 full and then filled the rest with my Fox Farms CocoLoco. So initially all the plants were doing great, except I did have 1 of my autoflower white widows be very stunted from the very beginning along with mild burnt leave tips. This burning of the leave tips and stunted growth has persisted throughout the grow making it noticeably stunted and pretty bad leave burning now. I have been watering with PH'd water to 6.8 every watering and have given the plants nothing else. Id say within the last 2-3 weeks I've noticed that my other autoflowering plants seem to all have the same problem with light-green/dying leaves on the bottom of the plants slowly rising. I started noticing drooping leave tips on most of the plants and after turning the lights off today to look at the plants in natural lighting it looks like the leaves are suspiciously dark green. Again this is my first grow so I'm not too experienced. I took pictures today of all my girls and will be posting them below. Anyone have any idea if my hunch of nitrogen toxicity is correct? If so how did I get this with all the other environmental factors are fine and also how do I treat nitrogen toxicity in organic Kind Soil to save my babies!!! Help Please!

 

[Emilya Green]

Hi @Tfrank11498 and welcome to the forum!

Several things here that I have noted from your description of the situation. I am a long time organic grower and I have a good idea what is going wrong here. I think the stunting must be from not watering correctly since that is the most common way that new growers mess up their plants. How are you determining that it is time to water, and how much water do you give when you do water them? Second, why are you adjusting pH in an organic grow? The only reason we adjust pH is for chelated nutes from a bottle... since you are not feeding your plants with that stuff, you don't need to add microbe killing acid into your mix, the organic soil doesn't care what pH it is. Even if it were important to adjust the pH, you are adjusting to 6.8, almost outside of the usable pH range in soil. Shortly after your water hits that soil it will start to drift upwards in pH, right out of the usable range... but again, you are not feeding the plant, so even this high pH isn't going to cause a problem.

Next you talk of a suspicious dark green, but along with that you remind us that you are new and don't know if this is good or not. Also, since you are growing organically, it is the plants and the microbes in the soil making all the decisions as to how much nutrient it gets, so there really is nothing for you to adjust here.

You think you see nitrogen toxicity because of a few burned leaf tips. Every organic grow I have done has had the very same burned leaf tips, making it clear that this is a natural process that happens in soil that is minerally rich. It is my belief that this little bit of tip burn is the signal that the plant uses to pull back on the reins a bit, telling the microbes that they need to stop producing nutrients for a while. There is an adage that says if you aren't at least burning the tips, you aren't trying hard enough. Tip burn is not only not a problem, it is desirable, since most of us are trying to run these weeds right up to the edge. True nitrogen toxicity is way way worse than what you describe... the entire leaf will claw downward and canoe on itself. The green will be a deep forest green and usually the leaves will have an unnatural shine to them.
You have said nothing about your water, or your need to keep the microbes alive in that soil. Have you been using filtered water in this grow so that no chlorine touches your microbes in that kind soil? If you have been killing off your soil microbes, it is no wonder that the soil is starting to feel like it is unable to supply what is needed.

 

[Tfrank11498]

Thanks SOOOO much for such a fast reply! You're amazing. So watering for me I have been trying to judge the soil if it's still dry up to my knuckle of the top soil...I read that if you water too much to runoff you can wash away the good stuff in the soil so I've honestly been very cautious with the amount of water which may have been my biggest problem. So while the plants where seedlings in solo cups I gave them starting out 125g of water about every 3 days. After around 2 weeks I bumped the number up to 250g per watering, again I always waited until the top soil was completely visibly dry and dry down to my first knuckle. Once switched them to their 3gal pots I started giving them 500g of water per watering which is what they are at now. I personally have been super confused with the watering with HOW much and WHAT KIND of water and WHEN... so far this is the type of water my girls have gotten... I first bought a recommended carbon filter for $100 on amazon which I attached to my faucet, my town water is visibly yellow and terrible water in general. I read something that I should filter this water so I did that. This lasted around 3 weeks but became yellowed and ruined so I switched to bottled spring water I had on hand for the next 2 waterings and then the last watering I gave my girls the last of my purified water that I just realized was RO water.. Regardless of type of water I PH'd the water anywhere from between 6.0-6.8 every time because I read that I needed to keep it in that range even for an organic grow. Is this not the case? Because I'm growing in organic kind soil I don't HAVE to PH my water is what you're saying?

 

[Tfrank11498]

I do have the specific "canoe" effect on one of my plants downward which just started within the last few days along with leaf tips pointed down. Is that still normal? I can attach a picture for you to see too! Thanks!!!

 

[Tfrank11498]

UPDATE: After 4 days it looks like the clawing is getting a little worse. Please help

 

[Emilya Green]

You are watering all wrong is all, and I suggest that you read my watering thread and learn about the wet/dry cycle and how to properly water a weed. The link is down below. Also to answer your earlier question, in an organic grow, pH is unimportant, and I really doubt that it is the issue here.

 

[013]

Hi Tfrank!

Welcome to 420, Congrats on your plants!

You indicted that you filled the bottom 1/3rd with kind soil then added coco loco to fill the container. The kind soil has natural ingredients (nutrients) to feed your plants, but coco is totally inert - there is nothing in the top 2/3rds of your container to nourish the plants. I know this mix was recommended by kind soil.

Plants can grow in 100% coco but you must bottle feed nutrients mixed into your water. Also, when growing in 100% coco - the plants need to be watered every day... but please note-... this concept of watering coco every day directly collides with the fundamentals of a soil grow where one builds the wet / dry cycle. The environment of your grow did nothing to help or hurt nitrogen toxicity, in your case it’s all about the intersection of kind soil, coco loco and water.

Copied from kind soil site...
Your plant will always have the nutrients it needs and the ability to drink fresh clean water as it requires, eliminating chemical burns or build up issues.

It’s time to contact kind soil with... I followed your directions but it’s not working!

Caveat emptor...

Hopefully you can grow the plants out to a successful harvest.