Hi Gee, there is trouble in paradise. I have just noticed that this spotting is coming in. The canopy is level and chockablock so it's a bit hard to see which node the leaves are at. I think it is creeping up. Anyway I gave the plant a dose of calmag with a thorough watering (bag was dry). Did I do the right thing?
Incidentally, I think that this might be unrelated to coming off the swick. The soil probably needs a bump because the plant has filled the bag and gone to flower. Today was the first proper sighting of pistils in the flower spots.
What can you recommend please?
Ok first I have to say I have never grown an auto so if it were a photo-period I would say definitely a calcium problem.
Thats 100% consistent with every swick I have grown so far.
Calmag should work perfectly. Without topwatering you never get the opportunity to water in ewc or compost or top dressing so calcium always runs out.
In organics its best if it's added from the top.
As for the soil I think 2 things are probably happening.
One is that you could very well be low on nutes left in the pot.
The other is that if the entire top half of the pot went bone dry like mine did, then all your microbes above the water roots have gone dormant.
They aren't dead as drought came on gradually. They are just dormant.
So this is what I did.
After shaving the water roots I poured 2 gallons of water very slowly through the 2 gallon pot and had a plastic basin under it to catch the runoff.
Very gentle, you only want water to come out, not muddy water full of nutes.
Then I left it overnight to soak it up and dumped the rest out.
That fully rehydrated the entire rootball and awoke the microbes/myco.
Then I gently poured in a litre of water with fish ferts in it and didn't catch the runoff.
Then I added ewc to the top and watered it in but you could use any good top dressing that is calcium rich if you have no ewc. Or get thru on regular feedings of calmag.
You need to bring the pot back to life before you start feeding it.
It seems to have worked as the buds are coming in right on schedule so far but man the plant looks like $hit. Its praying pretty good and all that stuff but its scarred lol. They both are.
The one that I left in a small swick, I fully topwatered it in it's 20 litre swick before I ripped it out and put it in a 3 litre swick. Then added the fish ferts.
Now I will just keep adding ewc and topdressing, and keep using fish ferts until the last 2 weeks when it only gets water. Hopefully it keeps growing. Only top watering from now on unless I see need for a rootball drench. I rootball drench small pots a lot.
But I gotta say, and I'm giggling pretty hard as I say this... THEY ARE SAD UGLY MOFO'S!
Its weird, aesthetically the leaves are so sad, but the plant is very robust, very perky, and flowering beautifully. They are 3 weeks into flower today and the buds are pretty much right where they should be. I need to check their brix.
The plant looks ok other than this. It's in good health. I was just wondering if there was a nute issue I should address.
