The pointlessness of chasing deficiencies & lockouts - Time to try hormones?

[TheFertilizer]

So at a certain point, there seems to be the same solution for every deficiency or lockout problem... Either 1) Give it a complete fertilizer with everything cannabis needs or 2) Flush the pot and reset the soil environment.

Well what do you do when neither of these is helping? Excessive leeching of the soil will just cause more deficiencies and lockouts so one can't just keep doing that, and then if there's already all of the elements you need in the nutrients you're using, adding more will just contribute to more lockout.

Not really sure what to do at that juncture, and it seems pointless to try to figure out what specific deficiency or lock-out it is since the treatment is always the same. Once you've tried flushing and giving it everything it needs nutrient wise, where do you go from there?

Thinking about getting a bottle of Superthrive or De-Shock or something like that with vitamins and hormones. I've heard a lot of talk about these reinvigorating sick and ailing plants, but it kind of sounds like snakeoil to me.

 

[blue rust]

re: The pointlessness of chasing deficiencies & lockouts - Time to try hormones?

Following, hope there's an answer out there.

 

[Weaselcracker]

re: The pointlessness of chasing deficiencies & lockouts - Time to try hormones?

Are you taking about soil growing specifically. - as in real soil, not soilless? Good soil mixes should contain a lot of what cannabis needs- at least for the first half of its life. Lots of variety among souls though.
There can be many other environmental issues, such as root issues caused by overwatering- aggravated by flushing. Ph. Etc.
I've had deficiencies from underfeeding, ph troubles (mainly), underfeeding calmag supplements, underfeeding N, underfeeding P... Its not always the same answer.
But I'm not growing in soil. I'm in soilless- peatmoss/perlite.

 

[TheFertilizer]

re: The pointlessness of chasing deficiencies & lockouts - Time to try hormones?

Are you taking about soil growing specifically. - as in real soil, not soilless? Good soil mixes should contain a lot of what cannabis needs- at least for the first half of its life. Lots of variety among souls though.
There can be many other environmental issues, such as root issues caused by overwatering- aggravated by flushing. Ph. Etc.
I've had deficiencies from underfeeding, ph troubles (mainly), underfeeding calmag supplements, underfeeding N, underfeeding P... Its not always the same answer.
But I'm not growing in soil. I'm in soilless- peatmoss/perlite.

I'm not sure, is Happy Frog a soil or soil-less? it's pretty heavily peatmoss based. A grower friend who turned me on to all of this basically told me to find a soil that had virtually no nutrients, that was more or less inert, and then feed it nutrients like it was hydro. That was working great for me for a long time. I'd get an uptake issue, but flushing and resetting the root environment worked more or less every time. I only would need to do it once or twice through a cycle, so I could get away with the compaction and stuff like that.

This time around I'm using Ocean Forrest, and I know that I was supposedly supposed to be able to use plain water. I did that for a few weeks, and I don't think my plant was very big, but even going from 3 gallons of flushed Ocean Forrest into 4 gallons of fresh Ocean Forrest, it didn't seem to be uptaking any more. So I've been kind of wondering what could be going on with the root system for a while now, but there doesn't really seem to be any answer on how to treat it even if I do identify any particular answer. That's the biggest issue, is that it all seems to come back to "Feed it what it needs, or flush it so the pH is right," but once those two things are met and there's still uptake problem... Then what? My troubleshooting knowledge ends there.

I'm thinking foliar feeding is the answer. If the plant can't get what it needs from the roots, it has a secondary intake system. Soil growers always insist on feeding the soil and not the plant, but I mean, if the plant is dying then maybe it needs to be triaged. After all if it's a symbiosis, the soil environment won't fair well with a big dying plant living in it. I did try my idea a few weeks back, and it seemed to be working but I assumed once it was potted into this new soil it would establish itself and grow fine, but the longer I waited the more this stuff progressed and now I'm thinking I need to go back to foliar feeding.

I just don't know like, how to judge when it is "recovered" I guess, because obviously can't rely on it through flower. I did get some Superthrive, hoping that it somehow does some miracle snake oil magic but I'm not holding my breath.

I'm not specifically blaming Ocean Forrest, I'm sure it's a great soil if you know how to use it. I got use to Happy Frog, and I guess if you treat Ocean Forrest like Happy Frog, you're going to have some kind of f'd up uptake problems. To me it's like almost across the board, C, Mg, P and K are all showing blocked, the soil pH won't budge down from 7 according to meters, though runoff always measures same as the mixed solution. Been flushed so much that I don't think doing any more would be beneficial, plus it's all scrogged up now anyway, so I gotta find a different way to treat it than flushing.

Whoops sorry for the long post... This ATF is 70/30 sativa/indica dominant and I can tell.

 

[Weaselcracker]

re: The pointlessness of chasing deficiencies & lockouts - Time to try hormones?

Hmmm. Ok well first of all there's a Huge difference between organic soil grows where people 'feed the soil and let it feed the plant', and soilless- which is what your friend is describing.

True soil uses the soil ph range, but has a lot of buffering qualities that make it generally unnecessary to check ph, and uses a whole different approach.

Soilless uses the hydro ph range, and is basically an inert mass to hold roots and provide aeration. Ph control is very important.

If your runoff is 7 in soil that should be totally fine.

I'd find it hard to flush a plant that much without overwatering. Overwatering is one of the only ways to cause a plant to die, and I'm wondering if that's what's going on, if you say your plant is dying. I don't know what the circumstances are of your grow- but that sounds like a crazy amount of watering in a large pot- especially one that's been a recent transplant and didn't have time to grow a full root system. If the roots are rotting out then you might be best to cut back the roots, repot it into drier medium, and/or take some clone cuttings to start again.
Either that or just layoff the watering and keep it as dry as possible for a whil. Not the greatest time to be flowering though, in general, if your plant is having issues.

 

[TheFertilizer]

re: The pointlessness of chasing deficiencies & lockouts - Time to try hormones?

Hmmm. Ok well first of all there's a Huge difference between organic soil grows where people 'feed the soil and let it feed the plant', and soilless- which is what your friend is describing.

True soil uses the soil ph range, but has a lot of buffering qualities that make it generally unnecessary to check ph, and uses a whole different approach.

Soilless uses the hydro ph range, and is basically an inert mass to hold roots and provide aeration. Ph control is very important.

If your runoff is 7 in soil that should be totally fine.

I'd find it hard to flush a plant that much without overwatering. Overwatering is one of the only ways to cause a plant to die, and I'm wondering if that's what's going on, if you say your plant is dying. I don't know what the circumstances are of your grow- but that sounds like a crazy amount of watering in a large pot- especially one that's been a recent transplant and didn't have time to grow a full root system. If the roots are rotting out then you might be best to cut back the roots, repot it into drier medium, and/or take some clone cuttings to start again.

Yeah I was thinking over-watering too because she was looking really happy in her 7 gallon pot when I was using my moisture meter to tell when to water. But you can still kind of see some of the discoloration starting...

Well then I decided to scrog her up, and same watering schedule, but now she looks super over-watered and the discoloring is worse. Hard to get a sense of the color issue with the HPS (It's not in 12/12 yet, I decided not to flip until it's better but only after changing the bulb), but the tops of those chutes ( which are middle growth on the branches ) are yellowing out from petiole to tip (sulfur), the leaf fringes are fading to yellow (Magnesium), getting dark necrotic spots on the leaves ( Potassium ), the stems and petioles are purple/red ( Phosphorous ), and well... I mean the list could probably go on. Now today there's this weird copper/rust looking mark going along the vein.

But yeah luckily I did take some clones off of it but I'm trying to get it flowered out because I'm out of medicine. At this point I'm wondering if I should just go for broke and flower it and get what I get out of it, focus on the clones. But I scrogged it up trying to maximize yield, and gave it a big 7 gallon smart pot to get big roots, so it seems like a waste not to try to correct it in veg before flipping over.

I mean, I don't want to blame it on Ocean Forrest, but all I know is that I bought some more Happy Frog for the clones and they're staying in that through flower. Had much better success with that on my last grow. Seems like as soon as I started messing with the Ocean Forrest I culled 5/6 of my crop. Those were all Platinum Girl Scout Cookies, this one is a Blackberry Kush and was the only one that was doing any good at all.

Could be some kind of late acting disease too, because I had been reusing the happy frog soil that I initially planted my last plants in, and it had been used once before that, so yeah long story short there's no shortage of "it could be" answers.

I do know it started looking better when I was foliar feeding it. So I'm going back to that. Also ditching the meter and waiting until I see her wilt to water. It's literally the only way I don't get fooled into over-watering.

 

[Weaselcracker]

re: The pointlessness of chasing deficiencies & lockouts - Time to try hormones?

Did you slow down on watering while you let the root systems grow to fill the bigger pot? You generally do need to- because obviously you've got over twice as much soil and the same plant - so it will take twice as long to drink a pot full. Best actually to up-pot into moist soil- then water as little as possible for the couple weeks after that.
I don't see any dying going on. OF is high in N and more of a veg mix. I'd just watch the overwatering and veg longer and she'll probably sort herself out.

 

[TheFertilizer]

re: The pointlessness of chasing deficiencies & lockouts - Time to try hormones?

Did you slow down on watering while you let the root systems grow to fill the bigger pot? You generally do need to- because obviously you've got over twice as much soil and the same plant - so it will take twice as long to drink a pot full. Best actually to up-pot into moist soil- then water as little as possible for the couple weeks after that.
I don't see any dying going on. OF is high in N and more of a veg mix. I'd just watch the overwatering and veg longer and she'll probably sort herself out.

Ah I had it mixed up I thought Ocean Forrest was better for flowering.

I can't definitely tell where the roots are more dense when using my moisture meter, and it doesn't seem like they've rooted into the outer layer of the plant much. I decided to get some Superthrive and to foliar feed, because it just seems like it's hurting not getting anything while the root situation is all screwed up. She was looking happy last time I was foliar feeding doing it about twice a day, so I think I should continue it while I let the pot dry way out.

 

[Weaselcracker]

re: The pointlessness of chasing deficiencies & lockouts - Time to try hormones?

Im not a soil grower as I might have mentioned. I only know OF from the many posts I've read on the forum - and it looks to be high in N, but I've never checked it out personally - so it's worth verifying.
The best way to get roots to spread is to not overwater. I think she'll turn around when moisture conditions improve.