Just started 3rd week of flower. She’s a durban poison photo, in 5 gal hempy with 3:1 perlite/vermiculite. Right now nutes are GH flora 3 part with cal mag, silica, hydroguard, and terpinator. All mixed per directions in 5.8 pH’d RO water, diluted down to 500 ppm.
Last week nutes were about 700 ppm. According to the GH feeding chart for the 3rd week of flower to drop ppm’s. I started seeing some nute burn on older leaves a couple weeks ago so flushed her out, diluted nute res down and she was much happier.
Towards the end of last week I noticed the tips on new growth getting lighter. I thought it may have been due to my light as it was uniform around all the bud sites at the top of the canopy. I moved the light back to 30″ and it seems to be getting worse.
I flushed her res out again last night in case it was nutes again but in checking her initial runoff pH was 5.89, ppm’s were 680ish which made sense as she was getting about 700 ppm and had only one feeding at 500 ppm. After flushing her res out ppm’s were mid 300’s.
Not sure what to make of it since she’s not getting that hot of a mix. Wondering if I should dilute my nute res down lower then 500 ppm or turn my lights down.
Looking for some input as this is my first grow and super excited to see buds growing but now concerned. I want to finish strong.
I wouldn’t mess with the light, definitely looks like a nute burn, but more like walking the line. I don’t have experience with your system, but I would feed at a lower ppm. 300 sounds good. Really nothing to worry about man, looks like you’re doing well.
Feed charts are usually much higher than the average home grower should be using. It really depends on so many environmental factors as to what the best dosage is, but it’s best to add less and let the plants tell you if it’s not enough. These girls are gonna do fine🤙🏼
Ok, I think that is my plan to dilute my nute res down lower, 300ppm sounds good to me. Any chance this could be due to not enough nutes though? I’ve been reading through tons of posts it seems some people identify this kind of issue in flower as a deficiency.
Like I said I’m going to dial it back since from my understanding it’s easier to correct a deficiency rather then a toxcity. Would that be correct?
Yep, much easier.
The closest deficiency to that would be potassium, looks like nute burn sometimes, but it usually effects more than just the tip and would have really been more evident by now.
Ok, will dilute my nute res when I get home and see how she does the rest of this week. Thank you for the advice bud!
Also, potassium would effect lower leaves as it’s a mobile element.
Possibly just showing the ph issue from possible build up of salts. Be sure to water a good bit of run off when you feed. Then a flush every now and again will help. Checking runoff will give you an idea of the root zone ph and ppm. If 5.8 in and lower out then getting to low if its coming out a bit higher then you know at least what root zone is doing and you can adjust watering up a little ph probably wouldn’t want to water in lower ph than what you are. Just a good flush in that case. Ppm gives you an idea of how much build up is in the root zone not much on what it was eating. The bottle is balanced feeding and it over compensates and what’s left is in different proportions messing up the fresh dose. Good flush and check run off of flush for ppm and ph just to see what’s coming out. Then nutrient dose they should be feeding heavy 500ppm shouldn’t be burning them.
Good point JC, I wouldn’t think 500ppm is too much. Maybe this brings up an oxygen and water temp question? Lack of oxygen usually shows calcium deficiency though right? Idk without knowing environment details and plant size it’s just speculation. Maybe a topic to dive into if lowering the pom doesn’t work…🤷🏻♂️
I gotta ask… Are you using good quality PH and TDS meter(s) that are calibrated and stored properly? 500ppm is not very much for a week 3 flowering plant, so my mind jumps to a lockout and the easiest way to induce a lockout is to think you’re at 5.8PH, when you’re really at 4.8 or 7.8 or something. The cheap chinese ebay pens are horrible for reliability. This happened to me last year when my $60 Oakton PH meter shit the bed. Replaced it with a $200 Blue labs dual meter and calibrate every few weeks. The oakton was much better than the yellow-with-a-black-cap ebay special, but the Blue Labs is super nice and has a replaceable PH probe. You get what you pay for!! And have the good old PH drops on standby! They are a sanity check, for sure!
Another good point been in the same boat. Those yellow with the black cap ph pens get thrown against the wall lol. Had one that worked great till it didn’t then second one reads like my grandma so slow and now replaceable probe that i wash and change storage solution often.
Water temp/oxygen one thing we always seem to negate. Just have to start with enough oxygen i don’t think your going to exchange much air in the medium between waterings. And another reason to flush new nutrients about 30% to get rid of any stale water.
Well my feeding schedule is automated daily. I have a 20gal res with 2 six inch airstones and recirculating pump to keep aerated and nutes mixed up and another pump in the bottom that pumps a fair amount of nutes to her and the runoff is usually quite a bit. My tent is in a secluded room in my basement that is usually around the mid 50 degree F mark and the water is the same. It’s a room that is located under my porch and is surrounded by cement walls, cement floor and metal ceiling. It gets and stays very cold in this room. My tent is in there and has foam board insulation surrounding it to retain the heat. I vent in and out of the tent through a wall I built in the entrance to this room so I could install a door.
So the nutes being pumped to her should be cold enough to bring res temp down as well as having oxygen in it. This is my thought at least. With that setup does that or could that rule out oxygen and res temp issues?
I got my pens off of amazon and didn’t spend much so I’m sure these are the ones you are speaking of. I do calibrate my ph pen before I mix up my nutes and check PH in my nute res througout the week. I can’t speak to the accuracy of either other then I haven’t had any issues up until this point. When I calibrate it’s rarely off by much if any.
Yeah all that sounds good. What’s the temp and humidity in the tent? What lights do you use?
As said, 500 ppm doesn’t sound like a lot, but it’s all in relation to the plant metabolism, so a slow moving plant at 500 ppm might show burn while a fast moving plant may show deficiencies. Your methods sound on point man.
Lights –
I run 4 qb304’s 2700k at about 50% and 1 qb96 5000k strip at 100% which with that driver is 40w. Light is 3×3 with the 304’s on the corners and the 96 in the middle. The plant is placed in the middle under it and is about 30″ from the canopy.
Environment –
Tent is a 4×4, humidty stays in the low 50’s right now, at times will dip into the high 40’s. The temp is mid to high 70’s during lights on and low to mid 70’s when lights off.
While we were on the subject of ph and ec meters, is Bluelabs a good brand? I’m going to pull the trigger on some new ones so I can rule this out and not have to worry about that being a factor now or again.
I want to say…my advice is based off of my own experience of seeing similar symptoms and the remedy was less nutes. However a week 3 flowering plant should be near peak ppm then less is needed in later stages, in my experience anyway.
There are other symptoms I see in the pics that may or may not be related; a whole plant pic would help. There’s a few possibilities covered so that should at least lead you to finding a solution. Knowing the grow environment would help narrow it down.
I don’t see a way to attach a whole plant pic unless I’m missing something. Also in my last reply I gave details of my environment unless is there something else I should be including?
Yeah we must have been typing at the same time lol.
Yeah blue labs and hanna are the best brands for tds/ec and ph readings.
All sounds good bro, update us on your progress👍🏼
Sounds like your doing things great. Blue lab is top of the line. Sounds like salt build up maybe. Be interesting to see flush ppm out the bottom. Maybe a little higher day time temps for increased growth but nothing to do with tip color.
I just flushed/diluted the res last night. Last bit of runoff I got was 380ish ppm and 5.89ph.
Might need to add some sort of flushing agent or some fulvic acid. Your feeding 500 and only able to flush to 380 almost 400 with ro water or ppm under 150? I would say something is still in there. Seems high for a flush. I figured you would be able to get it lower than that. 380 plus 700 that’s over a1000 even with the 500ppm feed that’s almost 900ppm. If you flushed out 380 it had to be higher than that in the medium.
500 ppm may not be high for a plant growing fast but maybe there are times the temperature in the air or water are too low causing the growth to slow making it want less nutes. You said the basement is in the 50s but your tent is in the seventies maybe its dipping? I haven’t grown that way but I definitely burnt some leaf tips over the years and it’s always been nutrients.
I have a remote sensor that logs temp sensors and RH every 5 mins. The dips are 1-2% or 2-3F up or down.
Also just checked the runoff from feeding an hour ago and it was 480ppm and 5.91ph. I will be ordering better meters to test with.
So it looks worse since this morning. Now seeing hints of crispy tips in spots.
Checked runoff and it was 450ish ppm, 5.89ph.
I’m considering turning lights down now.
Opinions???
It’s going to look worse can’t stop that burn even if you catch it early just don’t want new growth to show the burn that’s the way to decide if it’s cleared up. Just thinking about the flush. Do you ever flush with low tds water like just tap or ro. Should be able to get it to just about what ever level your flushing with. Plus you said water is nice and cold so possibly not dissolving the salt build up. Keep us updated when she springs back to life. Have you changed your 3 part nutrients ratios going in to flower.
I’m following the GH feedchart so yes the ratio changed.
Week 1 flower
Per gallon mix
ppm 1000, ph 5.6
Silica – 2ml per gal
CalMag – 2ml per gal
Micro – 5ml per gal
Bloom – 10ml per gal
Hydroguard – 2ml per gal
It was during this week I noticed pretty good burn. Was using lucas method but the decided to go by the GH feeding charts per advice I received.
Week 2 flower
Per gallon mix
5.8ph, 700ppm
ArmorSi 1.5ml
CaliMagic 2.5ml
Micro 4ml
Gro 4ml
Bloom 4ml
Terpinator 5ml
Hydroguard 2ml
This week was good and she grew alot. Lots of stretching and started to see buds forming. Wasn’t until this past saturday that I saw slight discoloration on the new growth but didn’t think much as she came off of a great week and was doing really well.
Week3 flower
Per gallon mix
5.8ph, 500ppm
ArmorSi 1.5ml
CaliMagic 2.5ml
Micro 4ml
Gro 1ml
Bloom 5ml
Terpinator 5ml
Hydroguard 2ml
This is where I am now.
My process for mixing is to start out with 10 gallons, mix in my nutes at the ratios shown then dilute with more water until I get the desired ppms.
Also I didn’t do a full flush but rather used a couple gallons to dilute the hempy res down. After diluting the other night I brought the ppm in the runoff down to 380 and after the first normal feeding since the runoff was at 450ppm when the feed was at about 500ppm.
So depending on how she looks when I get home after work today I may do a full flush.
Planning on tipping the hempy forward to try and empty her res out as much as possible and then pumping probably 5gals or so of RO water PH’d to 5.8 into her. Will plug up the hempy hole and let the water build up and soak then drain it out. Will run through this process a couple of times. Does this sound right. I did this once before when I messed up on nutes when she was early veg. Seemed to workout ok and got ppm way down and PH normalized not that PH looks to be an issue but not having alot of confidence in my PH pen. I spent the $$$ and have a new PH pen and EC pen on the way.
So after reading other message boards I found a few instances of a similar situation. What it seemed to be was a micro nutrient deficiency. I’m wondering if this makes since in my situation. After week 1 of flower my PPMs were pretty high and found a couple of leaves with nute burn or at least I thought it was. I backed down my nutes for week 2 to about 500-600ppm and she did very well but towards the end of week 2 i started seeing the tips of the new growth around the bud sites with the light colored tips. No other leaves had this issue, just the new growth around the buds and it was pretty uniform in that most of the buds with the new leaves growing out from under them were having this issue.
I looked all over her last night and can’t find one other leaf with this issue, just the new growth on the buds. So as a test I drained the hempy res, mixed up a gallon of RO ph’d to 5.8-5.9, and mixed up micro, gro, bloom, and calmag per the feed chart for week 4 of flower which came out to about 1200ppm. I fed her the whole gallon and the runoff came out and measured 1000-1100ppm and PH 5.9.
I’m hoping she will show signs of improvement today when I get home. I couldn’t check her this morning as her dark period will end at noon and I didn’t want to interrupt obviously.
I’ll report back on my findings but am I wrong to think this may be the way to go? I would think nute burn would affect more then just the new growth on around the buds. It makes sense to me but this is my first grow so I’m really just darts here blindfolded it feels.
You’re on the right track. Sometimes you gotta go one way then the complete opposite to figure out what the hell is going on lol.
I usually just pay attention to what the buds are doing rather than minor leaf abnormalities during flower. I’ve chased symptoms before and never was able to figure it out, but ended up with great bud in the end…so now I say fuck those leaves when it’s flower time….for the most part lol.
I wish I could. My personality is slightly obsessive, coworkers say I have ocd, and I am very analytical so I need things laid out and to make sense to step through. I know this doesn’t lend itself to growing at all. Found that out early on so ironically this is a form of therapy if that makes sense. Many lessons in letting go and letting be I guess.
I can relate to that a little. The thing is, yellow tips can be as simple as excess of one mineral or something completely environmental. You can lower or raise the ppm of an inbalanced nuteient mix and never know what the cause was. It takes way too much effort as a home grower to diagnose less obvious symptoms. You’d have to isolate nutrients, test omitting or double the dosage and wait days for results then try the next thing, tons of notes yada yada…..If it’s something recurring then maybe it’s time to alter you nutrient mix, but once in a grow, you run into things that just don’t matter for a small time, smoke-my-own home grower type. Inevitably, these things kinda work thenselves out as you gain experience.
I appreciate the outlook and advice. Thank you much!
So I just got my Apera ph and TDS meters. Calibrated them both and found that my new ph meter reads 2 higher then my cheap amazon one and the TDS reads about 200ppm higher. So this might explain some things.
So I checked my run off and it was 6.2ph and 781ppm. I ph’d my nute res down to 5.6 and ran a few gallons through her til I got my runoff to 5.8ish. My ppms came down from high 800’s to high 700’s.
Going to mix new nutes for the start of week 4 flower on Sunday. Per the feedchart from GH I’ll be looking to hit 650-800ppms. I’ll prob go for 700ppm and see how she does.
I’m at a complete loss here. Burnt tips are spreading. I flushed and got the ppm’s way low and PH in the 6.0 range. I started her back on nutes that have been diluted down to around 300ppm or so and seemed things were ok. I’ve been checking the runoff daily this week and PH was really elevated again, 6.5 or so and PPM where back up to over 800ppm where as my nutes were 5.8ph and 500ppm.
I’m using new Apera PH and TDS meter. I believe the TDS is set to the 700ppm scale and per what I’ve found for my general hydroponics nutes I should be using the 500ppm scale. So I’m trying to figure out how to change this but really if anything my meter would be reading high compared to what it would with 500 scale so really at a loss since what I’m feeding is actually around 300ppm and still getting burnt tip issues.
I’m almost through 4 weeks of flower. I’ve got buds getting bigger and starting to see tricomes coming out. Just more and more leaves are getting burnt tips. I’m really concerned it will cause issues with my buds and yield.
Any ideas?
sorry to hear man. Looks like the only thing not in the GH line is the terpinator. Perhaps stacking potassium? Maybe try flushing the same way you did but omit the terpinator.
I use general Organics line and I had to use 10-20% strength of what they suggest on their calmag bottle cause it was giving me all sorts of leaf problems. Took me 2 weeks to figure out that it was just that one bottle fucking up the balance.
Yeah, that’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll just go with the GH 3 part for this next week and do a heavy heavy flush tomorrow to give her a good clean out. Ugh, frustrating…
Just to give you a better idea really sounds like what your experiencing but possibly not. But still worth the three minute read. If anything has visually changed feel free to just repost.
Oops.
Kushage dry sift lol.
https://www.maximumyield.com/remember-to-flush/2/1206
Great article. I’m thinking I wasn’t using enough water to clean her out. Thanks for linking that. I’ll flush her out tomorrow and give her a good 8 to 10 gallons through her.