Sickly Plants

[Bish]

I'm following your Bio Bizz shedule to the letter , again , I'm assuming this is ok

Don't go specifically off the grow schedule HS. Every var is different, & have different requirements.

Let the plants tell you what they need! That's the golden rule mate

[HopefullySoon]

Hi Bish

I am trying , but with my first and this grow suffering this problem , I have nothing to judge it against . All im used to is yellowing and baldness .

Thats why im posting exactly what I do , its a basic starting point as to what im doing .

Hopefully Soon

[Arnold Layne]

Just as an aside comment, OT: This whole episode shows one thing - that you can get by with the Bio-Bizz nutrient range even when you're using sus compost. The Veg room is a picture of lush lovely healthiness, despite the probs!

[landsker]

No camera yet, but I had similar problems last year.

Leaves going yellow/blotchy, then crisp `n dead. So checked out "Bible", by Cervantes, and asked at local growshop etc. Temperature of growing medium/roots too low, resulting in inability to process zinc and/or magnesium, well that was the dianosis anyway.

Seems like the winter lets in cold air around the floorspace.

So placed an aquarium heater (24c) in the aqua farm, and also having some plants in soil, used a fan heater to warm the pots, (2/3 times per day, for 15 mins at a time.) Apparently, some grow shops sell heating pads, which can be placed under the growpot.

Same thing this year, as november came along, the plants started to sicken, so no hesitation in heating the grow medium. This year, I have raised the "floor" of the grow room, and heated the underside, using a tub of water, heated by same aquarium heater. With warm water underneath, plants are fine, though, as could be expected, the humidity has risen slightly as well.

[Jim Pooley]

Just a quickie to add, I have seen similar symptoms in my mums, got progressively worse as the air got colder (my air intake for my tiny mum box is basically an open window, so it was really cold at times), tried leaving the door to the growbox less wide open so that they stayed warmer, and they've perked up a lot since, with no other changes made.

JP

[oldtimer1]

Arnie the one thing about Alg A Mic is its cold extracted seaweed, this will do a lot to stimulate the micro heard, ie feed the beasts they multiply and in turn feed the plants.

HS my comments above, are thoughts on why you may have problems. You are that far into flowering, if you do have reduces root mass there is not a lot you can do to rectify it at this point, damage limitation would be replace grow with fish, the prob is every time I say this people moan about the smell. Along with maxicrop or Alg, this may help. Do not use maxicrop + Fe unless you have iron def.

For the future, ie next grow, get some premix and wormest and use it to to up the base nutrient levels in the all mix you have. Ask me when you want to do it and I'll tell you what to do then.

As far as the feed prog I recommended to red, it was for maintaining healthy plants, not ones with problems, I think I did tell EO to replace all the ferts for a one off feed to a big dose of fish, I try and tell everyone the plants are a living things, feeding is not fixed, its only an idea.

In future as soon as you see bottom leaves going evenly pale green [including veins] then yellow, immediately you see signs give a one off fish feed, you can use up to 10 ml per litre but 6ml per litre should do.

Do not use Mg unless you see signs of Mg def, thats light green then yellow forming between the the veins, while the veins remain green.

Treating one for the other will make the problem worse in both cases.

[HopefullySoon]

Hi

You are that far into flowering, if you do have reduces root mass there is not a lot you can do to rectify it at this point, damage limitation would be replace grow with fish, the prob is every time I say this people moan about the smell

I have fed them fish before (first grow) , I did replace it for grow for a few weeks . The growrooms under neg pressure and has a carbon filter , so I'm not bothered about the niff . Must say tho , it is a sure fire way to annoy the mrs while your stirring it up . This current crop is past saving (6 weeks out of 8) ,and too late in the game to recover to anything like , so I have kinda wrote it off , but whatever it yeilds its a bonus .

Since the application of Algamic started the plants seen to have transformed , they still display red stems on the older leaves (I'm guessing that the damage has been done on these ) , but the new growth is really healthy .

As far as the feed prog I recommended to red, it was for maintaining healthy plants, not ones with problems, I think I did tell EO to replace all the ferts for a one off feed to a big dose of fish, I try and tell everyone the plants are a living things, feeding is not fixed, its only an idea.

I know the art of gardening is being able to look at a plant and think , yeah that needs this and that needs that , up until my first grow (which finished 7 weeks ago ) I had never kept anything in a pot before and I was a total noob . Despite the yellowing ect I still managed to get a crop , take clones sucessfully , sex plants and so on . My knowlage base is far greater now than I ever thought it would be and I learn something else everyday thanks to the people here . What I needed (re your shedule) was a starting point , but the yellowing ect (not being a run of the mill problem) completely threw me . From what I had read with the BB range you couldnt go wrong (other than the odd bit of Mg) , up until the introduction of algamic the plants never got chance to tell me what they wanted , the compost problem got there first , and its from here now the problems under control that that my gardening skills will hone .

Sorry if I waffled a bit , tad stoned .

Again , Thanks for the help Ot

Hopefully Soon

Edited for typos

Edited December 18, 2004 by HopefullySoon

[oldtimer1]

HS Sorry mate its really hard answering members queries, so every bit of info you give helps me as well.

The problem members have been having with Mg deficiency has been troubling me for some time as well. It should not be happening, well not to the extent it has been. I have spent hrs pondering on this. Frankly it has been bothering me the fact that several recent queries point to a general debility of the plants says the common denominator has to be the compost, I’m beginning to think there is a problem.

I suggested to Bish too try something else, may be using a standard compost or a mix I think but using bb ferts. He did not want to do it as he wanted to stay totally organic. I think I suggested a side by side comparison but it was a long time back when he was desperate. Not sure if he ever tried it, if he did some feedback/observations would be of interest.

A good organic compost should have a more than adequate reserves of trace elements as well as a good live micro heard. In the past Allmix has mainly done this well, apart from a little extra Mg being needed and I put this down to the small pots being used.

[Arnold Layne]

One aspect of all this, OT, is the ignorance of some growshop owners. Just popped into my local fella and asked him how old the Allmix was. , what a blank look! He had no idea it had a "shelf life" and was appalled to think he may be selling stuff that could perhaps be passe its best. But what can he do? There is no "Best Before" stamped on the bag. I would have though that was something Bio-Bizz could look into.

Hmmm, side by side comparison. Sounds like I should maybe get meself a bag of JI No.3? Would that be worth doing OT?

[Guest RAZ]

When I did my 1st couple of grow's they went really well, I used JI #3 on 2 grows and Westlands multi on the others, not a sign of def anywhere. Then I went and bought some JAB from a place that was closing down so it was quite cheap but did look very old, all my plants that went into the JAB had def prob really badly at the 2nd week of flowering, and nothing I did made it right again.

Since then I have purchased some allmix and have done the same plants again, this time round there are no signs of any def's and the only thing to change was the compost .......

RAZ

[latigid aikon]

I suggested to Bish too try something else, may be using a standard compost or a mix I think but using bb ferts. He did not want to do it as he wanted to stay totally organic. I think I suggested a side by side comparison but it was a long time back when he was desperate. Not sure if he ever tried it, if he did some feedback/observations would be of interest.

278323[/snapback]

I've got two clones from the same mother on day 42 flowering, when I potted them up to their final pots I did one with Allmix then realised I didnt have enough for the other one so I used some inorganic Westlands multipurpose compost and a little perlite. They have grown identically as far as I can tell, they both have shown Mg def and both seemed to run out of base fertilisers at the same time and from that point I've fed them the same amount of biogrow/bloom and occasional epsom salts and maxicrop+fe.

allmix: westlands:

My tapwater is pretty bad, I borrowed an EC truncheon and it reads 0.7 so I have just bought an RO filter, its too late for this grow but I will use it in future and hopefully will have a lot less trouble.

[binary]

In future as soon as you see bottom leaves going evenly pale green [including veins] then yellow, immediately you see signs give a one off fish feed, you can use up to 10 ml per litre but 6ml per litre should do.

278238[/snapback]

Up to what point in flowering?

I reported a problem earlier in this thread, symptoms exactly the same as AL had reported. I potted on from an 8" to 10" pot at 38 days into 12/12 and 72 hours later new younger growth seems to have improved, yellowing has noticable slowed and the smell is astounding.

When potting on from the 8", the roots in the rootball were very splindly and brown, not fat and white. It wasn't over watering as I use digital scales to know when water is required, followed OT1 schedule to the letter, epsom given at intervals as per Bishs epsom pinned post. Without understanding what went wrong, I don't know how to prevent this happening again.

Edited December 18, 2004 by binary

[Citizen]

Binary,

Of course I'm no expert but will through my two pennneth in anyway

Could it have been poor soil in the 8" pots? Or could the plants have been root bound? Perhaps temperature abuse? All possible factors.

Perhpas they sufferd dehydration?

I'm not convinced that useing scales is the best option as the weight will change as the plant builds mass. I think it is probably best to keep carefull observation of the plant leaf and soild condition. Saturated soil will be darker in colour and leaf will wilt when water is needed. I also noticed the humidity in my grow room goes down when the plants are dry.

In anycase good drainage is a must. If you have good drainage water will run out from the bottom of the pot if the soil is saturated.

Good luck B)

[oldtimer1]

binary as I said above I wrote the feeding schedule for rd in answer to his question. It was for healthy plants not pushing them but enough to keep them growing without over feeding.

When potting on from the 8", the roots in the rootball were very spindly and brown,

This says you have a root fungus like pythium. It is important that you sterilise all your equipment once you have taken your crop. That includes watering can, pot trays, pots every thing that may have had contact..

Read what I say about watering here! take note on the watering method and follow it in future. In fact read the topic, you will see these problems keep coming round.

What the plant produces is down to its root mass, if a lot of your roots were dead then the plant will not have been able to take up the nutrients you were giving the plant so they will build up in the compost making it more stagnant in turn. You potting on means the fresh compost will probably have encouraged some new root growth.

There is a point about potting, I’ve said this many times before. Open the bag of compost and fluff it up until it will flow through your fingers. Fill your pot with the fluffed up compost by sprinkling it in until the pot is full to the brim. Remove a handful or two from the middle when inserting the plant and lightly fill round its rootball. Take great care not to squash or compress the compost in any way while doing this. You should end up with the the top of the old rootball lightly covered and level with the pot rim.

If you are only going up a pot size or two the principle is similar. Always pot on with the rootball dry, take great care not to break roots on the rootball surface, do not follow the practice where you break out pot bound roots, this may work with lignified roots on pot bond shrubs but, fast growing cannabis has soft fine white un-lignified feeder roots that should net the whole root ball, if you break them you will encourage rot and fungi, but do remove the top loose surface layer. Sprinkle compost onto the pot base, until the layer is deep enough that when the rootball is placed on it that when full the compost surface will come just above where the root ball was before you removed its surface layer and level with the pot rim. Fill round the sides trying to avoid making any voids, again it is important not to compact the compost in any way, apart from a gentle shake or tap..

Then water for the first time, it is best to use a fine rose and do it slowly, do not bang the pot around let the water settle the compost, depending on the pot size it will slowly settle over the next few days so the compost surface level is a quarter to an inch below the pot rim. If it goes down more than this you can always top dress to bring the level up a bit..

[binary]

Many thanks for taking the time to reply OT1, however the posts and advice regarding watering you're referring to I had already noted months ago and followed to the letter through out the grow. One of my notes even says, With compost fluff it up through your hands as you fill the pot, let it drop in like flower making pastry. Don’t compress it at all! Water to run through once the plant is in. Don’t bang the pot to settle the compost. which I think comes from one of your earlier posts.

I'm still not clear as to how this fungus has started and having followed the watering and potting advice given how to prevent it happening again, I'll put it down to experience.

Sorry AL for the Off Topic, hope your problem is sorted out.

Edited December 19, 2004 by binary