PH, Heat Stress, Nute Burn trouble shooting

[dHetep]

pH Problems One of the first signs of having a slight ph problem is, your plant having part of the leaves kind of twisty, spotty with brown, yellowish, red spots within each other.

Sometimes they don’t have to have all the colors, they could just be spots that have yellowish brown, or just reddish brown and can happen anywhere on the plant. Mainly starts on big fan leaves then goes to little leaves.

When this happens you need to check your soil ph, water ph before and after adding your nutrients. One of the biggest causes is adding nutrients like earth juice; they take the ph down quite a bit. Also can happen when you add bone and blood meal to your soil will throw the ph off as well, so it’s smart to test the mix before putting your plants into the mix. After the spots happen you will soon see nutrients being locked out, when that happens.





DO NOT ADD ANYTHING TO FIX THE PROBLEM UNTILL YOU GET YOUR PH FIXED!!

Reason why is the plant isn’t absorbing that nutrient, by adding the nutrient it is deficient in, you are causing it to have a build up in the soil therefore can cause that nutrient to become toxic to the plant, because of buildup, to much buildup of certain nutrients will lock out other nutrients. In order to fix the problem you will need to first fix the ph and then if the soil is deficient in nutrients you can add it to fix the problem. A digital PH tester is the best tester to use as they are the most accurate. If you can’t afford a digital ph meter, then your best bet is to get ph testing papers. DO NOT get soil testers, those are the cheapest junk I ever seen and do not give good readings, so you cant rely on one of those. There are a lot of good ph testers out there, one of them is Hanna. That is the one I use and is the best money ever spent!

The vast majority of problems with soil ph comes from the soil if it has additives like peat moss, which is HIGHLY acidic or the water you are using, as well as nutrient deficiencies from using the wrong ph for watering. You want to be careful when adjusting your ph, doing this over a week is the best idea, to fast will cause shock to the plant.

If you can’t get a hold of a ph tester or ph test papers and you have some dolomite lime, it’s always better to use it in soil rather than every time you water, in my opinion and from others (Uncle Ben) That it really doesn’t stabilize as many people think it does, Soil pH and micronutrient availability are interrelated. Don’t use to much lime to decrease the soil pH to a point where micronutrients can't be unavailable to plants.

The micronutrients affected by pH include iron, manganese, zinc and, not as often copper. The problems when you apply to much lime can make it harder to correct your ph than what you would have when you didn’t add as much lime. You can always add more lime, but if you add to much you can’t remove it if you put to much lime in the soil. With great soil moisture, lime will work immediately and pH will start to change over a few months. However, it can take up to a year for the real benefit of lime to work. As the soil pH rises, the time it takes for lime to react decreases due to lower levels of soil acids.

If you need to change your ph when its to high, if you choose to use lime it will not help as much as you think in lowering your ph, it would need a lot of lime to lower your ph to a point where it would cause a toxicity to the plants so look else where to use something to lower your ph rather than using lime. So here at the bottom is a list of some buffers that are good to go with when rising and lowering ph!

Here are some ph buffers when your ph is too high: Use these SOIL PH Adjustments to lower your ph: sawdust, composted leaves, wood chips, cottonseed meal, leaf mold and peat moss. Sawdust, composted leaves, woodchips and, lemon juice, PH DOWN. Hydro PH

Adjustments:
PH Down (vinegar and lemon juices are good for soil, but not recommended for hydro use) Phosphoric acid during flowering and Nitric acid for vegetative growth. (Only quality PH buffers should be used to adjust ph and be sure the buffer and nutrient work's well together.) Here are some that will raise the ph: use these SOIL Adjustments when

your ph is to low:

PH UP, dolomite lime, hardwood ash, bone meal, crushed marble, or crushed oyster shells, potassium hydroxide <--- Thank you Uncle Ben! Hydro Adjustments: PH UP, lime, potassium hydroxide and potassium sillicate. (Only quality PH buffers should be used to adjust ph and be sure the buffer and nutrient work's well together.) Here are a few pictures of ph spotting before nutrient lockout occurs. The last pic is shown is high ph with the twisty leaves. Note the edges are brown; this is a potassium deficiency that is caused by ph lockout. (Sometimes this gets confused with nitrogen toxicity, so always keep your ph in check and test it often!)

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Temp Change
This picture is caused by temperature changing from cold to warm, cold nights and warm days. Some varieties, like equatorial sativas, don't take well to cold weather. If you can keep the roots warmer, the plant will be able to take cooler temps than it otherwise could.

This picture is what light bleaching/ light burn looks like.

Only way to fix this is to Move the lights away from the plant! Or make sure you don’t go over 75 watts a sq foot, or your plant will have to much light and light bleaching can occur anywhere on the plant. (indica species seem to bleach easier than sativas.)

These pictures show what heat stress looks like.

Only way to fix this is to Move the lights away from the plant and get better ventilation, and or add more fans! Heat - If the lights are too close to the plant, the tops may be curled, dry, and look burnt, mimicking a nutrient problem. Your hand should not feel hot after a minute when you hold it at the top of the plants.

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This is the most common and loved “nuteburn”

Stop this by not adding to much chemical/organic nutrients to your water, foliar feeding. DON’T feed more than 1 time a week, use 1/4 strength for first feeding and then go up to 1/2 strength from then on when using chemical nutrients. It’s very easy to overdo it. Causes leaf tips to appear yellow or burnt. To correct soil should be flushed with three gallons of water per one gallon of soil. NEVER give nutrients to plants that are under 2 weeks of age, at this age the soil nutrients are enough to supplement them until 2 weeks of age or more depending on how good your soil is. Using fertilizers before 2 weeks will likely kill your plants.




Feel free to and more pics and info

[Guest superbluehaze]

Excellent posts, dHetep. We all can learn something from them; Great stuff.

happy growing,

john

[anguscr]

Again very informative dHetep.. thanks.

[Guest samuelo]

Great reading and fab info - thanks

[Romeu9]

Excelent once again! Nicely done dHetep!

Thanks