Need help, assuming nutrient lock with high soil ph

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Timf91

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Hello. I'm on my first grow, and in less that a week my plants have made 360 from vibrant and flourisng to wilting and yellowing. This started immediately after transferring from 1 gallon pots in coco, to 5gal pots with organic soil
My nutrint mix was adjusted to ph of about 6.2, but my run off from the soil was 7.7-7.8. I also have a soil probe putting soil In the same ph range. Today in desperation I flushed with low ph water (down to 5), every time my run off is still high 7s. I really want to save these . First photo is from today, second one was less than a week ago before I transferred them
 
Need help  assuming nutrient lock with high soil ph
Need help  assuming nutrient lock with high soil ph 2
steamroller

steamroller

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You're washing out the nutrients the plants will need.
Leaves curling up are heat stress and or nutrient burn.
Most don't pH their water with soil grows.
I don't..
Did you ever test the runoff with straight water to have a baseline?
The pH will be higher than with coco as I understand. 🤷‍♂️
 
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Timf91

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You're washing out the nutrients the plants will need.
Leaves curling up are heat stress and or nutrient burn.
Most don't pH their water with soil grows.
I don't..
Did you ever test the runoff with straight water to have a baseline?
The pH will be higher than with coco as I understand. 🤷‍♂️
The Temps stay under 80, with about 50-60% humidity. If this is a result of nutrint burn, wouldn't flushing help that was well? I didn't run with regular water, bit I don't want to keep running a ton of water through as they are pretty saturated now.
 
NorthernOrganics

NorthernOrganics

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Coco and soil are two different styles of growing with completely different watering needs, pH needs, nutrient delivery.
With soil, organic material is broken down by micro life and nutrients are made available to the roots. The micro life take care of all the pH and ppm business in the soil.
In coco you are feeding bottled nutrient salts that are already bioavailable to the roots. You have to take care of pH and ppm and do the job of the micro life.
Watering soil and coco are totally different. Coco can be watered multiple times a day and kept wet. You want runoff to wash away unused nutrient salts. In soil you want to water until the pot is saturated and then you want it to dry out, watering once or twice a week ideally. Runoff in soil is usually unnecessary unless correcting a problem. I would let your pots dry out only watering again when they are dry and light, give only water, don't pH. Check back in a week.
 
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Timf91

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I would stop flushing.
Make sure the sure the trays are empty and let the plants dry up alittle.
I didn't plan on flushing term again with how saturated they are now. At this point I figured I have to wait and see, I just really don't want to end of losing them. They where really good looking up until I transferred them, I didn't think going from coco to soil would make this much of a impact
 
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Timf91

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Would I be to late to repot them in coco? Or is that to much stress on the plant? I just transferred them Thursday and they have not grown at all
 
steamroller

steamroller

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I have zero experience with coco. 🤷‍♂️
Loyal to soil.
 
RootsRuler

RootsRuler

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Leave them in soil.

Patience. They are experiencing transplant shock, IMO. Next time you transplant add in some Hormex to lessen the shock. Give them time to readjust to their new grow medium. Let them dry back for around 3 days then check to see how light your pot is or stick your finger in the soil down to your second knuckle half way from the base of the plant and the edge of the pot. If the pot is light or your finger check comes up with very lightly damp or dry then it's time to water them again. Some people wait until they start to wilt but I think you're stressing them out unnecessarily by doing that.

There is only so much you can do to manipulate your plants. Let them do what they naturally do. As long as you keep them within range you should be fine. Don't go chasing numbers. Just try and keep them in as favorable a zone as you can with the given environmental numbers you're being given. If your temps are staying under 80 and your RH is around 50% - 60% then you should be fine. Ideal numbers would be to be able to consistently keep them between 73* - 75* and 50% - 60% RH. You're RH is good. If you can get the temp down even better but they'll be fine where they're at.

Same with PH. In your case you're growing in soil so you have the soil to assist you in PH control. Not sure what your soil mix contains but adding Lime to soil will help in keeping PH in check. Soil grown seems to like a slightly higher PH than hydrponic. Soil ideal PH's are around 6.3 - 6.5. Hydro likes 5.8 - 6.0. as long as you get close to those soil numbers you should be fine so if you're readings are coming back as 6.7 don't sweat it. Feed and check your runoff values.
 
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Timf91

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Leave them in soil.

Patience. They are experiencing transplant shock, IMO. Next time you transplant add in some Hormex to lessen the shock. Give them time to readjust to their new grow medium. Let them dry back for around 3 days then check to see how light your pot is or stick your finger in the soil down to your second knuckle half way from the base of the plant and the edge of the pot. If the pot is light or your finger check comes up with very lightly damp or dry then it's time to water them again. Some people wait until they start to wilt but I think you're stressing them out unnecessarily by doing that.

There is only so much you can do to manipulate your plants. Let them do what they naturally do. As long as you keep them within range you should be fine. Don't go chasing numbers. Just try and keep them in as favorable a zone as you can with the given environmental numbers you're being given. If your temps are staying under 80 and your RH is around 50% - 60% then you should be fine. Ideal numbers would be to be able to consistently keep them between 73* - 75* and 50% - 60% RH. You're RH is good. If you can get the temp down even better but they'll be fine where they're at.

Same with PH. In your case you're growing in soil so you have the soil to assist you in PH control. Not sure what your soil mix contains but adding Lime to soil will help in keeping PH in check. Soil grown seems to like a slightly higher PH than hydrponic. Soil ideal PH's are around 6.3 - 6.5. Hydro likes 5.8 - 6.0. as long as you get close to those soil numbers you should be fine so if you're readings are coming back as 6.7 don't sweat it. Feed and check your runoff values.
That's why im concerned with the ph. The soil with a probe measure 7.7-7.8, and my water run off is the same on a pen. Which is why I was thinking this is a lock out and the plant isn't getting nutrients. I figure at this rate after flushing that time is the only option I have left
 
RootsRuler

RootsRuler

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Making drastic changes quickly will stress your plants. If you're trying to lower the soil PH start at 5.0 and monitor. It should start slowly dropping from there. It may read the same for a few feedings but should start to drop accordingly. Again, patience. Has anything changed in the environment? Are your meters calibrated and what brand are they? Have you checked the plants for any mites that may have infected your tent? When you transplanted did you move the entire root ball with coco into the soil medium or did you remove all the coco exposing bare root and then you transplanted into the soil? Do you have a way to figure out VPD?

You may have stressed them out in the transplant if you exposed the roots and didn't correctly bed them in the soil or left air pockets in the soil.
 
RootsRuler

RootsRuler

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If you want to know the sweet spot for your plants you need to be able to figure out the VPD(Vapor Pressure Deficit) in your environment. SVP means saturated vapor pressure.

The formula is VPD= ((100-RH) ÷ 100) * SVP

You posted that your tent temps are between 75 -80. I'm going to use 78 as your consistent average temp reading. Your SVP at 78* is 3361. I'm also going to assume that your average relative humidity is 56%.

VPD = ((100-56) ÷ 100) x 3361 = 1478.84

kPa = 1478.84 ÷ 1000 = 1.47884

Converted into KiloPascals your VPD at those specs is 1.48 kPa

Chart for SVP conversion:

TempSVPTempSVPTempSVPTempSVPTempSVP
Temperature (°C) / SVP
1 °C6577 °C100213 °C149719 °C 219725 °C3167
2°C 7068 °C107314 °C159820 °C233826 °C3361
3°C7589 °C114815 °C170521 °C248627 °C3565
4°C81310 °C122816 °C181822 °C264328 °C3779
5°C87211 °C131217 °C193723 °C280929 °C4005
6 °C93512°C140218 °C206424 °C298330 °C4242

VPD chart

VPD chart


Good Luck!!
 
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Timf91

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Making drastic changes quickly will stress your plants. If you're trying to lower the soil PH start at 5.0 and monitor. It should start slowly dropping from there. It may read the same for a few feedings but should start to drop accordingly. Again, patience. Has anything changed in the environment? Are your meters calibrated and what brand are they? Have you checked the plants for any mites that may have infected your tent? When you transplanted did you move the entire root ball with coco into the soil medium or did you remove all the coco exposing bare root and then you transplanted into the soil? Do you have a way to figure out VPD?

You may have stressed them out in the transplant if you exposed the roots and didn't correctly bed them in the soil or left air pockets in the soil.
I have a digital gauge i got from a local hardware store for temp. I see no mixed, but I do occasionally see a fungus nat, which js why I layered the perlite on top and added the tape. When I transplanted, I took everything out of the 1gal with rhe valley in thr coco and put it in the soil then filled around the edges with a cup. No I don't have any way to figure vpd
 
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Timf91

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I try to keep it 75 over night with a space heater, day time my lights keep the tent 78-80 with out the heater
 
RootsRuler

RootsRuler

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I have a digital gauge i got from a local hardware store for temp. I see no mixed, but I do occasionally see a fungus nat, which js why I layered the perlite on top and added the tape. When I transplanted, I took everything out of the 1gal with rhe valley in thr coco and put it in the soil then filled around the edges with a cup. No I don't have any way to figure vpd
OK. So essentially your root system still lives in coco. The soil outside the root ball will buffer it a little but for all intents and purposes you're growing in coco. And that's OK. It convinces me more that this is simple transplant shock. Give them a little time to come back and they'll continue their vigorous growth once they feel more comfortable with their new environment. Maybe back off a tad on the nutrient PPM until they recover and then continue your feed schedule.

From the charts and equation I posted previous it looks like you need to raise the humidity in your tent if you want to get your girls in the prime grow zone. At 78* you need to be at 65% humidity to be in the optimal zone. When your temps go down at lights off you can lower humidity according to the chart and keep your plants in the prime zone around the clock.
 
Blastfact

Blastfact

756
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If I missed it sorry,,, but what nutrients are you using? The pic before transplant shows a early nutrient deficiency starting up. And the later pic is showing what I would expect to see a week later regardless of transplant and media change. IMHO lockout gets blamed as much for nutrient/ph/growth issues as light leaks do for herm or poor sexing of plants. I've honestly only had three lockouts in my grow life and two of those were a direct result of pushing grows hard with massive lighting, massive feeding and CO2 flood for clandestine grows/sales in the oldin days. Also,,, please remember what your seeing today in your garden actually happed 7 to 10 days ago to cause what your seeing. The fix if done right is usually 3 to 7 days before you see a real change to know if you got it right. Horticulture is a game of delayed foresight and hindsight. Good Luck
 
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Timf91

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If I missed it sorry,,, but what nutrients are you using? The pic before transplant shows a early nutrient deficiency starting up. And the later pic is showing what I would expect to see a week later regardless of transplant and media change. IMHO lockout gets blamed as much for nutrient/ph/growth issues as light leaks do for herm or poor sexing of plants. I've honestly only had three lockouts in my grow life and two of those were a direct result of pushing grows hard with massive lighting, massive feeding and CO2 flood for clandestine grows/sales in the oldin days. Also,,, please remember what your seeing today in your garden actually happed 7 to 10 days ago to cause what your seeing. The fix if done right is usually 3 to 7 days before you see a real change to know if you got it right. Horticulture is a game of delayed foresight and hindsight. Good Luck
I was using fox farms, big bloom, 6tsp per gallon. Gave them about a 1/4 gallon each after transferring. Inwas following the manual that came with the trio
 
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Blastfact

Blastfact

756
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I was using fox farms, big bloom, 6tsp per gallon. Gave them about a 1/4 gallon each after transferring. Inwas following the manual that came with the trio
We just found your problem brother. If you have the Trio look at the NPK numbers on the bottles. Big Bloom 0-0.5-0.7 is a supplement for either Grow Big 6-4-4 or Tiger Bloom 2-8-4. Right now in veg you should be on Grow Big 6-4-4. Your plants are struggling to find nitrogen because there not being fed any. PH, lockout or grow media is not your issue. They are very very hungry. I would give them a 1/4 strength dose feeding with Grow Big just to stop the death throws. Let them dry out a few days then bump it to a 1/2 strength dose of Grow Big and in 7 days this will all be memory. You have to be careful with Grow Big because it can nute burn the crap out of your plants. The way you use the Trio is Grow Big is your seedling to veg fert. Then late in veg a week or so before you flip to flower into early flower you start mixing in some Big Bloom with your Grow Big. Then when you have buds set you switch to Tiger Bloom and in the middle of flower you can start adding back in Big Bloom to help bolster the P & K. Any time you make a change with any of the Fox Farm bottle ferts never do a full strenght dose until you know the plants can handle it and always shake the crap out of those bottle before you use it.
 
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Timf91

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We just found your problem brother. If you have the Trio look at the NPK numbers on the bottles. Big Bloom 0-0.5-0.7 is a supplement for either Grow Big 6-4-4 or Tiger Bloom 2-8-4. Right now in veg you should be on Grow Big 6-4-4. Your plants are struggling to find nitrogen because there not being fed any. PH, lockout or grow media is not your issue. They are very very hungry. I would give them a 1/4 strength dose feeding with Grow Big just to stop the death throws. Let them dry out a few days then bump it to a 1/2 strength dose of Grow Big and in 7 days this will all be memory. You have to be careful with Grow Big because it can nute burn the crap out of your plants. The way you use the Trio is Grow Big is your seedling to veg fert. Then late in veg a week or so before you flip to flower into early flower you start mixing in some Big Bloom with your Grow Big. Then when you have buds set you switch to Tiger Bloom and in the middle of flower you can start adding back in Big Bloom to help bolster the P & K. Any time you make a change with any of the Fox Farm bottle ferts never do a full strenght dose until you know the plants can handle it and always shake the crap out of those bottle before you use it.
I need to double check i might be getting them mixed up. I used which ever one was first in vegetative state in the directions. I can double check when I'm off work
 
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