Please Help Me Diagnose My Sick Plant

[DannyO]

I am fairly new to growing and am working on my first real grow (had a few hack jobs years ago before it became legal). I have 8 plants which I have trained using the Manifold technique at this site (http://www.growweedeasy.com/manifold). Everything is going well until a couple weeks ago when I noticed some bronze and brown spots starting on the lower fan leaves. At the time I thought it was a calcium deficiency because I am using bottled water due to my extremely hard well water out of the tap so I started giving them cal-mag every other watering. That seemed to help and it had not spread any further until a few days ago. Now it has spread on one plant up to a few nodes higher and looks as though it will take the whole plant if i don't figure out what is causing it. After searching endlessly online, I feel it looks like a P deficiency because the pictures I am seeing match this plant exactly and it has the red/purple stems to go along with it.

These plants were started in Pro-mix and were transplanted from Solo cups to 1 gallon to 5 gallon and just a week ago to 10 gallon smart pots. Even though the last transplant was close to the problem getting worse, i don't suspect that because I cut the old smart pot off and had no trouble at all just moving the root ball into the new pot which I filled with Nectar of the Gods #4 (instead of Pro-Mix). I have been feeding with Fox Farm Nutrients every other watering (watering about every 3 days) and was due to feed during the transplant. Instead, I went with clean water during the transplant in fear that if I fed them along with the nutrients in the new soil, it would be too much. Yesterday, after noticing the problem is spreading, I was planning on flushing them in case I am getting salt buildup, preventing them from taking in the nutrients in the soil but changed my mind after I took a soil ppm reading and thought it was very low. I got a reading of about 124ppm in the soil of the affected plant and a ph of 6.7. I assumed that if the salt content was high in the soil, the ppm would be high as well so instead I fed them with a week 5 feeding dosage of fox farm which contains extra P (even though I am not flowering yet). It has not been long enough yet to tell if last night helped but I was hoping to get someone else's opinion in case this does not work.

Please excuse my run-on sentences and let me know if any more info would help.

I appreciate any opinion someone is willing to give.

 

[fatawa]

I didnt read yur whole story u wrote.ha.do u use cal mag?

 

[DannyO]

I did start using cal mag a few weeks ago when this problem first started showing. It seemed to stop spreading but just a few days ago it started spreading up one of them quickly. Possibly a new problem?

 

[MamaBear]

Quit feeding them and quit watering for a bit. Just leave them alone and see if that helps. Sometimes you CAN baby them too much.
Purple stems are fine - don't worry about those.
Yellowing on the leaves usually means too much water.
I'd remove all affected leaves and see how she goes.
Scope for bugs and spray if necessary.

Sorry, that's all I got! :joyful:

 

[Draondar]

Yeah, just leave them alone for a bit. Let the soil get a little dried out, and then just use distilled water. It may be P deficiency, it could be a number of things. Just start clearing the affected leaves and then leave them alone.

 

[MW7945]

First couple look like a P problem, but then a few look like a K problem.

 

[DannyO]

Quit feeding them and quit watering for a bit. Just leave them alone and see if that helps. Sometimes you CAN baby them too much.
Purple stems are fine - don't worry about those.
Yellowing on the leaves usually means too much water.
I'd remove all affected leaves and see how she goes.
Scope for bugs and spray if necessary.

Sorry, that's all I got! :joyful:

Thanks a lot for the reply.

I actually have fixed it. I took a shot and gave them flower nutrients assuming it might be a P deficiency and two days later it stopped spreading. They are looking beautiful now!

-I need to figure out how to delete this post now that it is fixed (im new to this site).

 

[MW7945]

No point in deleting it. Could help someone later.

 

[DannyO]

No point in deleting it. Could help someone later.

OK,
Thanks.