the dreaded claw of doom

[Moses249]

I grow hydro ebb and flow with hydroton. I run the advanced nutrients micro bloom grow three part. I use R.O. water and add cal-mag or cali-magic into my reservoir's before adding anything else to them. I use anywhere from 1ml cal-mag/gal to 2ml cal-mag/gal. am always seemingly always running into the dreaded claw. Tips of fans leaves curling down and clawing out, sometimes more severely than other times. I run my vg at 1000 ppm on the x70 scale and in flower go from 1000 ppm- 1330 ppm on the x70 scale. What is causing the fucking claw? Too much nutrients in general? Or just too much cal-mag? I seem to notice that it happens more when i add lots of cal-mag. So is the fucking claw related to the cal-mag or related to some other problem like the nutrient ppm level being too high? I dont understand how anyone can be on these forums and say that they add 5ml/gal cal-mag to thier r.o. water or to thier plants in general. If i add more than 2ml/gal of cali-magic to a pure r.o. water reservoir with a starting ppm of 0 it takes the ppm to like 400+. That has to be to much cal-mag. I saw on another post people saying you should add 50-100 ppm cal-mag back to your r.o. water. But i seem to run into the fucking claw when i even come close to 100 ppm cal-mag. maybe i just suck. thanks in advance for the input and advice

 

[ReCway]

To much food. SO easy to overfeeed with advanced. Wait till the plants ask for calcium then adjust. You might have to much N in your mix. Check you nute ratios

 

[altitudefarmer]

Too much N usually is the culprit causing the 'claw'. Try backing down on everything a little though, if your ratio is good. Clawed leaves don't ever straighten out IME, but you can still salvage a proper harvest.

 

[Seamaiden]

I am able to get the claw to 'straighten' out by giving water only and microbe teas. I'll suggest a molasses and worm casting tea, with the goal of creating a small population explosion of microbes. They will fix the N into their bodies (mineralization) and during that time there will be less N available to the plants. One problem is that when they poop, or die, they release that N, so you'll want to have the rhizosphere 'adjusted' with less N in preparation.

I feel it's important to give Ca from the beginning and not wait until they 'ask' for it specifically because it's immobile and once the plants get to that point, it's too easy to end up chasing your tail. I would, however, try alternating the feeds where they get more and less Cali-Magic, which is similar to what I ended up doing with my coir grows to keep EC within acceptable limits--I alternated the Mg feed days with the Ca feed days, which taught me what Mg- and Ca- look like, that The White is really a Ca whore (not a Cal-Mag whore), and allowed me to push more Ca in response. It does require using separate products to do this, I spent the money on BioLink 6% Ca (Ca Plus) and used Epsom salt as the Mg replacement, which also offers the plant plenty of S.

 

[Moses249]

recway if 1000 ppm on the x70 scale is overfeeding with advance nutrients during veg.... do you have a suggestion for a ppm that might prevent this burn? 800? Or less? Same question for altitude what ppm do you think is approriate if 1000 is seemingly causing this issue.
Seamaiden, I have never run worm casting tea or molasses in my hydro reservoir before beacuse i was unsure of what it might do to my system and the ph in general. Do you think running someting like that would have any adverse effeects on my hydro res? Also could you share with me what you beleive are the symptoms of mg- and ca-? many people i have talked to say many different things regarding what this would look like so any input would be geratly apprecaite. thanks all.

 

[xX Kid Twist Xx]

try cutting out the grow in the 3 part alltogether or cut its dosage in half. calimagic has nitrogen in it already. what strain are you growing by the way. the more sativa dominate the less Nitrogen it will need. so you may have to get a cal mag without nitrogen to combat your trouble. are the leaves waxy and the buds smaller and pointy up top? if so this is to much nitrogen

 

[Moses249]

i am growing east coast sour diesel def have the buds doing weird ass finger and hop formations at the tops of the colas.... always thought it was from too much light.... the advance three parts calls for all three parts in equal parts throughout the entire veg and flower cycles, do you think that cutting out the third part or cutting it in half would damage the way the three parts are supposed to work together?

 

[Seamaiden]

recway if 1000 ppm on the x70 scale is overfeeding with advance nutrients during veg.... do you have a suggestion for a ppm that might prevent this burn? 800? Or less? Same question for altitude what ppm do you think is approriate if 1000 is seemingly causing this issue.
Seamaiden, I have never run worm casting tea or molasses in my hydro reservoir before beacuse i was unsure of what it might do to my system and the ph in general. Do you think running someting like that would have any adverse effeects on my hydro res? Also could you share with me what you beleive are the symptoms of mg- and ca-? many people i have talked to say many different things regarding what this would look like so any input would be geratly apprecaite. thanks all.

I'm with Kid on cutting out the extra N, and that's how I would first try to address the clawing problem. And... reading what he wrote and you wrote I think you two have the problem sorted, so you don't even need to worry about messing around with stuff you haven't worked with before. I think it would be better for you to learn what the things I mentioned above are used for and how when things are going well for you first, instead of trying to solve this problem with them. Worm casting tea is what I consider 'soft' nitrogen, and using molasses causes an explosion of microbes which, when they 'eat' will fix that N, making it unavailable to the plant while they live.

Let me show you specifically what Mg- is, Ca- is, and how to tell the difference. I use a flow chart and visuals, and then someone on another forum created this graphic of cannabis leaves showing various deficiencies. I only have a couple of issues with the chart he made, the biggest one being that Ca is an IMMOBILE element, not mobile.