What do you think my deficiency is?

[ezenzyme]

Wouldn't liming bring my ph up? I was thinking just soak a brick in RO water to have the best start possible if the water I use to wet the coco is at ph5.8 it should stay around that right? If not then I would consider adding something to my coco perlite mix to sorta bring that alkalinity down to a better range I'll do a series of tests what could I add to the coco mix to buffer pH to an acidic level

a liming agent would be a great idea, like a mix of calcium carbonate and some gypsum, possibly some basalt dust and you will have a killer liming and trace mineral rock dusts....but using tap/city water will effect the carbonate badly so gypsum may be a better idea. Not only will that help with your PH issues but will provide food for the bennies your trying to cultivate as well. I forgot to post the list but your water could well be a issue. Whats its PPM?
and by perk up i mean do you have the watering down to a t and you can watch them droop and get thirsty and then water and watch them pray?

 

[Aqua Man]

And yes it's slow release fertilizer

Ok you in a while nother beast imo. With organic and slow release you don't want to water to runoff. Unless using organically derived ferts that are fully available.

Cut the watering back and just keep the media moist but no runoff. With slow release and organic nutrients when you get runoff you are removing available nutrients. I know this is not your typical advice in coco but organic and slow release are not typical in coco... thats not to say they are bad by any means. The grow after next I will be doing the same thing.

I would also suggest cal mag as organics usually are low in calcium. If your not seeing deficiencies after the changes then don't even worry about PH but I do strongly suggest a good beneficial bacteria like "fish shit" or raw microbes and some enzymes to help get available nutrients to the plants and keep a healthy root zone... Basically to me it's likely an availability issue.

 

[Aqua Man]

The reason I say don't worry about the PH to much is the plant and microbes will self adjust in a sense to thier needs.

If you see bright yellow new growth starting at the inner part that's an indication of a micro deficiency but other than that if they are happy let em be.

Organics you have much less control over so your traditional ppm and ph values are not as much use... especially ppm.

 

[ezenzyme]

Yeah yeah yeah!! School us up aqua!!! Enzymes were my great break thru last year and i was able to use all raw nutes for most of my season. Why? Well what do enzymes do? Enzymes are biological catalysts, a enzyme converts a substrate into different molecules called products. In laymans terms, correct me if i am wrong aqua; a enzyme will help with your nutrient cycling, making your nutes into bio available form. I use SST; popcorn, mung beans, rye, barley, and alfalfa seeds and sprout them my own. Alfalfa is some very cool stuff but thats a discussion for later. Also i use malted grains heavily. Party on!!

 

[Theknowledgeplague]

I will be doing a few things

The reason I say don't worry about the PH to much is the plant and microbes will self adjust in a sense to thier needs.

If you see bright yellow new growth starting at the inner part that's an indication of a micro deficiency but other than that if they are happy let em be.

Organics you have much less control over so your traditional ppm and ph values are not as much use... especially ppm.

I mean they are not yellow at the new growth but they are light in colour I can say

 

[mancorn]

Yeah yeah yeah!! School us up aqua!!! Enzymes were my great break thru last year and i was able to use all raw nutes for most of my season. Why? Well what do enzymes do? Enzymes are biological catalysts, a enzyme converts a substrate into different molecules called products. In laymans terms, correct me if i am wrong aqua; a enzyme will help with your nutrient cycling, making your nutes into bio available form. I use SST; popcorn, mung beans, rye, barley, and alfalfa seeds and sprout them my own. Alfalfa is some very cool stuff but thats a discussion for later. Also i use malted grains heavily. Party on!!

How do you use your alfalfa? (I ferment in a bucket for a week then use for trench.)

 

[mancorn]

I will be doing a few things

I mean they are not yellow at the new growth but they are light in colour I can sayView attachment 1090844

The light new growth is normal.

 

[Aqua Man]

I will be doing a few things

I mean they are not yellow at the new growth but they are light in colour I can sayView attachment 1090844

They are hungry

 

[Theknowledgeplague]

Now I've been watering to crazy runoff.. should I reamend because I've been basically giving them more like 40% runoff to try and lower the ph but I think I'll just go past it and just go with your solutions and check the ph later to see if it's better the growth seems fine I'll start with RO water tomorrow and when I transplant them I may add gypsum to the mix to see if it helps also to awnser the questions yes I do use cal/mag but I haven't used it for more than a week now.. should I restart applying all my food/amendments

 

[ezenzyme]

bump aqua you can hit em with some N but the growth centers will be a brighter more limey color thats natural.
Yes you should, like said above get some fish man! that will rock and is pretty avail. also as stated above most of the nutrition is washed out by how your watering so you need some liquid food to feed em right away and give it time for your top dressing to work. Fish is you friend....helpful tip water in your top dressing with some SST or compost tea to really get it rocking. And dont be in a rush, your getting back onto the right track, now make thought out moves to get to where you want to be. I top dress every ten days or so and feed weekly with fish plus doing some super water(compost tea, alfalfa kelp tea, malted barley tea). I try to do something different every third watering.
Also be sure to remember what aqua said about watering!! you want to correct your PH and then stop watering until runoff, just keep the soil moist and water to run off just to check your PH n stuff.....

mancorn, you rock the Rhodales thermophilic recipe? I have really really been wanting to try it!! This year i will! how do you ferment? I use alfalfa seeds and make sprouts then blend up and make a SST, also i like to use alfalfa meal in a tea and a top dressing. Old school Clakamus Coot stuff right there

 

[Aqua Man]

Yeah yeah yeah!! School us up aqua!!! Enzymes were my great break thru last year and i was able to use all raw nutes for most of my season. Why? Well what do enzymes do? Enzymes are biological catalysts, a enzyme converts a substrate into different molecules called products. In laymans terms, correct me if i am wrong aqua; a enzyme will help with your nutrient cycling, making your nutes into bio available form. I use SST; popcorn, mung beans, rye, barley, and alfalfa seeds and sprout them my own. Alfalfa is some very cool stuff but thats a discussion for later. Also i use malted grains heavily. Party on!!

Correct... a plant cannot uptake organic nutrients they need to be broken down into ionic salts... the only difference between organic and synthetic is the the process used to break them down. In the end they are both ionic salts... not to say that the microbes that go along with organics do not add further benefit but that another discussion.

 

[Aqua Man]

Now I've been watering to crazy runoff.. should I reamend because I've been basically giving them more like 40% runoff to try and lower the ph but I think I'll just go past it and just go with your solutions and check the ph later to see if it's better the growth seems fine I'll start with RO water tomorrow and when I transplant them I may add gypsum to the mix to see if it helps also to awnser the questions yes I do use cal/mag but I haven't used it for more than a week now.. should I restart applying all my food/amendments

Imo in organic and especially with RO you want to use cal mag. You definitely don't want runoff. If you find you are getting a tox then you can flush or feed with some runoff but until that point your washing all the available nutrients out. Basically nutrients need to be in ionic form and dissolved in water to be taken up... so by getting run off you washing em out.

Now with synthetic you need run off because they are already in ionic form and immediately available and therefore will be dissolved in water and can build up without runoff.

 

[Aqua Man]

bump aqua you can hit em with some N but the growth centers will be a brighter more limey color thats natural.
Yes you should, like said above get some fish man! that will rock and is pretty avail. also as stated above most of the nutrition is washed out by how your watering so you need some liquid food to feed em right away and give it time for your top dressing to work. Fish is you friend....helpful tip water in your top dressing with some SST or compost tea to really get it rocking. And dont be in a rush, your getting back onto the right track, now make thought out moves to get to where you want to be. I top dress every ten days or so and feed weekly with fish plus doing some super water(compost tea, alfalfa kelp tea, malted barley tea). I try to do something different every third watering.
Also be sure to remember what aqua said about watering!! you want to correct your PH and then stop watering until runoff, just keep the soil moist and water to run off just to check your PH n stuff.....

mancorn, you rock the Rhodales thermophilic recipe? I have really really been wanting to try it!! This year i will! how do you ferment? I use alfalfa seeds and make sprouts then blend up and make a SST, also i like to use alfalfa meal in a tea and a top dressing. Old school Clakamus Coot stuff right there

Yes I mean like a bright yellow center working out to the outer edges of the leaf... that will be micros... usually iron but sulfur can look a bit similar... micros are unmistakable... nitrogen is more subtle light green and the transition to green on the outer leaf is fairly smooth whereas micros not so much.

 

[Aqua Man]

Honestly @mancorn will be able to help much more than I on the organic side of nutrients so I would listen close to him.

 

[Theknowledgeplague]

Okay, now what I understand Soo far is I should feed them and stop watering to runoff but I can't seem to get the ph dialed lower than 6.9 ( that's using my tap water) this weekend I'll transplant them 1gals into 5gals soo I don't think I'll give them any 4-4-4 top dress or anything like that since I'm transplanting them soon I'll feed them a compost tea tomorrow and when I prep my coco ill use phed 6.0 RO water with calmag and then I'll add perlite with 4-4-4 amendments and alfalfa,guano,kelp, worm castings and possibly gypsum i can get my hands on some and I'm trying fabric pots for the first time and they are a charm to work with!

 

[Aqua Man]

Okay, now what I understand Soo far is I should feed them and stop watering to runoff but I can't seem to get the ph dialed lower than 6.9 ( that's using my tap water) this weekend I'll transplant them 1gals into 5gals soo I don't think I'll give them any 4-4-4 top dress or anything like that since I'm transplanting them soon I'll feed them a compost tea tomorrow and when I prep my coco ill use phed 6.0 RO water with calmag and then I'll add perlite with 4-4-4 amendments and alfalfa,guano,kelp, worm castings and possibly gypsum i can get my hands on some and I'm trying fabric pots for the first time and they are a charm to work with!

Imo you can top dress they take time to break down so I would. Also get some microbes in there to help process the nutes and enzymes will give a quick boost to that process making them available quicker.

That's actually how bacteria convert organic nutrients to ionic salts... they produce enzymes, its not actually the bacteria that do that but the enzymes they produce.

 

[Theknowledgeplague]

The 2 girls I transplanted last week are doing much better than the rest.. I'm not checking the ph of those ones I don't have splash trays big enough for f.pots I used tap water ph 5.8 and cal/mag and they are thriving like Queens compared to the 1gals and for the microbes I'm reciving some tomorrow it's a bacteria/water conditioner is that ok?

 

[Theknowledgeplague]

They are hungry

What's your take on this? I think I should transplant them all to possibly fix the issue, I have 7 babies which are in 5gal and they are doing very good I didn't run any runoff on them and they aren't showing any Signs apart from when they were in 1gals I think it's time for me to transplant them all and take the info from all of you and combine the best and what I'm actually able to do together.. I honestly appreciate the help guys here's the 5gal compared to my weakest looking plant

 

[Theknowledgeplague]

Correction** 7 babies 2in 5gal 5 in 1gal

 

[Aqua Man]

What's your take on this? I think I should transplant them all to possibly fix the issue, I have 7 babies which are in 5gal and they are doing very good I didn't run any runoff on them and they aren't showing any Signs apart from when they were in 1gals I think it's time for me to transplant them all and take the info from all of you and combine the best and what I'm actually able to do together.. I honestly appreciate the help guys here's the 5gal compared to my weakest looking plantView attachment 1090855View attachment 1090856

What I would do and I'm not an organic guy so maybe someone more knowledgeable can chime in is preload and wet the media 24 hrs before transplant to give it a head start. Then after transplant reduce the light intensity and up the humidity for a day or 2 to reduce the stress on the roots and let em settle in. Then back to normal