Are my plants fucked?

This is my first grow and I'm left with 2 female Northern Lights and 2 females from bagseed (in compost). All are now well into flowering. The bagseed seem more advanced than the NL, but all the same age. Prob with the NL is I let 'em veg up to the ceiling before flowering and the colas didn't get light for a few weeks cuz they were above the growlamp. Now I bent 'em down under the lamp and tied 'em. Both strains have many yellowing leaves. The Bagseed are worst with brown dead leaves right up to the colas, so I removed alot of them. I've tried experimenting with epsom salts for Mg def, Watering with Calcium Hydroxide sol for C def and to raise pH but chlorosis and deadspots just continued up the plants. I don't really know what I'm doing and my pH monitoring sucks cuz my soil tester is wildly innacurate. I switched from miracle gro to formulex, but I think I burned the hell out of the bagseed pair. I'm near harvest with the bagseed as the flowers are turning brown, but the buds aren't very fat and not very sparkly. The NL buds are still really skinny. It's been an interesting adventure for sure, but can I hope to get a decent smoke after all this. Most of my cuttings failed to root cuz they were too small, but I still got I good NL clone that I'm gonna keep as a mother to clone the next generation which I hope will be better than the first attempt. Anyone got any good tips for the next crop after reading this? Many thanks
http://www.hipgallery.com/photopost2/data/2319/bagseed_2.JPG
http://www.hipgallery.com/photopost2/data/2319/bagseed_1.JPG
http://www.hipgallery.com/photopost2/data/2319/NL_2.JPG

 

"my soil tester is wildly innacurate."

Soil testers suck. Digital pH pen, gotta have it. The hanna pH "checker" is pretty cheap, but spring for a better one if you can.

Need more detailed about the setup, and the stage of the plants are at.

Lights?
Grow environment? (humidity, temp)
Soil details?

Not sure how far you are into flower but with chem nutes you might wanna start flushing soon
Also, take out the face pic too bro, I won't even post pictures of my setup, and I'm only running 400w... This server is in the US of A, not too safe...

If I had to guess, that right there is heat stress. Move your light up if you can, here are some pictures of heat stress, not sure if it's your problem but it's my best guess considering that you had to train the plants right under the light.

 

Thanks for this, I think you're right that pH is my main problem. I'm growing in compost, so I don't know what the best method for monitoring is. I'll forget the soil tester. I have indicator solution, but I thought that's no use because the water runoff is discoloured brown from the compost. Anyway, I just tried it and I could still see that it went red, so it must be way too acidic. Can I use a digital pen in compost? I thought they were only good for hydroponic tanks? I guess that testing the runoff with indicator works ok though.


I have a 400W MD light for veg and an equivalent sodium lamp (W - ?) for flowering. I have a fan in the grow chamber, to circulate the air, but it still gets pretty warm in there. I'm sure the acidity is locking out some of the good stuff. I've tried foliar feeding, but probably too much, so that may not have helped.

I'm in the uk, but maybe it's not such a good idea to provide photographic evidence. Thanks for the tips

 

jesus man, sounds like you burned your plants. take your plants and pour a ton of water through the soil to flush all that shit out of there. then take a ph test with better testing gear and make the neccisary arrangements

 

Yes you can use digital pH testers, you measure the water that you give the plants and also the runoff. Add dolamite lime to your compost if it's acidic, it'll act as a buffer.

 

Yes, have begun flushing and ordered a Hanna digital pH checker

Thanks for the tips guys. I've learned so much from this forum it's really amazing.

oh, one more thing though, What do you mean when you say 'buffer'? Is that like if you put lime in the compost it will stop it getting too acidic? Is it like a slow-release thing to keep the pH within suitable range?

 

A buffer naturally helps lower the acidity of the compost, when u get ur digi just monitor your levels closely

 

Well guys, I think we did all we could, but my girls look like they're on their way to that great growroom in the sky. Just about all the leaves are yellow except the li'l ones around the buds. I'm still a way off harvest coz the pistils are all still white on some of 'em. I flushed them once but I think I was too late. Can they recover from this state if I keep flushing or do you think I should chop 'em now and salvage what smoke I can before the quality of the buds deteriorates any further?

 

Fan leaves falling off in late flowering is normal. If you need to raise pH, put some hot water in a bowl, throw in some egg shells. Let it sit, then pour into pots.

 

put the babies in an empty bath where I could keep flushing them for about an hour. runoff still showing red, so I throw in some pH up, stil showing red. So anyway, I keep flushing and upping til I get the runoff to indicate yellow. Throw in some formulex, hoping they will be able to absorb some nutes coz they haven't been fed for weeks. It's like intensive care. Hope I did the right thing. All I can do now is pray to the God of weed.


Cheers

 

If you havent been feeding, I hope your very close to harvest.

 

ummm.... the 2 Northern Lights are still a few weeks away but I stopped feeding when they started having serious problems cos I thought I was overdoing the nutes. Now I think it was the pH was wrong so they weren't getting enough nutes. Something is wrong with the conditions because they are taking ages to mature. They've been in flowering for about 2 months already. It's a mess, but I'm gonna look at this as a learning experience

 

What color are the pistils? Are any turning bown? Late flowering right before the bud bulk up one last time is a VERY important time to have nutes.

 

Yeah man you never wanna even think about messing with nutes when you have unresolved ph problems. When the pH is off as you know the nutes don't get absorbed, so they just build up in the soil when you keep adding them, getting to levels that are toxic to the plant.

I've never done it but maybe you should look into water curing those nugs if you didn't flush. It'll take all trhe chems straight out.

 

Ok, I have a plan. I keep watering with pH up and test the runoff with every watering to keep the pH in the right range and start shovelling in the nutes for the last few weeks of flowering to boost THC as much as I can before most of the pistils go brown. Water curing looks quite straight forward, so that will disolve all the chems and the 1st Marijuana Grower's Page says that this can increase proportion of THC by up to a third after all the other shit is disolved out!


Thanks again guys.

 

Am I doing something seriously wrong?, 3 hours ago I watered with tap water, tested the runoff with my new calibrated Hanna Checker which said 5.8. I watered in some garden lime with some ph up solution and test again at 5.7(??). I keep watering with pH up which I keep making stronger (Tests at pH 10.8). I keep watering with this for like 2 hours and the runoff keeps getting more acidic (now pH 4.9). WTF is going on here? please help