Do my plants have an issue? Yellow leaves early in bloom

[SLX]

Hi everybody,

First time posting here but I've been following the forum for quite a while and this looks like a very nice spot to ask some questions.
I'll try to make this post as informative as possible. Thanks for reading!

I did some successful grows 3-2 years ago but had to pause for 2 years due to circumstances, I now started a new grow and I think I'm having an issue.

Setup info
- I'm using a 60x60x120cm grow tent
- I'm using a LED grow light (advertised as a equivalent to 600W HPS/MH lamp) : https://www.amazon.de/-/en/gp/produc...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- The lamp is located just out of view in the photos below
- The plants are in fabric pots of 3 gallons (which I used from the seed, I did not move them from a small pot)
- The soil I bought at a local store, I chose it as it advertised the perlite in it (which I read was good for proper draining)
- The tent has 1 fan near the bottom blowing at the bottom to create some airflow (can be seen in photos in the back right corner)

The issue
I germinated the seeds on April 1st (not a joke) and I'm growing White Widow autoflowers. The datasheet says they take 10-12 weeks to harvest and have a flowering time of 7-8 weeks. I'm now roughly 9 weeks in.
I do want to add that I timed the start of the grow poorly, after a week I had to leave for 6 days so I set up my auto-watering system in which I made an error (it kept slowly dripping), after those 6 days I came back to see the pot, runoff tray and a bit of my tent flooded with water. The plants recovered after everything dried out but I think this has set them back a bit in grow time.

Last few weeks I noticed the bottom leaves starting to yellow which is a bit early for them to start turning yellow I think (I know they will do that near the end of the grow).
The humidity now is between 50 and 60 and temps are at 20-23° C.
I've added 2 pictures to this post, one with grow lights and one without, at this point the lower leaves are starting to curl up and I wonder if this is going to be a problem.

Additional info
I never used nutrients before but this time around I decided to try it. During veg I added some bat guano powder to my water (I made a tea of it, about 3 spoons for 5-6L)
For bloom I used these tablets which I dissolved 1 tablet in 6 L of water: https://www.royalqueenseeds.com/grow...er-tablet.html
I initially thought the nutrient solution was causing the issue (since the tips seemed to get yellow as well), so I used regular PH balanced water last week for watering.
I'm keeping the PH of my water between 6 and 7 and a soil meter does read out those values.

Additional questions
I'm having a hard time with watering and how to go about it. I'm afraid I'm overwatering the plants, for this reason I bought a soil meter that could show me the moisture and ph level of the soil.
I water my plants until I have some runoff, but now I waited 3 days and according to many articles, if the soil feels try about an inch in I should water again. However, measuring the moisture in my pots gives me the maximum readout if I put the meter near the bottom of the pot. Should I trust the meter or should I water when the top inch of the soil feels dry?

If there is anything else I should add, please let me know.

Am I worrying for nothing or do you think there is an issue going on with these plants?
I really want this grow to work out, it's been too long that I had to do without

Thanks a lot!

[Gingerbeard]

12 posts on 5 threads, all about eazyplug, in the past three weeks. I can't see before that. 34 posts since joining Oct 2018.

nosenuffin if you want to sell something, please go through the main office.

[Puglover1]

Hi, "Regular pH balanced water" needs a number to be accurate and efficient. Soil from the store, does that mean potting soil? Lower yellow leaves appear to need nitrogen, at least. Have you looked on the main GWE site for leaf issue identifier? I would try to bend that dominant cola over to let the lower small lower buds mature more. Watering: Lift a bag after watering, remember how it feels. If you think it needs water lift the bag, see if it feels light. I think you mostly need nutrients, and consider coaxing the taller branches over for better light intensity to get to the bottom halves. Good luck with your autos.

Hi everybody,

First time posting here but I've been following the forum for quite a while and this looks like a very nice spot to ask some questions.
I'll try to make this post as informative as possible. Thanks for reading!

I did some successful grows 3-2 years ago but had to pause for 2 years due to circumstances, I now started a new grow and I think I'm having an issue.

Setup info
- I'm using a 60x60x120cm grow tent
- I'm using a LED grow light (advertised as a equivalent to 600W HPS/MH lamp) : https://www.amazon.de/-/en/gp/produc...?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- The lamp is located just out of view in the photos below
- The plants are in fabric pots of 3 gallons (which I used from the seed, I did not move them from a small pot)
- The soil I bought at a local store, I chose it as it advertised the perlite in it (which I read was good for proper draining)
- The tent has 1 fan near the bottom blowing at the bottom to create some airflow (can be seen in photos in the back right corner)

The issue
I germinated the seeds on April 1st (not a joke) and I'm growing White Widow autoflowers. The datasheet says they take 10-12 weeks to harvest and have a flowering time of 7-8 weeks. I'm now roughly 9 weeks in.
I do want to add that I timed the start of the grow poorly, after a week I had to leave for 6 days so I set up my auto-watering system in which I made an error (it kept slowly dripping), after those 6 days I came back to see the pot, runoff tray and a bit of my tent flooded with water. The plants recovered after everything dried out but I think this has set them back a bit in grow time.

Last few weeks I noticed the bottom leaves starting to yellow which is a bit early for them to start turning yellow I think (I know they will do that near the end of the grow).
The humidity now is between 50 and 60 and temps are at 20-23° C.
I've added 2 pictures to this post, one with grow lights and one without, at this point the lower leaves are starting to curl up and I wonder if this is going to be a problem.

Additional info
I never used nutrients before but this time around I decided to try it. During veg I added some bat guano powder to my water (I made a tea of it, about 3 spoons for 5-6L)
For bloom I used these tablets which I dissolved 1 tablet in 6 L of water: https://www.royalqueenseeds.com/grow...er-tablet.html
I initially thought the nutrient solution was causing the issue (since the tips seemed to get yellow as well), so I used regular PH balanced water last week for watering.
I'm keeping the PH of my water between 6 and 7 and a soil meter does read out those values.

Additional questions
I'm having a hard time with watering and how to go about it. I'm afraid I'm overwatering the plants, for this reason I bought a soil meter that could show me the moisture and ph level of the soil.
I water my plants until I have some runoff, but now I waited 3 days and according to many articles, if the soil feels try about an inch in I should water again. However, measuring the moisture in my pots gives me the maximum readout if I put the meter near the bottom of the pot. Should I trust the meter or should I water when the top inch of the soil feels dry?

If there is anything else I should add, please let me know.

Am I worrying for nothing or do you think there is an issue going on with these plants?
I really want this grow to work out, it's been too long that I had to do without

Thanks a lot!

[SLX]

Hi, "Regular pH balanced water" needs a number to be accurate and efficient. Soil from the store, does that mean potting soil? Lower yellow leaves appear to need nitrogen, at least. Have you looked on the main GWE site for leaf issue identifier? I would try to bend that dominant cola over to let the lower small lower buds mature more. Watering: Lift a bag after watering, remember how it feels. If you think it needs water lift the bag, see if it feels light. I think you mostly need nutrients, and consider coaxing the taller branches over for better light intensity to get to the bottom halves. Good luck with your autos.

- Regular pH balanced water meaning I used water at the pH my soil was at (6.5 at that time), should have made that more clear
- Soil from store is indeed potting mix, I took a more expensive bag in the hopes the quality was better. I read at some point that if it's good for tomatoes, it's good for cannabis plants, not sure if that was true, but that's how I picked the potting mix

I have looked at the leaf identifier (a few ones) but the issue here is that I can see multiple things on my leafs which makes it hard to see what my issue is or issues are
- most important one is the yellow leafs at the bottom
- I can also see the leaves being "droopy" as can be seen in the picture, that made me think over watering
- I also notice the tips being a bit yellow which would indicate overfeeding?
- some leaves have yellow "veins" (but that could be just the yellowing altogether, I'm not sure), this is also only noticeable under the grow light as it accentuates the yellow spots.
So I wasn't sure how to go about it, hence this post.

I did some LTS early in the veg but I didn't do it properly I think, I was afraid to break the plants. Once they hit bloom I stopped that, but that's when that right plant's center shot up like crazy. At this point, I've made sure that every bud side gets exposed to light using some string (which are gone since last week) so I thought I'd be fine there, so it would still be better to bend over that main top then?

You mention it needs nitrogen, any suggestions how to apply it organically or is it fine to mix in other nutrients with the tablets I'm using? I noticed that the tablets I'm using don't seem to mention nitrogen so I'll have to get it from another source.
[edit] I went looking up a bit, am I correct that adding the bat guano I used earlier will supply nitrogen to the plants? it has an NPK of 1-10-1, would that be sufficient or is that a bad idea?

As for watering, I tried the "pick up pot" method, but for some reason I really have trouble "feeling" the weight of the pot and deducting the need for water from it , hence I bought that moisture meter for something more accurate. Does the plant look like it's being over watered from the pictures?

Sorry for the many questions, I really am a beginner

Thanks for the help!

[Puglover1]

Can't tell by pics about overwatering but if you have a scale some people weigh their bags wet and dry to get a feel for it. I've seen successful grows using Miracle Gro organic soil. I used fish emulsion for N on my first grow's seedlings and in early veg, foliar spray. Nice healthy looking buds growing there.

[Rwise]

1-10-1 thats 1N-10P-1K, so it has little Nitrogen in it Blood meal is 12-0-0 and would be sprinkled over the soil then watered. Some folks dont like to use blood meal.
I would run the PH between 6.5 and 6.8 while in flower. Looks like early PH issues or deficiencies, though some yellowing of lower leaves is to be expected.

[SLX]

Thanks for the blood meal tip, I'll try that out.