Help, Flowers with dead or yellow leaves

[DC28]

Organic grow in soil, temps and humidity good, why are they dying?? Green leaves at top of buds? Please help! Only on week 4 in flower! Thought nitrogen deficiency but in flower?? Also red stems.

[DC28]

Also, I am watering every few days (checking soil) as needed with tea made of bat guano, kelp meal, worm castings, fish bone meal, alfalfa meal and molasses or ph’d water with recharge added.

[SoOrbudgal]

Again you are throwing way to much at these plants. I'd stop all food now you've over loaded and confused it plus over watering. All those leaf will rot and fall off. Just use plain water and don't water every 2 days unless you know for sure it's dryed out. Over loved

[kingfish]

DC28, the yellow fanleaves during flowering is normal. If they bother you, just pluck them off. I personally would feed them for another week, then just give them water and molasses. That way you won't have to flush them before harvest. Other then that. I think they look fine.

[DC28]

I’m only watering when they are dry up to first knuckle but you think too much nutrients??

[SoOrbudgal]

yes i do think to much. You still using that soil from last grows or is this the same plant from prior posts? I don't go by feeding every watering i guess some do. But when i see flowering i give less of the high N type food. It's just my preferance on how i grow. If my soil is charged with all that worm casings, kelp meal and other such i wait till it shows signs early on like light color green then add top dressings but low in N during flowering. I'm in 3 an 5 gal pots and when i lift them they are bone dry nearly then water.

[DC28]

kingfish you don’t think it’s too early for this many leaves to be dying? They have like 5-8 weeks left in flower

[kingfish]

DC28 you said in your first post that you are in week 4 of flowering. That tells me that you have about 4-5 weeks before you should start checking Trichomes. Unless you have some crazy sativa strain that takes 12 weeks to harvest. I second what SoOrbudgal said. "You been loving them to much."

[kingfish]

Best $15 bucks I ever spend.

[AGH]

I also grow organic and most of us who do have been exactly where you are right now! These pics look super similar to my THC Bomb scrog! They started turning yellow WAY earlier than I anticipated and when I looked at my grow journal, I found two things I needed to improve for the next grow:

1. I was watering WAAAAY too much. It's super easy to overwater organic soil and it actually took about 2-3 weeks before I was able to get the lower portion of the soil dry while not letting the top part get over-dry.
2. I did not provide enough N in veg, especially because I re-use my soil and I had grown Blue Dream in it before which is a Nitrogen gobbler.

SoOrBudgal is right on when she says that you've been over-loving your plants. But don't feel bad, we all do it and it usually takes a few grows or more to realize that usually, less is more. Looking at all the love you've been putting in to your soil it's clear that you want your plants to be healthy and happy so it comes from a good place! Also, organic growing is a little more 'boring' than synthetic grows since you don't have to have a chemistry set to take care of them, just plain 'ol water and an occasional top dressing or amendment.

For the rest of this grow, follow SoOrbudgal's advice and remember it for subsequent grows as well. On your next grow, during the veg stage, you actually have to do very little. Generally I don't do any top dressing during veg and I really never do any teas or anything. Just supplement with Nitrogen once or twice depending on what the plants are doing. When it comes to watering, I found that Nebula's suggested watering schedule works really well although I take a bit longer to ramp it up to the 8 cups but that's partly because once my seeds germinate, I put them right into a 7gal pot. Here is the article with the watering schedule (the whole article is good, but the watering schedule is about 2/3 of the way down): https://www.growweedeasy.com/are-can...red-how-to-fix

If your grow continues like my THC Bomb run, you're going to be okay but you really have to stop yourself from trying to help too much. My yields ended up being less than stellar and it wasn't as quality as I would have wanted, but I certainly had weed at the end and just as important, I learned a LOT!

[SoOrbudgal]

I ain't kingfish but i do believe it's far too early to loose leaf like you got. Ph is out of wack in soil.

[DC28]

AGH This strain is Blue Dream, being you said they are nitrogen gobblers, should I top dress with bat guano or blood meal or just work on my watering? Also you didn’t mention ph, which shouldn’t be an issue with organic grows but I always check that before I make the tea or recharge, do you agree with SoOrbudgal ?

[AGH]

Blue Dream LOVES nitrogen in Veg...most cannabis plants do, but they really go crazy for it.

I would say that if you've been adding those amendments that there are plenty of nutrients, including nitrogen, in your soil. If overwatering is an issue, that can prevent nutrient uptake (which was the main problem for me with my THC Bomb run and a lack of N in the soil was a secondary problem that was exacerbated by overwatering). The first time overwatering prevents nutrient uptake, the reflex is to give more water/amendments which only worsens the issue. So if it were my grow, I'd not be adding any more nutrients/amendments at this point.

When it comes to pH, I've never adjusted it. Occasionally I'll use a pH strip to check the pH of my tap water, but that's mostly just if I'm bored or feel like watching paper change colors. However, the pH of my tap water is generally in the range or close to what cannabis plants like so maybe I'm lucky.

In organic grows, the soil biome does a great job of buffering pH. It's also not quite as important because the fungi and bacteria in the soil are the ones bringing nutrients to the roots as opposed to the roots having to do the work themselves. The fungi and bacteria aren't as sensitive to it (that's an EXTREME simplification so feel free to do as much research on that as you'd like!) and they are able to balance the pH as needed. The exception is if your water is way out of whack or you've done something to your soil to create an environment that is way out of whack. If you do decide to pH your water, just make sure to do it with vinegar/lemon juice/etc instead of using any chemicals as the ingredients in synthetic pH up and down can destroy your soil biome.

soOrbudgal has way more experience than I do. While pH is important, if I were in your position, I would prioritize dialing in my watering regime first and foremost. Wait a bit (as in a couple of weeks) without doing anything special (assuming that your tap water is not way out of pH) other than adjusting the amount and timing of watering and then assess from there. You'll get the most information from adjusting one variable at a time instead of tweaking 100 variables all at once.

Whatever you do, don't expect those leaves to turn green and happy again - they're done. And since you're in flower don't expect new fan leaves to grow. Take lots of notes regarding the progress of your plants and use the experience to learn for the next time!