HELP! Dealing with hot soil

[katkootsharmoot]

Dears,

I've recently moved my plants to new organic potting soil. For the past 3 weeks, my plants started showing all signs of nitrogen toxicity, including yellowing, purple stems, stunted growth while there is an excessive amounts of leaves which look a bit deformed but they are all overcrowded. I'm very certain that it has to do with the soil being too hot for the. I've added no nutrients.

My question is, how do I deal with this situation? I do not have any access to better soil in my country so that's out of the question (for now). I've flushed the pots with ph'ed water but I am not sure if it's working. New leaves are looking much brighter green but still yellows on the tips.

Thank you in advance (and thank you for this wonderful community).

 

[SoOrbudgal]

Pictures

 

[katkootsharmoot]

Here you go. Sorry my question was mainly about how to treat hot soil so I didn't think I needed the pics. But you're right, better to be sure.

 

[Rwise]

I have read, but have no proof that 3 Tablespoons black strap molasses to each 1 gallon of water will reduce N by eating it.

 

[Rwise]

Under normal light please, we cant see the real colour.

 

[katkootsharmoot]

Better pics. HYG. Please keep in mind that I cut a lot of leaves that had worse yellow tips because of the overcrowding. It looked much worse than this.

 

[Gjourney101]

It doesn't look like nitrogen toxicity. Toxicity of nitrogen is displayed by dark green leaves. You are looking at a deficiency of some kind. Before you go adding nutrients or flushing your medium, check you water and pH. If your pH is off too much on either side of the fence, availability of nutrients will fluctuate immensely

 

[katkootsharmoot]

I thought the yellowing and excessive foliage is a certain nitrogen toxicity. Nonetheless, water pH is 6, PPM 92, soil pH (tested the soil in little water) is ~6.5. Original soil ph as per the package is 6.8.

 

[Gjourney101]

katkootsharmoot how is your drainage? I've read vegatative PPM is supposed to be between 300-400. You can read further into that. Make sure you're not over watering. Where did the symptoms first appear?

 

[katkootsharmoot]

I've only gotten to measure PPM lately so not sure what you mean with vegetative PPM? You mean the run-off drain water or the watering water?

First thing I doubted was over watering. I made sure I'm spacing out the watering and bought a moisture meter for the soil to make sure I don't over-do it.

For when did the symptoms start: initially plant 1 and 2 were planted in a cheap soil I re-used. They grew fine except some lacking light which I fixed later (hence the stretching stems). Once I planted them to a bigger pot, filled with this new organic soil, the yellowing and the rest of the symptoms starting developing. The seedling was planted from the start (after germination) in that same organic soil.

 

[katkootsharmoot]

And drainage is fine. Not sure what's the metric but there is always a run-off and it dries in a day and half.

 

[katkootsharmoot]

Up! I don't mean to spam but the situation is getting worse and I have no other options to try. I don't want to lose the plants.

 

[Rwise]

Have you done a bug check? Use a 30X zoom lens and look at the under side of the leaves for signs of bugs. If only to eliminate that as the issue.
How does any new growth look?

 

[katkootsharmoot]

I checked for bugs (not with a 30x - yet). Nothing unusual at all underneath the leave. Also, I think bugs usually leave "spots". All abnormalities on my leaves are either focused on yellow tips + generalized texture that looks like a burn.

New growth looks slightly deformed. When the leaves first erupt, they look super bright green but they are bent/curved downwards. After that, the yellow tips start.

Also, thank you to everyone who've been kind enough to try and help so far. Please keep them coming!

 

[katkootsharmoot]

Added more pics of the new growth.

 

[Tersky]

Yellow tips tends to be nute burn, so the soil may be a tad hot but i dont see nitrogen tox. That is dark green waxy leaves. I've never heard of excessive foliage as being an issue. It usually depends on the strain and how it's trained and light distance on how bushy the plant is. To me it looks like the light might be too close keeping the growth between nodes minimal and "crowded" raise the light a little and see if the plant stretches to the light.

As far as soil is concerned, you dont need fancy soil, but it makes it easier to the new grower. I am not versed in soil so i will leave most of the advice for that to someone who has experience in soils. That said, it seems to me that the soil you have is not draining very well and almost looks like it has vermiculite? If so that is not the best choice for cannabis as vermiculite retains water and can cause poor aeration and drown cannabis roots. My advice is if you repot, add a good amount of perlite to help soil drainage and increase aeration

 

[katkootsharmoot]

Thank you for the thorough response.
1- Nitrogen tox: leaves look darker in reality. My mobile keeps 'correcting' the color but it's a bit darker in reality. Lots of leaves had "clawing" on their tips too; that is tips that are bent downwards with a right angle. Those leaves were cut so I will add older pics.
2- Light too close: your note is actually very insightful and a very good guess. I think the plants might indeed be too close. My Lux meter is measuring 50-60k lux so I will try and get it down to 30ish. I sadly don't have the ability to 'raise' the light, would decreasing the intensity helps?
3- Soil: Yes the soil has vermiculite (amongst other things) and perlite too. I've added lots of perlite to the newest pot and I'm moving the seedling to it. I have two questions for you (if you can): 1- how do you test drainage? 2- is there a way to improve aeration (by adding perlite for example) to plants that are already in a pot?

Thank you again!

 

[katkootsharmoot]

Adding some older pics of the plants that made me think it's nitrogen toxicity. Leaves with tips that look like "claws" and bent downward. These leaves were cut.

Also thank you for everyone who's commented and tried to help so far. I really appreciate it.

 

[katkootsharmoot]

Added older pics in my post below.

 

[Gjourney101]

Over watering can cause root rot. If you added perlite and vermiculite, those 2 basivally cancel each other out. Perlite encourages drainage while vermiculite resteicts it. If your roots are sitting in water (not just the first inch down) then you'll start encountering some really odd symptoms. If you have nothing left to lose, try hydrogen peroxide on one of the plants. Dilute it to 30ml pef gallon of water (3% HP). It will kill all pathogens in the soil near the roots and improve oxygen , but it also kills good bacteria so keep that in mind. It's more of a last call option.