Spotting Nutrients Problems Early
Spotting nutrient problems early is very important because it gives us a chance to fix the problem at hand. If the problem is discovered to late then the damage will be harder to reverse if not permanent already.
What To Look For?
Knowing what to look for can be the most difficult part when spotting nutrient problems especially if you are new to growing. The most obvious sign that problems are present is discoloration. It is always easy to see because it the off color sticks out to our eye and the color it is changing to can be used to determine what is wrong.
Too Many Nutrients – Burnt Fan Leaf Tips
If all the fan leaves are still dark green but the tips are brown this is a sign of nutrient burn. This can be treated if caught early enough it is fixed easily by reducing the amount of nutrients we are adding. If caught a little late or you just want to be sure we can perform a flush. This is when we stop giving our plant nutrients all together and replace it with tap water for a couple days up to a week depending on how much you want to flush.
Lack Of Nutrients
The most obvious signs of a lack of nutrients is yellow fan leaves with red stems in veg or early flower. The plant is not getting enough nutrients and begins to pull some out of storage, aka the fan leaves.
When using the Lucas formula you can diagnose individual signs of nutrient deficiencies and adjust the formula accordingly.
Nutrient Lockout
It looks like lack of nutrients but is the worst nutrient problem going. The fan leaves will have the same signs and start to die but if you add more nutrients they will die even quicker. The true problem is in the soil and it’s PH level. Over time as we feed our plants a build up of salt can occur. This build up raises the PH level of the soil to a point where the vital nutrients cannot be absorbed. The only way to reduce the build up of the salts is to flush them out with good old water.
PH level is very important because plants absorb different nutrients at different PH levels and if they are anywhere above 7 you will need to flush a couple times throughout your grow. I recommend this anyways as a precaution or if you like you could test the PH level of some soil run off throughout the grow to ensure proper levels.