Gaia Green - nute burn/growing pains

[Duceduck]

Hi yo!

This is my second grow, first with Gaia and made a not so great decision when I decided to amend. I’m learning the hard way that it can in fact burn your plant and possibly even lockout other nutrients. My girls are showing Nitrogen toxicity but have been fairly smooth sailing with water every other day. Today, I’m seeing some calcium and potassium deficiencies (still early stage but progressing) but only have about 3 weeks left until harvest. My previous grow was with GH flora series and didn’t enjoy it at all.

See, I added 1tbsp each of the Veg and Bloom after about 3 weeks from sprout into FFHF. My thought process was clearly flawed as these girls are a 9 week strain (420 Fastbud Fastberry) and she was going to start transitioning into preflower shortly after I amended. She went through her flower stretch and stopped between 16-19 inches between the 3. My dumb mistake was that I added way too much Veg which they just couldn't use up. Now, these girls are clawing and possibly locking out the much needed potassium during flower. The buds formation looks good (wish it was great), but still fairly airy and her sugar/fans are telling me their getting sick. Heading into the final stages of their life, I want them to be happy (and of course with dense fat nugs ). I should have reduced my Veg amendment by 1/2 as they weren't going to need as much nitrogen during flower. You live and you learn but man it stings..

In a normal situation where the feed is salt based, flushing would be ideal. Problem is, how do you flush the organic Gaia Green (which is also a slow release). I even thought about added some Flora bloom but who knows if that's going to help. I don't want to make the situation worse but if anyone else has any suggestion on how to clear up the Nitrogen Toxicity from Gaia, I'm all ears!

Regardless, I'm sharing my experience in hope that this will help others out there to plan accordingly! Think about your strain, when you want to amend and how much. Clearly, this doesn't apply to photos but from an auto perspective, this is a lesson learned.

Good luck growers and if anyone has any ideas on how to flush slow releasing Gaia out of the medium, holler!

 

[olbobcat]

If you flush it with water it will dilute it out of the soil. I would not be sure adding that little of Veg would do that much damage. I would think that it more of a lack of bloom than to much veg. I can't get gaia in US but Dr earth is pretty close and One shot from Nectar for the gods and Greengros like that as well. I would be using a heck of a lot more than you did with those products. I would also use Veg in bloom as well. When you do Dr earth tomato it has a fair amount of calcium in it. and you mix it with the Bloom. Nectar is a Calcium based system where you are feeding a high rate of calcium. You also flush with calcium to bind up the extra nutes so they are digested by the microbes. Without seeing a photo I would guess lack of calcium which can hook the leaves as well. When you use these different nute systems you need to get use to looking at there problems that are specific to them.If you have a ppm meter and a ph meter do a 1 to 1 slurry test of the soil to see where you are at with both. It might give you some answers. Low ph and high ppms indicate a lockout, low ppms and normal ph equal underfed. I do a slurry before I feed. I have found that most helpful and insightful thing I ever learned to do. I know there is the Canuck guy on youtube that uses Gaia and it seems he is using quite a bit..