Possibly deficiency or is this normal for my stage?

[TossThisWayUpHigh]

Hey everyone. First time poster. But long time lurker. Previously I’ve received a lot of conflicting opinions on Reddit as to what’s going on with my girl. (I’ll put a TL;DR at the bottom.)

From, this is perfectly normal at the stage/age your plant is in. To PH lockout, to nitrogen deficiency. Now since those posts I’ve went and bought a PH meter. PH down, and fox farms trio nutrients. The reason why I never bothered with PH before is because I only used distilled. My setup is a water system only, using a hot soil. So I figured by using distilled, the plants will take only what it needs from the soil. And until recently, she’s been doing great. (Unless she’s normal). So my question is now.

Should I just feed her PH verified level water, with no added nutrients? (Hot soil company recommends against doing so since the soil is supposed to have everything it needs for full life cycle .) To hopefully “unlock” the PH for my girl.
Or should I add some of the bloom that contains nitrogen as well? Just trying to figure out the best way to attack and solve the issue.

Plant - Blueberry Auto from GSC day 57 from seed.
Setup Details - 5 Gallon Fabric bag, under a 3500w autocob. She’s sitting in 1/3 or so of Kind Soil Hot Soil - Kind Soil
Topped with Roots Organic
Feed only distilled water, til about a weeks go and I’ve feed her a bit of Poland spring the last two times.
Never added any nutrients or checked PH.

extra photo with close up of buds.

TL;DR - Lots of conflicting opinions on issue, if any. Trying to figure out best way to tackle problems. Correct PH water with no nutes, or add nutes as well? Already in hot soil. Link above.

Any advice would be great. Thanks guys

 

[TossThisWayUpHigh]

Anyone?

 

[Olderfart]

Anyone?

ok, I'll try, although I am not the best adviser to say the least, being somewhat of a noob myself.

If you are in hot soil, and the color of most leaves is consistent with that, what I would do is give the pot a serious flush with a pHed nute mix. Doing a flush with plain water of any kind will stress the plant, and it is already stressed about something. I suspect that you either have a pH lockout or a lockout caused by unbalanced nutes in your soil. I do not think the issue is a nitrogen deficiency, if it was, the apparently healthy leaves would not be that dark.

If you want to save the grow, I think you may want to go to Plan B, which is to flush whatever it is that is the problem out of your pot, and leave the soil environment with proper pH and EC level at least, and maybe a better balance of nutes. I would say that the soil just has not worked, so you need to move on by confirming pH and trying to re-balance the nutes. Sadly, there is no certainty about the nute balance because you have no way of knowing exactly what the imbalance is. The blunt tool available is to try to flush the soil out to a significant degree and leave it with a better balance.

So, in a nutshell, I recommend mixing up a large quantity of carefully pH'ed nutes, and keep flushing until the input and runoff is, if not exactly the same, at least close. This has risks of overwatering if your soil is not well drained, but I do not see an alternative other than ignoring the issue until it becomes worse, which might make recovery more difficult.

If you can get more experienced advice, you should probably listen to someone else... I am particularly reluctant to assume that the problem is nutes at all, maybe you have some sort of infection going on. Just in case, I would remove the affected leaves, they are toast anyway, and have a careful look at them under magnification to see if anything is visible. If you find anything obvious, get on the infirmary section with pics and someone will try to help.

Good luck with it, and stay safe.

 

[GinFizzLuv]

I had a Kind Soil grow recently, but I was in 2 gallon pots so smaller than you. My grow went haywire around day 40 with deficiencies and looked somewhat similar to what you are seeing. I ended up finishing the grow with bottled flower nutes and added Cal/Mag.

@Waira has helped a few of us on here when their Kind Soil has mid-flower issues. I would wait and see what he suggests.

To my noob eyes You look like you have more than a few weeks to go so I think that fade looks premature.

 

[Waira]

-- Looks like a P and K defc. starting, along with some normal fade from N getting tapped out of a few fans,...

In-pot pH can go off, no matter what anybody tells you including Phil at KS... it's just less likely in this type of soil... Have you used any inoculants, teas, anything to help bolster the microbe herd in there? those are critical for good performance from this type of soil!
That said, in the past, many have found KS to be weak in P and K during bloom, and needed bloom nutes to get the best out of it...
No matter what, do NOT flush unless you have tested the soil with a proper pH soil probe and confirmed it's way off, not just a little,... flush leaches out some of the nutes, last thing you want now! The you'd have to start some bloom feeds for sure....
Good organic-based nutes: Roots Organics Terp Tea Bloom, HPK (no N in this)...

 

[Olderfart]

Anyone?

Something else that I didn't mention - I can't tell what I am looking at in the photo due to the LST going on. If the leaves that are buggered are only ones that have been trained hard, maybe your LST attempts themselves could be the problem. I do find it odd that you have several really unhappy leaves, but lots of apparently really happy ones.

Also,I can't tell from the photo if the affected leaves are all the older growth, but if they are, you can at least figure that the locked out nutes are mobile ones. That would not change my recommendation, just add a hint about what you might be trying to fix.

I see that @Waira has chimed in, so you can safely ignore my comments. He knows more about this stuff than I ever will.

 

[TossThisWayUpHigh]

-- Looks like a P and K defc. starting, along with some normal fade from N getting tapped out of a few fans,...

In-pot pH can go off, no matter what anybody tells you including Phil at KS... it's just less likely in this type of soil... Have you used any inoculants, teas, anything to help bolster the microbe herd in there? those are critical for good performance from this type of soil!
That said, in the past, many have found KS to be weak in P and K during bloom, and needed bloom nutes to get the best out of it...
No matter what, do NOT flush unless you have tested the soil with a proper pH soil probe and confirmed it's way off, not just a little,... flush leaches out some of the nutes, last thing you want now! The you'd have to start some bloom feeds for sure....
Good organic-based nutes: Roots Organics Terp Tea Bloom, HPK (no N in this)...

Thank you for the reply. I’m going to have to buy a ph meter for soil. Right now I just received the water ph meter. I tested the distilled I’ve been using and it came up to 5.3. I know on KindSoils site they recommend 6.3-7. I tested my tap and it at 6.7 ph so that’s what I’ll be using now. I’ve never added anything other than water as directed by KS. Even though my ph was off in the distilled.

What specifically should I buy to go along with this soil? I already own fox farm nutrient trio. I’m going to look for a ph meter to test the soil ASAP.

 

[TossThisWayUpHigh]

Something else that I didn't mention - I can't tell what I am looking at in the photo due to the LST going on. If the leaves that are buggered are only ones that have been trained hard, maybe your LST attempts themselves could be the problem. I do find it odd that you have several really unhappy leaves, but lots of apparently really happy ones.

Also,I can't tell from the photo if the affected leaves are all the older growth, but if they are, you can at least figure that the locked out nutes are mobile ones. That would not change my recommendation, just add a hint about what you might be trying to fix.

I see that @Waira has chimed in, so you can safely ignore my comments. He knows more about this stuff than I ever will.

I appreciate the advice nonetheless. Thanks again.
Also, here’s some more photos I just took with more angles.

 

[Olderfart]

The Bluelab one is a good choice if you want to spend a bit, but there are others. I came close to pulling the trigger on the soil sensor for my Apera, but am put off with the price because I am not confident that even the good probes will last long being abraded by soil. Effective pH probes are sophisticated and delicate and I do not understand how the soil ones manage to survive the long term physical wear. For home growers like me, the cost may not make a lot of sense. If I was trying to make money, or was having trouble growing enough bud for my use, the arithmetic would be different. And maybe if I understood how the soil probes work, I might have more confidence in the hardware. But I have the bud I need and more, and I remain unconvinced about the longevity of the soil sensors.

If I was in the market, I would get a meter with digital output, not one with an analog scale.

Oh, by the way, pH meters do not read distilled water well. Your distilled is close to 7 no matter what the meter says.

 

[TossThisWayUpHigh]

Hey guys, just came back to give an update. I was finally convinced this was a natural thing happening to my aging plant. Day 71 now, trichs are looking pretty cloudy. Almost time for chop. I appreciate all the advice I was given!