Rust spots on upper leaves?

[DogterB]

-Problem: Noticed these rust-looking spots on an upper leaf the other day. Now a couple of leaves have some. This is also a photoperiod (first time photo grow)

-Medium/grow method: Soil, OF, in a 5 gal bucket auto-water SIP setup

-Feed and supplements used: Amended the OF with Tomato-tone, Dr. Earth Flower Girl, and EWC. Have given a couple of teas using the same ingredients + molasses, mammoth p, & some Big Swell

-Water source: Tap, sits in the res bucket for a day before I let it flow to the bucket

-Strain and age: Runtz S1 photo, week 3 of flower

-Climate: Temps: day 74-80F, night 66-72F. RH: ~40's during lights on, jumps up to 65-70 lights off. 2x2 tent.

- Light used: LED, HLG 100v2, currently maxed out on height and 6-8" from tallest tops

-Additional info: Just noticed the one big leaf the other day. Thought it might be from drips with the humidity getting so high with lights off, but found a few other leaves with the same. All upper leaves. The rest of the plant looks great, no other issues (other than letting her veg way too long and making noob mistakes).

 

[GenghisChron]

Rust spots on newer leaves is usually calcium def. especially with LEDs the demand for calcium is much higher than normal.

 

[DogterB]

Rust spots on newer leaves is usually calcium def. especially with LEDs the demand for calcium is much higher than normal.

I was wondering if that was it. I added the tomato-tone amendment for the calcium and even made nutrient troughs so there was stockpile in the soil. Do you think it really went through it all already? If so, I can make up a tea and add some more?

 

[GenghisChron]

Your plants look really healthy from the pics. It could be an anomaly on that leaf or the start of a deficiency albeit a slight one. I'm not an organic guy but I would add a touch more calcium on your next feed

 

[Tom Bombadil]

watch out for powdery mildew. consider defoliating undergrowth soon.. crowded + high humidity spikes = disaster waiting to happen.
gl

 

[DogterB]

watch out for powdery mildew. consider defoliating undergrowth soon.. crowded + high humidity spikes = disaster waiting to happen.
gl

Appreciate the heads up Tom. I’m having a hell of a time getting a rh down at night. I have 3 fans going in there trying to push it out but still. I don’t have an exhaust fan on it though too. I have defoliated below the first rack, how much higher should I go? Thanks for any input

 

[DogterB]

Your plants look really healthy from the pics. It could be an anomaly on that leaf or the start of a deficiency albeit a slight one. I'm not an organic guy but I would add a touch more calcium on your next feed

Appreciate that, thanks. I’ll try watering in some tomato-tone and see how it goes

 

[SargeantSpaz]

I have defoliated below the first rack, how much higher should I go?

every day try to take a few leaves off. just like anything alive, slower is better than all together at once.
you can do the OG method of cutting before the leaf's midpoint also, I prefer that lately, where there's no bud under the leaf.
if there's bud under the leaf (even a tiny side-shoot) - bud takes priority for obvious reasons.

let's talk a bit about defoliating:
The leaves drive nutrient uptake. they basically are the evaporators from the water absorbed from soil. the more evaporators you have, the more soil uptake you can do. Ideally, if you can keep temps down, the RH will stay down as well. the hotter it gets, the more humid it gets.
Everytime you take a leaf, you slow down the nutrient highway towards the buds.

Ex: to save my leaves and not have to defoliate, I prefer to keep the window open and it's right now 14C outside I put a sweater on and think of all the extra-fat buds I'll get as a reward.

If you can't lower temps, then you have to defoliate.

Leaves

Each day go for main offenders first. If a leaf is sitting in direct contact with another leaf - very dangerous! look at the one under it - it's literally wet!
either cut each leaf in half or exfoliate one of them. Which one to choose? the one furthest away from budsites and which prefferably has another leaf above, on the same stem.

Take it one day at a time, you'll gain better airflow with each defoliation session which in turn will already help the remaining leaves dry up better.

Looking at your pics, I'd say do 4-6 leaves per day. 4 being target, 6 if you find a lot of problem spots. do this 2-3 days in a row, pause for a day and from there on do every 2 days until all airy and lit properly.

Runty bud stems
Any side-stems with buds that look like they'll not make it to the light and are severely falling behind - they must go as well.
They're not gonna make it anyway and they'll just need leaves for no good reason and pull off resources off the main budsites anyway.
In your pictures - any stem that has its top budsite (the tallest) ending at the first scrog - lose the leaf under the stem and the stem entirely. it's a lost cause anyway.

Water a bit less often as well - the less water you put in the system, the less water the system will evaporate in the grow chamber.
I would rather have a thirstier plant with no mold than a fed-up plant molding up.


Airflow
I ended up putting the lower fan to blow upwards, and opening up the intake ports on both sides 100%
It does miracles.
Think about it - if your black fan at the base of the tent is blowing air against the intake port across the tent (more or less) how can air enter through there and more importantly, will air from the intake port next to the black fan go up or sideways?

VS

the above pics assume you have an extractor up top. can't quite see it but it looks like it's there.

nute balance
third week of flowering, guessing the flowering stretch is gone or slowing down she's in mid-flowering
NPK ratio should be NPK 6-13-14

keep her on the N you had her on
say it's 11total, if you add up the N from all your nutes. that means the P-K should go up to:
N P K
11 23.9 26.9

more or less, you'll see what you get out of the mix&match of nutes you can do. the main idea here is to go as close as humanly possible to 6-13-14.
6-12-15 - f*ck it, works. she can do the rest.
7-7-7 - you're way off, pal.

 

[Tom Bombadil]

In your situation Id pull anything below the top screen and then spread out whats left and try to get them as far apart as possible..you dont want overlapping leaves. Then get an extraction fan of some sort rigged up.. anything.. rig up a fan somehow and tape it to a ducting tube or to one of the upper ports on your tent to exchange air or it will take a miracle to get to the end trouble free..Nothing worse than having to throw away a bunch of buds you just spent 3 months producing because of mold etc....
GL

 

[Tom Bombadil]

ide also add that in a proper scrog grow using a screen, only one screen is necessary and nothing should be more than 8-10 inches above it. training through the stretch is the most important part to keep an even canopy
heres a good example: