Strange white Bleaching every run

[DaleDenton]

Hey everyone,
I’m still a newer grower and only have about 4 or 5 runs under my belt, but i keep running into the same issue whether I’m running synthetics or orgcanics. On all my plants i get these strange white blotches. I’ve been looking thoroughly for pests, and honestly it doesn’t even look to me like pest damage. I tend to have pretty hard water coming out at around 200-220ppm. I also seem to have get pretty bad phos/potassium. Deficiency every run even while feeding at low rates rate (500-600ppm). Do you think the salts in my water are causing some sort of lockout? I keep my ph in the range of 6.2-6.7. Sometimes the leaf looks beat up like this one, and other times its just the white blotches. The calcium in my water has completely froze the water shut offs on my furnace, so I’m assuming thats a good sign the water might be a little to hard for my plants lol. I always come here to expert and trustworthy advice when i need, so i appreciate you guys! Thanks in advance!

 

[namvet25]

Is that on just a few leaves or entre plant?

 

[Big Sul]

Need more info on set up. What is ur water source and ppm of water? A water report from provider will be helpful.

 

[DaleDenton]

Thanks for the responses! This happens on all my plants every run, but currently right now this one plant is the worst. 3 out of the 4 of my plants are showing symptoms. It always seems to happen a couple weeks into flower when they start to bulk a little bit. As i stated before i tend to run into a potassium/phos def as well, not matter how much i feed. Currently I’m running OF about a 30/70 mixture in auto pots. My last run i did Natures Lving Soil with Coast of Maine Stonington blend w/ compost teas and still ran into this issue. These girls are just over a month old and get around 500ppm-600ppm feeding of fox farm trio right now. I’m using tap water that comes out around 200ppm. Here is the water report my provider puts out:

 

[Big Sul]

When did you start feeding?

 

[DaleDenton]

When did you start feeding?

I started feeling last week so that was the end of week 3/beginning on week 4

 

[Big Sul]

Pics of plants?

 

[DaleDenton]

Pics of plants?

Sure, the picture of the leaf of picture earlier is off of the droopiest plant in photo, who i clearly sick and i can’t get to the bottom of it. The second leaf I’m posting now is from a different plant that looks to be going the sever phos. Def and I’ll post the picture of her as well (light green/yellow and purpling leaves) even though shes been getting regular feed. The next two seem to be doing ok so far

edit: the lighting makes things look at little lighter than they are

 

[MIAutomatic]

Unless you are taking the pots off of the autopot system and watering them to runoff occasionally (at least every 4 weeks) you are always going to end up over feeding even at low PPM. They don’t look like they are getting way too much, but just enough to start causing lock out issues. You also might not have enough air in your soil. Autopot is not really designed to be used with soils like coast of Maine, it works better with a more hydroponic substrate. A 50/50 mix of coco and perilite gives you a good water to air mix, but your soil is probably too heavy to be really successful used in a wick irrigation system.

 

[MIAutomatic]

Unless you are taking the pots off of the autopot system and watering them to runoff occasionally (at least every 4 weeks) you are always going to end up over feeding even at low PPM. They don’t look like they are getting way too much, but just enough to start causing lock out issues. You also might not have enough air in your soil. Autopot is not really designed to be used with soils like coast of Maine, it works better with a more hydroponic substrate. A 50/50 mix of coco and perilite gives you a good water to air mix, but your soil is probably too heavy to be really successful used in a wick irrigation system.

I will add that it’s important to remember plants don’t drink everything you give them, they just take what they need and leave the rest in the soil/nutrient solution. If you are giving them even a little more than they are using but not flushing it out of the pots then even at levels that seem low nutrient salts will still be building up in the soil. This is why you need to take them off the system every few weeks and give them a good top down watering of mild nutrients so that any built up of nutrient salts will be removed.