New Grower Struggling with my grows

[Soop]

I’m on my 4th round of autos, struggling to get it right. Every issue I encounter is new to me, hard to identify, and with the autos mistakes are hard to make up for. Being colorblind my ability to read the leaves is limited. My yields have been going down, this is my struggle.

Growing in royal gold, with general organic nutrient line I have strawberry guava. Few weeks back I began to notice discoloration on the leaf.

I thought it was maybe a lack of nitrogen or cal mag. fed the plants and didn’t seem to do much, the fade to yellow continued. I suspected maybe ph issues and didn’t notice that my ph pen was having errors calibrating so I went on clueless until today. So I’ve concluded that I have a lockout due to ph issues.

Now I’m preparing to flush my medium, wondering how much water I should run through a 5 gallon pot to do a good flush, does the water have to ph’d, and should I supply them some nutrients after the flush?

I very much appreciate any advice and have a great day!

 

[eprotege]

How much are you watering at a time? I had similar issues. I would grow in 3 gallon cloth pots and feed up to 2000ml every 2 days. I was worried about overwatering. Then I tried watering (slowly with soil) until it came out the bottom and it hit 4000ml. Two days later the pot was light weight meaning it was dry again. BTW, you should always pH adjust the water to between 6 and 7. Not doing so will result in lockouts. I use vinegar. I put 4-10 ml per gallon.

You might also consider feeding something extra. The extra water mentioned earlier is really so that the plant can get access to more nutrients. I use Fox Farm, but you can pick your own. If that was my plant I’d add a tsp of Big Bloom because of the nitrogen from the bat guano. I say that because the leaves are yellow with green not making it to the edges which implies nitrogen deficiency.

 

[Soop]

How much are you watering at a time? I had similar issues. I would grow in 3 gallon cloth pots and feed up to 2000ml every 2 days. I was worried about overwatering. Then I tried watering (slowly with soil) until it came out the bottom and it hit 4000ml. Two days later the pot was light weight meaning it was dry again. BTW, you should always pH adjust the water to between 6 and 7. Not doing so will result in lockouts. I use vinegar. I put 4-10 ml per gallon.

You might also consider feeding something extra. The extra water mentioned earlier is really so that the plant can get access to more nutrients. I use Fox Farm, but you can pick your own. If that was my plant I’d add a tsp of Big Bloom because of the nitrogen from the bat guano. I say that because the leaves are yellow with green not making it to the edges which implies nitrogen deficiency.

I also worry about overwatering, I give 1000ml at a time, and give nutrients every time. Struggle with lockout nearly every grow. Is my watering method to blame? Is not watering till runoff causing nutrients to build up?

 

[eprotege]

Try giving more water. A liter of water in a 5 gallon pot isn’t enough to get all of it wet. The roots aren’t even going to go wandering very far because there’s never anything there. Get all the soil wet at least twice a week to force the roots to expand and fill up the pot. Then let it dry out in between. Once the plant’s really cranking, it’ll take only 2 or so days to dry out.

 

[DCLXVI]

It seemed extraneous to me at the start but, having an EC/ppm meter is very helpful. Being able to measure the strength as well as the pH of your nutrients and water is important. You can try and follow those schedules but if it's 1/2tsp, 1/4tsp, 1tsp, etc... well, how strong is that? Check the starting ppm of your water as well. If a guide says 500ppm, they mean that in 0ppm R/O starting water. If your water is already at say 200ppm, then you should not add more than 300ppm of nutrients for a 500ppm total.