Yes, I decided to show the worst looking parts of the grow as well as the best, but at least burning a few tops has given me an idea of the threshold for light height with the SS.

What generally causes cupping/curling? is that also from being too close to the lamp? Things also got a little dry while I was away. I raised both lights so I'm hoping that will help

It's probably due to the high heat/too much light but too much, or not enough, water or too much fertilizer can do it too. Upwards curling is often a nutrient deficiency but it's hard to tell since you have the cupping issues and you also have downward curling.

You need to check the fundamentals; make sure they have enough water but not too much and check the PH. Make sure you're not over feeding and keep them far enough away from the lights so they don't burn from heat. Try to keep the temps just under 80 at the top of the plants. If the PH and other factors are normal then you might try to add a little Cal-Mag to their diet but don't go overboard. Perhaps phosphorus is out of whack so make sure that your NPK levels are right for your stage of growth and not too strong. Which nutrients/schedule are you using? What is the PPM or EC of your nutrients now?

Remember, soil provides natural buffering so problems take a while to show up and they take a while to go away so don't panic if you don't see quick improvements when you adjust the environmental conditions.


Hope that helps...

SME is giving you good advice on the causes of the curling. The shininess of your leaves in some pics, plus the downward cupping, tell me that there has definitely been a nutrient overabundance (nute burn) at some point.

Don't get discouraged though! If you saw some of the plants I've tried to grow in soil, you'd laugh. Like SME said soil acts as a buffer, so when there has been an overabundance of nutrients, they tend to linger. The best advice I can give you is to feed a very low concentration of properly pH'd nutrients throughout the plant's life cycle. If a deficiency arises, it will be much easier to identify and counter than an overabundance event that causes widespread nutrient lockout. Don't listen to the hype about feeding your plant the max ppm it can handle. The basics (temperature, pH, humidity, light wattage, etc) are far more important.

Hope that helps!

Thanks guys! I think as you say it may be a problem with some of the soil being reused from a previous grow where the soil definitely did have a problem with nutrient buildup, partly from addition of too much seabird guano. I diluted that soil before using it with more peat/humus/perlite mixture but I think the nutrient balance problems that were present before are even now lingering and affecting a few plants in this grow albeit to a lesser degree. I remember some plants in the previous grow had more severe and widespread curling and cupping.

SME, I actually have occasionally been giving some age old organics bloom at a lower ppm than recommended, but it was perhaps a mistake. I actually probably shouldnt be giving any nutes at all because the soil mix has so much built in already. Ph was 6.5-6.7 last time i checked, i dont have an ec meter because i don't generally mix nutes. Now, i assemble my newer soil mix according to an organic recipe i found on the g c forum and it seems to work much better than my older, imbalanced soil, however I'm hoping that I can bring that older soil into shape by amending it properly and allowing micro organisms to thrive.

So why am i trying to go totally organic (ie no bottled nutes but everything in soil)? I have a very sensitive palate and throat and in my experience organically grown stuff tastes less harsh. I also like the idea of keeping the grow as close to natural as possible. Its great to be able to go out to the compost pile and get a nice mix of compost and castings whenever I need to mix more. I don't do it so much to save money, I really want my soil to reflect local terroir and impart a distinctive taste to the meds. I even sourced local rocks and pulverized them to a flour like consistency to make up the rock dust component thats present naturally in soil but takes nature thousands of years to produce. I'm definitely still learning though so I'm perhaps not the best organic spokesperson

The organic verses non-organic debate is pretty old and despite wild claims I've never seen anyone capable of taste testing the difference and I've put some of them to the test. I've found that most harshness comes from too much nutrients and improper curing. I'd be willing to bet that your current nutritionally overloaded plants would be more harsh than non-organic plants that were better cared for. Plants simply do not care where their nitrogen comes from, nitrogen is nitrogen.

Furthermore, modern genetics are pretty far removed from what's "natural" and there is also nothing natural about manually amended soil. Trying to make soil similar to what nature makes in your own area has nothing to do with middle eastern genetics like Kush genetics so it's really more of a psychological thing for most grows. If it makes you feel better you should do it, but you're not really helping the plants be any better, imho. There are many ways that we do things that are better than nature ever provides. Unfortunately, "mother nature" is often a limiting factor.

This debate is probably better suited for another thread in the "New LED Users" section because these kind of debates can get out of hand and I don't want to hijack your journal but that's my story and I'm sticking to it. If you'd like to continue this debate we can start a new LTA thread in the other section...I'm more than willing to discuss it further but we should at least try to keep this thread about your GFP journal.

SME, I believe you have good points and I think you're prob right about bad taste being from poorly grown stuff of which I've had my share, however I think the psychological factor is probably the most decisive for me, i just have an aversion to using chemically derived nutes . but i do think its hard to dispute that soil affects taste... otherwise winegrowers have been wrong for years.

I'm a younger grower who's still learning and I don't think I'd do well in a debate against you, but I'd rather learn from you . So I'm probably going to continue growing organically for awhile based on admittedly psychological bias. hopefully one day my results will show that it can work well too

There's no doubt that soil can have an effect on taste. Grapes and other plants can taste slightly different depending on where they're grown but those different soils are nothing more than different mixes of ingredients and grapes are still going to taste like grapes. Also, grapes and the wine they make from them can taste different from year to year, even in the same region, depending on rainfall and how the soils are amended.

There's nothing wrong with doing things in the way that makes you comfortable, my only point was that "natural" or "organic" isn't always better. Marijuana, for example, is naturally hermaphroditic but that's a trait that we try to breed out. If you look at commercially grown fruits and veggies and compare them to wild or organic counterparts they're often very different. Strawberries and apples for example. I've often found that debating subjects is a great way to learn. YMMV...

So this is now week 5... The blue dream plant that got burned curiously shows no signs of belching, just those two burnt tops were affected. It's about 8-9 inches away from the light now but I'm just leaving it because its not bleaching. Plus the smell from the resin is unreal and very fruity, sticky also. I wonder if the bleaching has to do directly with the uv bulb? Other buds that are further than one foot are bleaching towards the top. Strange...

Although I think many of the buds are on nute overload, the problem is stabilized and everything is looking a bit better. Just gave them some freshly brewed compost tea but no nutes and I'm going to hold off nutes for the remainder of the grow and see what happens. Haven't given much nutes anyway but lots of dry fertilizer amendment caused the overload.

The 15w uv tubes will not bleach the plants, the LEDs are just too close...

Here are some photos of the garden somewhere around week 6 or 7. The Blue Dream plant that had gotten burned near the light has put on some really dense bud growth, but has yellowing of some lower fan leaves. I thought it was maybe a lack of nutrients since the soil mix was a little light on ferts in that pot, so I actually mixed up a bit of nutes for the next watering. If I'm wrong on this someone let me know...The shiny leaves seem to be mostly relegated to the Og plant. Headbands didn't have it so much.

The Solarstorm is working very well but then again the growth directly under the 1w diode UFO isn't noticeably less. It should be interesting when this is done to compare buds from both extremes of the tent, my theory is that the UFO buds are less dense but we'll see.

I looked at the trichs thru a glass and they look pretty much all clear still on the headbands, so I imagine it's got at least a couple weeks to go maybe.