I am growing in a no-till system using a earthbox that I front load with nutrients before pushing to flower that way all I need to add is weekly microbes. I am on day 35 of flower and noticed over the last couple week I look to be getting some nitrogen toxicity, the leaves are curling on top buds and leaves look a bit darker than they should. Would anyone have any advice on how to fix this? I thought about flushing it with several gallons of RO water but getting conflicting results on doing this.
All my testing is pointing to a N toxicity. I guess what I’m curious about is if anyone has flushed living soil to get rid of excess nutrients. I’m worried doing a flush will cause other issues.
Well yes I do grow organic and use Gaia green dry nutrients, and I way over feed according to their chart, but have never had nitrogen tox from it. So haven’t had that problem. I will suggest this, the more microbes you put in the more organic material will be converted for use by the plant, about the only suggestion I can offer since I haven’t had this problem is stop with any amendments or microbes, and just water only. If you drown the plants you will be worse off than what you have going on.
Yeah exactly…you might try a dry back a few times…she looks about 4 wks into flower and is pretty dark green…doesn’t look too bad…you could pull a few of the big fans and make the plant a bit hungrier by taking away some storage. ???
Thank you! When you say less microbes do you think Mammoth P every week is still ok? Since those microbes should only affect the P uptake from what I understand.
From looking at them, they are getting all or more than all that they need. One of MY hardest lessons was (chemical salt nutes) was not overdoing it. I haven’t had that problem with organic as it is fairly self regulating if the biome is good.
But some organic fertilizers are also hot, and too much and they will do the same thing as chemical bottle fertilizers. Stuff like bat or bird guano are hot and the N is readily available. And you can burn them with organic too.
Just stop all of everything, and just water with PH’ed water at 5.8-6.2 see what happens, you I don’t believe can easily “wash” organic fertilizers out of organic soil, it is actually a big part of the soil itself. If anything and if it is possible, then just watering it should work as good as anything in my opinion.
I think that would just cause it to use less energy and nutes and might make it worse. if there is too much it needs to get used up and every part of the plant uses nutrients to make energy. Just my thought.
That makes sense Marty. It has been this way for 2 weeks now. I was hoping when I was out of town last week it would correct itself but that didn’t happen. I’ll just keep watering for now and keep an eye on it. I appreciate your help with this!
I’m using a homemade earthbox for the first time. The plant in it (photo, fem) germinated about 4 weeks ago. Other than having watched videos about earthboxes, I dont know what to expect nor whether the progress (or lack of) of my plant is normal.
I would try a dry back and maybe dim the lights for a couple of days and see if that helps .
I wish I could help better but i just finished up my first living soil run and don’t know enough to say for sure. But over watering won’t help. Do you have a moisture meter?
Maybe try giving your plant a gentle flush with RO water, or cut back a little on the nutrients for a bit to see if that helps. Sometimes just letting it rest for a few days does the trick.
Over watering can cause all sorts of issues, best to weight pots before and after watering to get a feel for the heft of the water in the medium just my two cents. I’ve over water plants to near death in the past, they never fully recover sadly as the root zone takes huge damage for over watering.
I used the plans and materials very similar to those in this build. I had some 2" diameter pvc pipe, so I cut 10 peices that are about 2 3/4" long. I set each peice on the inside floor of the tub, then cut out a rectangular peice of plastic aquarium grating the dimensions of the inside of the tub. The grating sits on the pvc peices that act like pilings. They give plenty of support for the weight of the gravity layer and soil.
That looks like a lot of work. lol. Have you looked into City Pickers? They are basically the same as Earth Boxes but half the price. I have both I like the City Picker a bit better since you can fit 2 in a 2x4 I can only get 1 earth box in their.
