[melonfarmer]

[melonfarmer]

[melonfarmer]

I’ll reel off some of my thoughts on the options I have available:

I’m in living “soil” so I tend not to use chemical nutes if I can avoid it. However I’ve got a dribble left in the AN bloom bottle and the little sachet of K2O was given to me and is just an option. Not my first.

Ksil is supposed to be fine to add to soil according to Dr. Wendy Zellner on episode 98 of KISorganics podcast. The company I bought it from says it will cause issues but refuse to elaborate.

I’d been doing weekly kelp drenches but Mystro recently set me straight on that. Something about auxins VS cytokinens.

The langbenite I’ve never used, but I already use a lot of sulphates like gypsum and Epsom salts and my last soil test was high. So sulphur could be an issue but I’m not sure what an S toxicity looks like on paper.

I’ll attach my last soil test. It was nearly a year ago so take it with a grain of salts. Pun intended.

[sicko_grows]

Could be as simple as needing aeration in your soil/ holding too much water in the roots. Evidence is in the leaves that are cupping under. Cup up= high ec, cup under= too wet. Lack of aeration will look like deficiency too because the roots shut down. Usually when that happens I let my media dry out a little more and wait a week before doing anything.

In week 5-6 I’m probably not going to add much as far as food in organic because it’s not going to break down in time to fix any deficiency.

[sicko_grows]

Especially with sip systems or blumats aeration is super important. High organic levels= lots of stuff to hold on to water. Add sand or coco to the mix next run and don’t be shy with it.

[melonfarmer]

It’s a “notill” bed that started with 1:1:1 peat, aeration and compost. But it’s been running for about 2 years and when I pull back the mulch it just looks like worm castings. So could be getting a little heavy. I have a blumat tensiometer and it’s reading 86mbar but that doesn’t mean the whole bed is an even 86.

Someone will likely jump in and point out all my excesses on the soil test too hahaha.

I’ve decided not to add anything besides microbes, malted barley and fulvic acid.

Perhaps after this run I’ll empty out the bed onto a tarp and mix in some more aeration.

Thanks for the reply dude that’s a great point about water.

[sicko_grows]

Other thing I would do with that is ph my water, report has you slightly alkaline, and if I remember right pk, mag, and calcium are some of the first things to “fall out” of solution at higher ph/ alk levels.

[melonfarmer]

My tap water is nice, 36 ppm according to my cheap meter. PH can get high but I believe low ppm water is harder to get a good pH reading on.

I have a pretty nice Apera probe meter, so I’ll check the water and the soil tomorrow. It’s getting late in the southern hemisphere.

[jmystro]

The leaves are showing no indication of a nutritional issue or a lack of potash. The issue I’m seeing is from physically damaged roots caused by over-watering. A lack of oxygen is a recipe for root rot. The soil is staying too wet and doesn’t have enough aeration.

[jmystro]

I agree. Too much water, not enough oxygen.

[melonfarmer]

I’ll dial my blumats down a smidgeon. Do you think it’s worth oxygenating my reservoir with an air pump or some surface agitation via water pump, or will it fall back out while sitting in irrigation lines waiting to be dripped?

[jmystro]

You can aerate your water but the air pump needs to be in a cool, low CO2 environment. Do not pump hot, CO2 enriched air into your water. Probably need more worms in the soil if it’s too compact to the point of aerobic conditions causing root rot.

[melonfarmer]

Got plenty of worms. Check out the vid I posted.

Tensiometer is reading 116mbar today.

The plants don’t look bad on top but they’re still dropping older fan leaves.

Soil pH is about 6.5.

[jmystro]

Remove the lower, shaded growth under the canopy.

[melonfarmer]

@jmystro could this have been caused by underwatering or uneven watering? The soil seems to have some dry pockets and the blumat drippers aren’t the best at spreading the water evenly.

The tensiometer is reading 120mbar now but the problem persists.

[melonfarmer]

I also made the discovery that my temp controller heat differential was at 6C. Meaning it wasn’t kicking the exhaust fan on until it hit 34C. I’ve fixed that now.