Better Buds with Mr. Bill: Yellow Leaves and Too-Large Pots?

Mr. Bill, our plant fix-it guy, invites you to ask him questions so that you can achieve better yields.

Mr. Bill is ready to assist you by drawing upon over twenty-eight years of active grow shop experience - including answering growers' questions about the hydroponic industry.

Before Mr. Bill opened his first store he worked in the agricultural industry for five years, growing tobacco.

Hello Mr. Bill,

I have started a new germination with ten new seeds - five in soil mixed with perlite and five seeds in Root Riot cubes. I will wait until they have nice, firm roots before moving them. The photos show some of my latest setup of ten new babies and some older ones. I don't know what I should do to get my plant up and running again. When I look at the leaf I would say it was nitrogen missing and at the same time it's an auto-flowering plant that has just started to produce buds.

Could you please help me?

Nick

Hi Nick,

Everything looks fine. Older leaves will die off; as they get shaded, these leaves had to work hard to get the plant growing. When they are growing, leave all leaf material on your plants, as removing them before a branch is large enough to manufacture food will slow down the branch's growth. Once the branch has produced enough leaves and can manage to provide enough carbohydrates, the branch will grow and flower heavily.

Auto-flowering plants produce smaller yields but this

can be offset by more crops in the same given time.

The color of the rest of the leaves looks correct. You could raise your ppm by 300 ppm at most using a .7 ppm meter, or 200 with a .5 meter. When growing pot seeds that have mothers and fathers, let the plant reach sexual maturity - this happens around the sixth week of growth. Flowering a non-auto-flowering plant will produce more males than females; once a plant reaches sexual maturity it will produce more females than male plants.

Regarding this crop, one thing that looks a little strange to me is that your seedling seems to be in a pot where the side walls are a bit tall, i.e., the young foliage will not receive as much light and air as it would if the leaves were peeking out above the pot rim. This can lead to stretching and the tender seedling may fall over. Make sure to use seedling soil or something that will not burn your babies. Perlite is good for drainage. That being said, your flowering plant looks okay.

If the plant is old enough, you can try pinching off (or cutting with a clean, sharp implement, then pinching the stalk to close the wound) the discolored leaves at the very bottom of the plant. This is done by slicing off the leaf stem with your thumbnail then quickly pinching the stem to prevent moisture loss. The combination of cutting and pinching prevents stress as well. In addition, dying leaves are highly susceptible to infection or infestation, so removing them actually helps to keep the plant healthy. Think of it as scratching an itch for your plant - you never really want to cut off healthy, green foliage, but yellow stuff is almost like a wound or injury on your older, flowering plants. As long as the top three-quarters or more of the plant looks good, you're in good shape (most of the time - if it's a bad nute or pest problem, let us know).

As your plant flowers, the leaves at the bottom will yellow and shrivel, since the nutrients are being redistributed towards the top for flowering. If you keep 'cleaning' the plant as the leaves turn almost fully yellow, you are helping to redirect the nutes and plant energy upwards, towards the flowers and healthy foliage.

Since you should flush the plant (pH'ed water only) for the last two weeks of flower (some folks do it for three), you can expect even more yellowing as she matures and is 'starved' at the end of the flowering period. Right before you harvest, the plant may look as if it's dying; this proves that the nutes have been flushed from the foliage, which means that you will get a cleaner-tasting product and the effect will not be hindered by consuming plant nutrients. Of course, this only really works if you're using organic fertilizer; chemical nutrients will never completely flush out of the plant. This is why most hydro crops and some bio plants look super green when being cut down. Although it seems counter-intuitive, yellowing during flushing can be a good sign.

If you keep pinching/cutting off the yellow stuff as flowering progresses, air circulation is increased throughout the plant, especially at the bottom; this helps to prevent mold or mildew from forming on dense buds. In addition, it will eventually make the trimming job easier.

It looks as if you've got a nice indica hybrid there. I usually don't do auto-flowering strains as I prefer more stable, identifiable/specific genetics. Keep an eye on that one (maintain proper light versus dark, rather than twenty-four hours of light) to make sure that it doesn't turn hermaphrodite or go back into the pre-flower phase. Otherwise, it looks good.

The only other thing that I noticed is that you are using Perlite for some seedlings but not for the adults - Perlite assists in drainage and aeration, so make sure that your older plants are receiving an organic, sterilized soil (such as BioBizz All-Mix or something suitable for organic tomatoes) with lots of drainage. This prevents the compaction problem in the soil, which compresses and suffocates your roots.

I do not agree with auto-flowering technology - we may ruin the genetics of the plant, as this is not normal. We have very little control over when it will flower. Plus, if one of these does become a very sought-after plant, then it would be gone since no cutting would be provided. Nature designed this plant with males and females for a reason. We have not fully discovered all the important medical qualities from Cannabis and when man fools around with the genetics, what are we going to have in the end?

Hopefully, our governments will allow us to keep male and female plants as this is the natural way of quality Cannabis. Unfortunately, pot is illegal in most countries and the growers in these countries will want to keep their plant count low, just in case they get an unfortunate knock on the door. This is what is making autos so popular - having few plants and getting a good yield off of these plants within sixty to eighty days.

Hope this helps!