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Today we decided to finally cover Nutrient Burn on cannabis. This happened recently to us so we have the pleasure to share this experience with you, hope it can help out! 🙂
For you to be aware, nutrient burn and overfeeding are the same thing, a build up of salts in the soil that result in a nutrient lockout.
Nutrient burn, also known as Overfeeding, occurs when too many salts (nutrients) are present within the soil. This can happen if there is too much decaying matter, or when the grower has added too much nutrients within the soil.
As most ways of spotting deficiencies with Cannabis the symptoms show on the leaves. The most recognizable sign are brown spots appearing and spreading on the leaves. Let’s get into it.
As usual when identifying issues with your babies the signs are on the foliage. In the case of overfeeding you will see the tip of the leaves start to turn bright green, yellow and then brown.
What you are observing is a nutrient lockout developing, meaning that the plant isn’t able to intake any nutrients because that soil is just too saturated.
If you don’t act, you will observe the yellowing grow from the tips towards the center of the leaf. The yellow sections will turn brown and curl up.
Now that you have observed your plants, noticed the yellowing and browning of your tips, you have validated the fact that your plants are in a nutrient lockout, not that you have saturated the soil.
This nutrient lockout could also be due to an unbalanced pH. Let’s say your soil pH is wayyyy to low, at 5.4. At this level, you can have the perfect amount of nutrients but the plant can’t access them since the soil is to acidic.
In order to confirm a saturated soil you are going to want to check the EC an pH levels of your soil.
Let’s look into each step
Couple words on Electro-Conductivity : Electro Conductivity is a measure that allows you to get the levels of salts in your soil. It is a important factor for soil health.
Simply put, a high EC level means that the soil has a lot of nutrients (salts), a low EC level means that the soil is poor in salts. Here is a good source about EC in soil
First things first you are going to need to know the value of the pH and EC of your watering solution.
Using this measurement and the one of your runoff you will be able to figure out the levels of your soil and how you need to react.
Now that you have your starting measurements you can [slowly] water your plant with it, as usual.
Make sure you have a tray under the pot to be able to retrieve the water exiting at the bottom.
Let your soil drip for a while in order to allow is to humidify as much as the soil as possible. Generally you get about 20% runoff, retrieve it measure the levels with your EC and pH pen.
Once you have the measurements you will be able to analyse and act accordingly.
Here’s the step by step :
This is the point where you have all the info and you can make your conclusions.
What can we learn when comparing the readings ?
In our case this confirms nutrient burn and that the pH isn’t the issue, we are going to have to flush.
When you do this you are going to get one of 4 cases, which we will detail here to help you fix your situation. If you are in the same situation as we are you can skip right to solving nutrient burn.
EliteGarden has some great pictures that illustrate each step, you can find the 4 images below on their article that goes over this
This is perfect, this implies that your plants are taking in the nutrients.
Note: If your runoff levels are regularly very low you can start upping a little the levels of nutrients within your watering solution
This case shows that your plant isn’t taking up any nutrients. One of the most common reasons for this is a pH level, blocking your plant for absorbing the nutrients.
One common reason for this, especially if you are sure to have added the right amount of nutrients, is a reaction between the salts within the soil.
Check if you have small solids in your runoff, which would be a sign of calcium phosphate reacting to other salts the salts, solidifying them and making them unavailable (nutrient lockout).
This is the type fo reading you get when overfeeding. The higher ppm within the watering solution shows that there is a salt build up and it was released into the water.
In this case you are going to have to flush the soil to dissolves the salt build up.
So now that you know that you have a nutrient build up that is creating a nutrient burn on your plant, let’s look into solving the situation
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Flush, flush flush, is the key word here to fix your nutrient burn and get out of this nutrient lock out
Flushing your soil is a term used to describe the action of passing a large amount of water through your soil.
When flushing your soil to treat nutrient burn you are flushing it in order to remove the access salts that are blocking the intake of nutrients.
As a rule of thumb, you have to slowly drain the soil with around 1/3 of the volume of soil in water (ie: to flush 30L of soil you will use 10L of water).
The best way to prevent overfeeding is holding back on nutrient supplements, especially when if you’re using newly purchased soil, as soil is generally rich, so hold back on the nutrients and watch your plant to understand her needs instead of packing your solutions.
Another thing we personally do is always go on the lower end of nutrient feeding schedules to make sure to bring her at least what she needs. We will then up the nutrients once in awhile to boost her growth.
Check out all our articles on deficiencies
Overfeeding, as the name suggests, is generally due to an access amount of salts (nutrients) within the soil. You could think that too much nutrients doesn’t hurt, the plant would just intake what she needs, but that’s not really what happens, when a soil is saturated the plant is not able to suck up any nutrients and a nutrient lock up occurs.
This happens when too many nutrients are added within the soil, either due to decaying matter or because the grower has simply added too much nutrients within the watering solution.
Some growers actually get to a close nutrient burn in order to get to her “maximum intake level”, but honestly our tip is to do this if you know what you are doing, or willing to lose a bit of the harvest in order to learn.
Alright that’s it for this one folks! If you’re still struggling with this don’t hesitate to get in touch with us, we’ll be glad to help you
That’s it for this one folks, hope you found all your answers ! If not don’t hesitate to reach out 😉
Until next time,
be safe and grow easy
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