health Brown spots on pods

Hermansen · Jun 20, 2018

Hello!

I just registered on this forum, but I have been lurking for a while. This time my lurking have not been able to find a solution to my problem, so I sincerely hope one of the knowledgeable members here can help me out!

I'm currently growing a pink habanero from fataliiseeds (It's supposed to be extremely low in heat, but rich in taste) in the basement, under artificial LED/COB lights, in coco coir drip fed 3 times each week. (It started out in DWC but I made the transplant to coco a bit over a month ago)

Recently I started noticing brown spots on some of the pods, maybe it has been 5-10 affected pods total, from maybe 50 total pods on the plant.
No mature pods yet, I saw the first pod forming 6 weeks ago, but it probably shocked the plant a fair bit with the transplant to coco and all, so I'd wager it delayed ripening somewhat.

Unfortunately there have been too many pods for me to able to know when these spots occur, if they are forming on new or almost mature pods for example.

I did notice some black spots on the plant leaves when it was very young, right after feeding them some "beneficial bacteria" from the Advanced Nutrients company (I have since stopped using products from them), but nowadays there's only the occasional spots on a leaf here and there, nothing I'd have worried about if I didn't see these spots on the pods themselves in addition.

Until now I have just tossed the affected pods directly, but since I brought some pods to work I will try to keep them isolated here for a while and see what happens to them over time.
Also I didn't try to study any pods where I can't see any problems with my bare eyes, but I will bring one to work tomorrow and check for microscopic spots

What I can provide is a lot of pictures, I was even able to take a few photos with my cell phone through the microscope at work today, so I hope that is enough to give me an answer to what my problem is :dance:

I fear that they are bacterial spots and that I have to toss the entire plant, but one can always hope I guess :mope:

I'm not sure if it works very well to attach photos directly here on the forum, so I made an album on imgur: https://imgur.com/a/xGZxph7

I appreciate any input, and thanks in advance!

Chilidude · Jun 20, 2018

Could be all sort of things like watering the coco coir too much, but i kind of see the plant is not getting enough calcium by the looks of the pod and the leaves. What fertilizer are you giving to it and how much?

Hermansen · Jun 20, 2018

Thanks for the input!

I'm using Canna COCO fertilizer, supposedly NPK 5-4-3, with added CalMag also from Canna. (I live in Norway where the water is extremely soft - 4.2mg/L Calcium from the tap, and I almost treat it like Reverse Osmosis water)
There wouldn\t be much harm in upping the amount of calmag though, as an experiment.

I attached an image of the two peppers I have recently moved outside, they have been on roughly the same nutrients, but have been in coco all the way from seed. They are a Poblano on the left and Espelette on the right

Chilidude · Jun 20, 2018

I am not familiar using the Canna coco a+b in chili growing, also i have not used calmag ever in my coco coir growing and in the outside growing i like to use rainwater to water the plants growing in coco coir and they do grow much better using the rainwater than any regular water.

I see the Canna coco a+b also doest have any iron in it. Because you have such an soft water, you might want to try other coco coir fertilizers that are more suitable to use with your water.

Also you might have the case of too much salts in the coco coir thing going on, that will affect the calcium uptake. I never try to go above 1.6 ec with the fertilizer solution, when growing chili plants in coco coir as they seem to do best when used milder solution to water the plants.

Do you have ec meter to measure the final fertilizer solution?

Hermansen · Jun 20, 2018

Thanks again for your help so far, I will definitely look into the possible calcium issue.

How often do you water your coco, and which size containers do you use?

I have a cheap ppm-meter from Aliexpress, and they didn't provide which conversion factor they use from EC. For my chilies I generally end up around 800 ppm total, which should be at maximum 1.6 EC no matter which conversion factor used.

I also tested the coir directly this weekend, using the method described on this page http://canna-uk.com/using_canna_coco
However I think that I didn't dig deep enough to get the samples, as it came out very low on the ppm meter (something like 200ppm), also since it has only been in the coco for a month I wouldn't think that the salts have built up that much yet.

Also didn't know that the coco fertilizer didn't contain Iron, I'll have to check the calmag again and see if that has enough iron in it - another reason to try maybe increasing it a bit.

Since I realized that my tap water is only about 20ppm and a pH of almost 8, I started using a guide from a different forum for buffering it before adding nutrients, hence the use of calmag:

(I think I found secondary sources saying something along the same lines, but they are probably all mostly focused on growing a different kind of plant)

1 – First increase your pH up to 10.0 with pH Up or potassium carbonate
2 – Then bring it down to 6.0 with pH Down
In both cases you’ll obtain water well adapted to hydroponic nutritive solutions, while avoiding untimely pH fluctuations.
You need to raise pH first because the “buffer” elements have a very high pH or very low pH. You can start by adding acid, but then you will need pH up to raise your pH.
You need to buffer R.O. water simply because pure water has no buffering capacity. It is subject to big swings in pH every time you add something to the solution, making it unsuited for cultivation. Using pure R.O. is a classic source of failure.
If you’re using reverse osmosis water, add 50-100 ppm of Cal/Mg; this helps to buffer your water so nutrients absorb better.

Chilidude · Jun 20, 2018

I try to water the coco coir only when it have dried some between watering, as i have run into all sort of issues with chili growing if i water the coco coir too often. In the outdoor growing i use 9-10 airpots and handwater them enough at a time, that i see some run off from the bottom of the container.

You might want to start measuring the ph of the final solution and keep it in the range of 5.5-6.2 before using it to feed your plant. I do not have a ph meter myself, but it doest mean you should not need one to measure the correct ph.

You can also try collecting some rainwater as it already have the perfect ph range to water your plants with.

Hermansen · Jun 20, 2018

Thanks, I will try to increase calmag and reduce watering to twice each week to begin with (This will make the coco dry out significantly between each watering though, so I'll monitor it closely)

I keep the pH of the nutrient solution pretty strictly around 5.85, even though the pH-meter is also from Aliexpress, I calibrate it monthly so I think it gives a fairly accurate measurement

Chilidude · Jun 20, 2018

Hermansen said:
Thanks, I will try to increase calmag and reduce watering to twice each week to begin with (This will make the coco dry out significantly between each watering though, so I'll monitor it closely)

I keep the pH of the nutrient solution pretty strictly around 5.85, even though the pH-meter is also from Aliexpress, I calibrate it monthly so I think it gives a fairly accurate measurement

Try also reducing the nutrient solution strength to say between 1.3-1.5 ec for a while. The EC measure is not always the best way to measure different fertilizers as some fertilizers do better with a lower ec number if you feed the plants often.

I would not try to add any more calmag in the mix, if the issue is either overfeeding or too much watering...Should add the calmag in there only if the plant actually need it.

solid7 · Jun 20, 2018

Chilidude said:
I would not try to add any more calmag in the mix, if the issue is either overfeeding or too much watering...Should add the calmag in there only if the plant actually need it.

Actually, coco has a high cation exchange rate, and needs to be periodically dosed. Although, if you have a calcium deficiency in coco, you should also have a potassium lockout.
.
But the bigger question... Did you either buy pre-charged coco coir, or pre-charge it yourself before planting in it? (by soaking it with a calcium solution)
.
Calcium in coco is required to not only provide the element, itself, but also to make potassium available, and to displace any un-rinsed sodium in the media.

solid7 · Jun 20, 2018

Also, you don't need to dose magnesium with coco coir. If I were you - which I'm not, but I do follow my own advice - I'd kick the magnesium, and stick with a straight calcium source. And, if you get the calcium right, you'll have more potassium (from the coco, itself) than you'll ever need. I don't think you can lock out anything by overdosing potassium, but by the same token - you only get so many ppm to dedicate towards your overall EC. So if your fert is higher in P or K than N, it might be time to find a better one. Especially if you're using according to package directions, and having issues.

Chilidude · Jun 20, 2018

solid7 said:
But the bigger question... Did you either buy pre-charged coco coir, or pre-charge it yourself before planting in it? (by soaking it with a calcium solution)

I soak the coco coir with the fertilizer mixture before planting something in it, this is what i have done ever since i started playing with coco coir and i have quite a lot of calcium in the tapwater too to top it off.

solid7 · Jun 20, 2018

Chilidude said:
I soak the coco coir with the fertilizer mixture before planting something in it, this is what i have done ever since i started playing with coco coir and i have quite a lot of calcium in the tapwater too to top it off.

Sorry, I got my wires crossed. That question was actually for the OP.

Hermansen · Jun 21, 2018

solid7 said:
Actually, coco has a high cation exchange rate, and needs to be periodically dosed. Although, if you have a calcium deficiency in coco, you should also have a potassium lockout.
.
But the bigger question... Did you either buy pre-charged coco coir, or pre-charge it yourself before planting in it? (by soaking it with a calcium solution)
.
Calcium in coco is required to not only provide the element, itself, but also to make potassium available, and to displace any un-rinsed sodium in the media.

Thanks for the input.

I too had the impression that you should use cal (+mag) with coco, but again that information was mostly gained from forums where people grow smokeable stuff.

I didn't soak the coco myself before planting, just ran a bit of mixed nutrient solution through it after rinsing with tap water.

I'm using all Canna products now, since I know they are not owned by Monsanto/Bayer (yet...?), including the Coco coir itself. It's something called Canna coco professional plus, which they claim is pre-buffered. http://canna-uk.com/coco_professional_plus

I do find it weird that there is no Iron neither in their Coco nutrients nor their "Calmag Agent" calmag, maybe loading the coir with iron is part of their buffering process? They do however have a separate coco line called Cogr, where there is a different recommended calmag called "Buffer Agent" that does contain iron and a bunch of other trace elements. Gotta make their money even if they are not part of an evil mega corp I guess.

Also, I don't know if it matters, but the leaves have had a lot of the same looks since long before I moved it into coco. Different nutrients, but the same brand. I'm not sure if it was the leaves or the pods that was the greatest indicator of a possible calcium problem? (It also had too strong of a fan blowing on for a while before the second picture was taken I think.)

The third picture is recent, it does actually show signs of iron deficiency, doesn't it?

Hermansen · Jun 21, 2018

solid7 said:
Also, you don't need to dose magnesium with coco coir. If I were you - which I'm not, but I do follow my own advice - I'd kick the magnesium, and stick with a straight calcium source. And, if you get the calcium right, you'll have more potassium (from the coco, itself) than you'll ever need. I don't think you can lock out anything by overdosing potassium, but by the same token - you only get so many ppm to dedicate towards your overall EC. So if your fert is higher in P or K than N, it might be time to find a better one. Especially if you're using according to package directions, and having issues.

Thanks for this as well, I'll need to look more into this as I haven't really gone that deep into nutrient balances yet, was just hoping that would kind of sort itself out by sticking to one brand for everything.

The ratio for this line is 5-4-3, and I actually thought it sounded like it was a bit low in potassium, but if that is supplied by the coco itself then there's not a problem I guess

Chilidude · Jun 21, 2018

Canna maker thinks there is enough iron in the tapwater, so they did not add any in the fertilizer, but this tells me that they want to sell you all the additives this way because the Canna coco a+b doesnt sound complete to me. Also i kind of see signs of overwatering in the pictures, so i ask does you growing pot have any drain holes in the bottom?

Hermansen · Jun 21, 2018

Chilidude said:
Canna maker thinks there is enough iron in the tapwater, so they did not add any in the fertilizer, but this tells me that they want to sell you all the additives this way because the Canna coco a+b doesnt sound complete to me. Also i kind of see signs of overwatering in the pictures, so i ask does you growing pot have any drain holes in the bottom?

Yeah, I guess that's true.

I'm using permeable fabric pots with a layer of expanded clay pebbles in the bottom for the coco plants, so the drainage should be pretty good. The first two pictures in the previous post was from when the plant was still in DWC. (Don't worry about the outside plants, I'm still dialing in the watering of those, and they are already getting less water than when the picture was taken

)

Chilidude · Jun 21, 2018

Hermansen said:
I'm using permeable fabric pots with a layer of expanded clay pebbles in the bottom for the coco plants, so the drainage should be pretty good.

I think we are now in the root of the problems you are having right now, i think you got yourself a salt buildup/too much moisture in the bottom of the container and the plant is suffering because of that.

Hermansen · Jun 21, 2018

Chilidude said:
I think we are now in the root of the problems you are having right now, i think you got yourself a salt buildup/too much moisture in the bottom of the container and the plant is suffering because of that.

Just so we are on the same page here, water can get out from these pots everywhere, as they are not water proof.

I'm pretty sure there isn't much moisture in the bottom of this container, as it is pretty light to lift before every watering. The point of the clay pebbles would be that the coir shouldn't be sitting directly in a pool of water, even if I didn't make sure there is no water in the tray that the fabric pot is standing in after each watering.

You might however be onto something with regards to the salt buildup, and maybe the first step of all should be for me to flush the coco with some plain pH adjusted water?

Thanks again for your continued efforts!

Chilidude · Jun 21, 2018

Yes, you could try flushing the coco coir with water if there is indeed a salt buildup going on.

solid7 · Jun 21, 2018

Hermansen said:
Thanks for this as well, I'll need to look more into this as I haven't really gone that deep into nutrient balances yet, was just hoping that would kind of sort itself out by sticking to one brand for everything.

The ratio for this line is 5-4-3, and I actually thought it sounded like it was a bit low in potassium, but if that is supplied by the coco itself then there's not a problem I guess

Low in potassium? No. It's actually quite high. A plant fertilizer that grows any garden plant on earth, contains roughly 1 and a half times as much Nitrogen as Phosphorus, and roughly 3 times as much Nitrogen as Potassium.

Potassium should be the lowest. It could be under 1, and you'd still have plenty of potassium, growing in coco.

Nutrient makers like you to think that more macros = more of something on the plant. That's junk science. But it's apparently good business.

health Brown spots on pods

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