🪴Identifying Deficiencies: Sulfur, Iron, and More, with Marybeth Sanchez

3:17AM Jan 28, 2025

Speakers:

Jordan River

Marybeth Sanchez

Keywords:

sulfur deficiency

iron deficiency

zinc deficiency

new growth yellowing

interveinal chlorosis

purple streaking

magnesium sulfate

Epsom salts

phosphorus deficiency

molybdenum deficiency

humic acids

living soil

trace minerals

nutrient uptake

pH adjustment

Today we have the great Mary Beth Sanchez back on the line with us to discuss a few things about deficiencies. This episode is all about identifying a couple of key deficiencies. And the reason it's on our mind is because we're working on a deficiency identification deeps dive series, and we're also going to turn that into a PDF resource at the end of this long exploration. So this is just the beginning in this episode. We just chat a little bit about some micronutrient deficiencies, some sulfur deficiency talk. I know you're gonna love it before we jump into it with Mary Beth Sanchez, though, shout out to AC infinity. Acinity.com, code growcast One five to get your savings and keep the lights on. Here at growcast, we appreciate your support, and we love AC infinity. They make the best grow tents around extra thick poles. They've got nice, durable, thick siding. Now they have the new side ports. People have been asking for those and AC infinity lists, and plus, they've got everything else you need to grow. They've got lights and pots and fans, and they're oscillating fans the cloud race system. Check out their humidifiers, the cloud Forge. How nice is your humidifier? Maybe it's time to replace that. The cloud rays are my favorite oscillators on the market. And of course, their cloud Line series, what they got it all started with all those years ago when we were partners with AC infinity, all they made were those inline fans, and they're the best in the game. So shout out to the entire AC infinity suite. They've got everything you need to get growing from fans to tents to lights. Code growcast One five works at AC infinity.com. You support us, and you're getting some badass, durable grow gear while you're doing it. So thank you to all you listeners using code grow cast one five, and thank you to AC infinity. All right, let's get into it with Mary Beth, thank you for listening and enjoy the show. You Jordan, hello podcast listeners, you are now listening to grow cast. I'm your host, Jordan River, and I want to thank you for tuning in again today. Before we get started, as always, I urge you to share this show. Turn a grower onto growcast, or turn a smoker onto growing for the first time. It's the best way that you can help us out, and it helps us on our mission of overgrow. Go to growcastpodcast.com to see all the stuff. There. You'll find the seeds, all the events, and, of course, the lovely growcast Membership Special. Thank you to all the amazing members out there. Today, I'm very excited for this episode, we've got good friend of the show, team grow cast member Mary Beth. Sanchez is back on the line. How are you doing? Mary

Beth, yay. Well, I'm doing just absolutely fabulous. Welcome

back. Thank you so much for joining us again. Oh yeah. My pleasure always. I'm doing great. Of course, I love doing these episodes with you. Of course, if you haven't heard Mary Beth, go and check out her older episodes. She's an amazing organic gardening specialist and IPM specialist and so much more. She does serve as the resident nutrient deficiency diagnoser in Grow cast membership, and I've learned so much from you. Mary Beth, I'd like to start this podcast show, you know, the Our Front End Show. I'd like to start this episode out by saying you have taught me so much about how to accurately diagnose these different deficiencies, how to tell them apart, how to correct them, how to tell the pathogens from the deficiencies, and yeah, which way to go? Up, down, left, right. You are really, really talented, and I'm grasping just a little bit of it at a time, and it's very, very impressive, very, very good at what you do diagnosing plants through a picture, which is hard, you know, it's hard to diagnose through a picture. Little trick,

yeah, because you can't give it a DNA test or, you know, the biological running, you know, a drop of something on it and see what color it turns, that kind of stuff, you do just kind of have to look at it and, you know, hope for the best, especially because a lot of things look really similar, really Yes, and you have to really, you know, stretch your brain and go, Okay, let's see how many factors line up with this possibility. Or maybe it's multiple things wrong, right? And that gets you another different picture to look at. So it does take some time before you start feeling more comfortable with it. For sure,

yeah. And filling in those blanks, it helps to experience them. But I really want to teach people how to identify these things ahead of time. Yeah.

And so much of the information you know, the information that's available is less than perfect, so it can add to the confusion. That's exactly

right. A lot of the deficiency guides out there are lacking, or they have, like, multiple data points, and some are better than others. And that actually leads to another thing I want to talk about, which is we want to tease an upcoming project. I do want to work with you, Mary Beth, on a really, really good deficiency diagnosis content series, and probably some sort of PDF image guide eventually. But that's what this episode is kind of leading into, is I'm going to create something around this, and I want to give that out to the community at large. You're just too good not to share. You know, get it on down on PDF and share it with everybody. So. I think this information could be really, really useful. So yeah, thank you. Mary Beth, and let's just dive right in. Thank you. Let's do I want to talk about a couple of deficiencies and group them together. Because when we talk about, you know, creating this PDF and or this content series, it's like, well, how do we group together these deficiencies? I also want to start by saying we've talked about this before. The answer to a deficiency isn't always just adding more of that mineral, right? Mary Beth, you have to see if there's something else going on,

far too often it's something else going on. Can you list some of the things

that, some of the many things that can interfere with nutrient uptake other than just applying more.

Oh, yeah. So it it might be there, but the temperature could be just too low or too high for it to be available, or the pH could be too low or too high, or the overabundance of some other competing mineral could be too high or too low to block it out, or to lock it up in some kind of way, so those elements can all affect even though, you know the mineral might be there in plenty, it's as if you know you have a cupboard full of food. No can opener. You're not going to get any of that food. That's a really

good analogy. Yeah, over watering is another one that I see. And maybe that lack of oxygen really interfering with the ability for the plant to feed

exactly because you, yes, you are literally drowning the plant and making it incapable of taking up those nutrients.

That makes sense. And then you see this, you know, Telltale sulfur deficiency. But you don't have to change anything, except for stop over watering. And then magically, it clears itself up. It's like, wow, how does that work? Well, yeah,

that's how. And then, then it, you know, like you say, you could be just the case of an adjustment in your pH could do the trick. Oh, yeah, but if you don't experiment with things, or if you're not really aware of what you're putting in or how much, or if you were kind of careless in your measurements, or if you're you've done this 100 times with this exact formula. Now what's going on this time? It can get confusing. That is really important.

Note is make sure to cover all of those bases before you go adding more minerals once you've diagnosed a deficiency, even if you get a diagnosis, I think that's where a lot of people fall short. Mary Beth is you post a sick plant online, and then people usually just throw out like, oh, calcium deficiency. Really, I advise people I wouldn't listen to a stranger online. And unless they're telling you why they said that thing, I see that very rarely do they say, Hey, I think it's this deficiency. Note, the localized yellowing on this part of the plant. Like they're giving you a reason, right? I think that's a good indicator, yeah. And then even, even if they do get it right, that's usually where they just leave you. They don't tell you what to add or to check the pH first before adding anything, or to see if you've locked it out. I think that's what we do. If I can toot my own horn for a second, I think that's what you specifically and we do really well at grow cast membership, is we walk growers through and we just gotta, we gotta figure out all the pieces of the puzzle before we go, Hey, pour on this new

nutrient, right? Yeah, that shouldn't be necessarily the first thing that you go for, because, yeah, there's so many other factors, and you could immediately make everything worse if all you do is just hammer it, assume you need more of something. And yeah, this, whoa, throws you off kilter like gasoline on

a fire. Yes, absolutely. Okay, so that's great. That's just how I want to kind of frame this up for people. And now what I really want to do for this episode is I want this to be one of those episodes you guys, if you're not familiar with diagnosing these deficiencies, I want you to be by the end of this episode. Now this is an audio medium. We are going to do a visual episode about this in one week on growcast tv for the members. But even through the audio, I'm going to tell you how to identify a couple deficiencies by the end of this episode. So we talk about grouping these deficiencies. And some people say, Oh, teaching the micronutrients and the macronutrients this and that I'm going to create my own little grouping sections. And today, what we're going to be focusing on, specifically with the elements sulfur, iron and zinc. We're going to be focusing on yellowing new growth. Yellowing new growth, when you see this yellowing of the leaf surface, and with sulfur and iron, specifically, it's exclusively on that new growth. You guys know what I mean. You've seen a sulfur deficiency before, where your plant is vegging and everything looks even lush green, except for the new nodes, the very, very tops of each apical branch, right? And it's all yellowed out. What do you think when you see yellowing new growth? Mary Beth, are those some of the

top suspects exactly the, what you would call the mobile nutrients. So, or excuse me, I'm sorry, just the opposite the immobile nutrient. It? Yeah, I do this a lot. It's the immobile nutrients that kind of want to sit at the bottom of the plant. So if there's a shortage, they'll just not bother with the outside or newer growth. They will just stay where they're most comfortable. And then you'll notice problems starting to appear on the new growth.

Yes, that's exactly right. It's like they would take some sulfur from the lower leaves and then put it up to this new growth. But they can't, because it's immobile. They

just yeah, they feel they don't have enough, and they're going to save it for their happy place, which is down and then older growth.

So you see this yellowing new growth. And people see this a lot during stretch. There are reasons why they see this at different times over. Watering can really contribute to this, but telling the difference between iron and sulfur deficiency. So you're looking at your vegging plant, and you've got the new growth nodes on the very top, and you can tell they're yellow, but when you look closely, that yellow comes from a different place, with the iron deficiency, right? Like from the tips in Oh,

yeah. Like the progression of the yellowing, yeah, the progression of

the yellowing is in different areas on the new growth. Can you talk about how to tell that difference between sulfur and iron?

Oh, boy, let's see iron is going to have more interveinal chlorosis. So it's gonna start more on the outer edges of the leaf, and more towards, you know, the inner veins. And at its height, if it gets really bad, it'll actually have necrosis around the edge, kind of like you see in a potassium deficiency. But you know, by then, you'll be having leaves that'll be pretty almost white colored. The the chlorosis will have gotten so bad that it'll be more more white than yellowed interveinally. But the leaves, excuse me, the veins themselves do remain green, pretty green. Okay,

so I want to talk about that interveinal chlorosis. You use this term, and growers have seen this too. When you're looking at a fan leaf and you see those lines that are segmenting the leaf itself, right? Those are the leaf veins and the interveinal right in between the veins, intervening chlorosis, meaning that the chlorophyll has some sort of problem with it, right? Chlorosis, meaning, like, lack lack of chlorophyll. Yeah, you see the lightning in between the veins. There's a couple deficiencies that do that, but the iron specifically is up in that new growth. Really good point. And then what's really cool about what you just said, Mary Beth, is, yes, once it progresses, you get to that, like, white stage, it's not a yellowing so much as sulfur and, like, nitrogen deficiencies. It's like a, it's like a paleness to it. And that is because, guys, iron is the key constituent of chlorophyll. It's like, really, really important, most important, yeah, for chlorophyll. So you don't have that chlorophyll, which is what makes plants green, and you end up with this, like, paleness and and now, Mary Beth, I always thought, please correct me if I'm wrong. I always thought that that usually happened from, like, not just the new growth, but the tips of the new growth in, kind of like how nutrient burn happens from the tips in. Is that the case

with iron? Well, like I said, the outer edges. So probably, if you know the point of any plant is going to be that furthest tip. So it'll, it'll kind of work its way in. Oh, you're so right? Because the largest, you know, like, I say, if it, it wants to sit in the bottom of the oldest growth, and it's only going to give out to the outer most growth, what it feels it has enough. Okay? So that's where, yeah, that's where it would start, the quickest to be noticed. So

have you guys? Have you ever seen this again? You're looking at the tops of like a vegging plant, for instance, although it can certainly happen in flower too. And that new growth, those brand new leaves, they've got, like a yellow highlighter around the tips and edges. Yellow highlighter, kind of pale paling out that is the iron deficiency. It's only happening to the new growth. It's happening to the tips in the margins, and they're paling out some intervening chlorosis. They're not affecting the middle of the plant, not affecting the lower parts of the plant. Gets really unless it gets bad, yeah. But hopefully never get that far. Starts localized.

Now there is an issue with iron, as far as like we were discussing things that can lock it up, or too much phosphorus, too much zinc, too much copper and too much manganese, too much copper is rarely found. But a lot of people will start off with those mixes where they put everything at once, and they can start off with too much phosphorus and things like that could happen. Or they might notice that they had a zinc issue before, so they put in plenty this time, and it might be just too much that for the needs of the iron. Really, really good things like that can

happen, yeah, especially that phosphol load. If you're having an iron problem and you're on some and if it's. Very crazy line.

Oh yeah. Cold and the flooding, you know what you talk about, not only the overly wet, but the overly dried soils will both be a problem for getting your iron to be able to come up into the plant.

Oh, I love it. That's so good. It's so good. So again, guys, it's affecting the new growth only, and it's affecting from the tips and margins, kind of inward, right? Like, as it gets worse, that edge highlighter gets thicker. Now sulfur is the opposite. Yes, it's only on the new growth, like iron is, but sulfur deficiency is that yellowing from, like, literally the center of the newest node, kind of outward? Is that a good way to describe it, or is it more even? I would say it's more even, and it's more central. It doesn't start from the edges in so much as the center. Out

with the sulfur, you're going to have the yellowing of the very young leaves, and you'll often get a purple streaking, that is, I like to say, a straight line down the length of the stem. That's not to say you have purple stems. That's another story, but purple streaking, wow. And eventually your veins, as you said, eventually your veins will turn yellow. Unlike in your iron with the veins do not turn yellow, they remain green. Okay. Oh, that's exactly right? Yeah, your tips will burn and darken and hook downward with sulfur. But you know, that might not be the first thing that happens, okay? And it will also really slow your bud formation and give you stunted growth. So that's what people will start. You know, you'll notice, they'll send you this picture, and their flowers are usually pretty tiny at the same time as you're sowing these seeds. Pictures of the leaves, because the yellow leaves and the tiny flowers go together when you're not getting the bed formation.

That makes sense. You're right. The yellowing, I was saying it was even. And in reality, what that means is it rolls right over the veins that yellowing

It does. Yeah, so leaf looks more Yes, it eventually gets very evenly yellow.

That's right. So it's the new growth, it's the the new leaves, and it kind of yellows evenly from the center out this the purple streak I have not heard of being sulfur deficiency. That is going to be, I'm going to keep my eye out for that. That's a game, yeah,

you know, you might not see it so much in cannabis. It might be more prevalent in some other kind of plant and and with cannabis, that's a confusing symptom, because so often that purple is part of the genetics. And that's true so you know, but that's something that you might notice in different things that you grow. If you're wondering, why is there purple shrieking on the stems, it's could well be that corn or whatever, a little bit of a lack of, yeah, just sulfur. Wow. Okay,

so that's great. And then this also makes sense with what Nick was saying on the show, which is basically, you I see this a lot. And he says that you see this a lot when the plant is going through periods of stress and and that doesn't just necessarily mean you're, you're, you know, like stripping your plant or kicking the pot flowering time, like when you switch your plants light cycles, when you turn up your lights intensity, that's when it starts demanding more sulfur. And you might see these sulfur deficiencies. So right around flip time, I see this a lot, because people change their light schedules, they probably power up their light to max.

And doesn't it make sense, though? You know if it's required in your bud production and now you need bud protection.

Yes, for the first time ever,

crank up yourself for just a little bit. So

where primarily I see iron deficiencies? I mean, really, I feel like iron deficiencies we see pretty commonly, but I see them a lot in veg, right? I do see that when they're trying to establish and build all that chlorophyll and vegetate, and

it's going to depend on your soil. And a lot of times people start their veg in a really cold place, surprisingly cold. And so many things you see, like the drooping of the plant and such, is often just it was

too cold there, so Right? And then not being able to take up this tiny amount of micronutrient. That's the other thing about minerals like iron, you guys like needed in tiny little amounts. But if your plant can't get that little amount, it's going to get sick. But the sulfur needed, like you said, Well, really, I've seen sulfur deficiencies at all stages, don't get me wrong. But once it starts producing those buds change in light cycle, change in light intensity. That's where I see a lot of that yellowing, new growth. And just keep an eye on that, guys, and just add a tinge more sulfur, see if the plants respond well to giving it some plant available sulfur. Like you said, it's kind of piecing together a puzzle, though, right? Because you have to check all the boxes, okay. So are we seeing the yellowing, new growth? Yes. And then you see the purple streak. You're like, okay, it makes sense. I just flipped my lights. I just added intensity. The whole picture kind of makes sense, whereas some symptoms overlap. You know, intravenal chlorosis, for instance, is a symptom of multiple different deficiencies. So you got to play detective and put all the pieces together and say, Does this make sense to have this deficiency at this part of the growth cycle? That would be my. My recommendation, correct?

Yeah. I think the other one that you wanted to include in this whole eternity is the zinc, which is often hard to distinguish from the other two. We were talking about sulfur and iron, because it happens in the newer growth, and it has that interveinal chlorosis, yes, and it often gets quite twisted new growth, just as the sulfur often does. There's something about the way zinc presents itself, particularly in cannabis, but I've seen it in other plants as well, where it's almost like a weird creasing in the in the leaf, almost as if it's been intentionally, you know, touched with an oppressing iron, if you know what

I'm talking about, yeah, it just, it

has a weird sorts of

twisted almost like rumliness. Would you say like rumliness? Yeah,

yeah. It gets a weird texture to the leaf that would normally be more flat and smooth, and it just interesting to to see. And that's how I can usually tell you that, especially with the difference between the where your veins are dark, dark green, and your interveinal areas becoming very yellow, it's very It's so distinctive that it becomes to me. I keep calling it a zebra pattern, because it's so off and on. The color, yeah, diffuse at all. It

does look like zebra stripes. That is how you got me to remember how to identify a zinc deficiency. So, yeah, let's talk about that. Let's talk about nailing that down, and then we'll move on to what to add for each of these. But I think that the the differences between iron and sulfur, we nailed down pretty well. And then zinc really presenting with that zebra striping, as you call it, that intravenous chlorosis, right? And affecting more than just the newest, newest plant tissue. I feel like, no, it's kind of like the upper portion of the plant has these zebra stripes on the fan leaves. You guys have seen this before,

yeah, because it does affect the newer growth, not the older growth. You know, I try to not say upper and lower as much as newer growth and older growth, because, you know, sometimes the newer growth, it's your outward most buds are at the bottom of

the new growth. Yeah, if you have lower branching, you can still see the sulfur deficiency on the new growth of those lower branches. That is very true. That is okay, very good, very good distinction. But I feel like it's, it's a little less localized, that zinc deficiency, you see it on like big fan leaves up towards the the new growth, you know. So, yeah, that's, that's really the telltale version. Is what the interveno chlorosis, and then is that pretty much it with the zinc deficiency, just that change in texture. They get the

most twisted deformations at the end, the zinc and boron actually also as well. They could get really twisted deformations at the, you know, newer growth often when it's getting to the point of, you know, you better do something about this. Yeah,

when you're getting to the point of pathology,

well, it can actually cause a lot of damage, because water we turn and grow, it's not flowers. And so if you're this is happening at your growing tips, it's definitely not going to help your flowers in any kind of

way. Yes, that's exactly right. And yeah, that twisting right, that malformation, that's another telltale sign of that zinc deficiency. And guys, the iron and zinc being micronutrients, right? And then the sulfur being considered a secondary macronutrient, correct, I believe. But really, yeah, point is they're needed in lower amounts, like, way lower.

Yeah, too much can be deadly. So don't get cheeky, yeah,

exactly. And make sure that it makes sense before you go hammering a bunch of now I've certainly seen cultivars that demand more of a certain micronutrient. It just seems to be the case. Oh yeah, yeah. So what I like to have on hand is a product. There's a couple products, actually. One is called TM seven. Izzy natural turned me on to this one. I showed you Mary Beth, that it's like, I think it stands for Total micronutrients. It's got all of the trace, trace minerals that's going to have your zinc and your

iron, yeah, exactly those ones you most often find lacking. So that's

a good one to have on hand, because you're only going to need to apply it like, once, right? Mary Beth, you just get a little more in there, and then you just kind of move on with your life when it comes to things like zinc and iron,

correct? And as we mentioned in the other two, an excess of phosphorus can block it up. So this is another thing, one where we're going into flowering, we usually want to add boost up or phosphorus. Be really careful with that, because so often that's when these things, these deficiencies, will start showing because all sudden, your plant needs a lot more of this other stuff too. And lo and behold, you didn't even realize it wasn't just the phosphorus that it needed, but the things that you're about to allow the zinc and the sulfur and the

iron, beware of the phosphor load. Very, very good point. And so the other thing that's really widely available, I know you used to. Recommend this. You turned me on to this, and I still use it in my garden all the time. It's cheap. It's everywhere. It's liquinox b1 with iron. Yeah, it's got everything in there,

you know. It's got the EDTA, I think, for the chelation, which isn't God's gift to everything, but it's not like something that I would say always, always use, I'd say, always have it on hand for the emergency and a quick fix. You know, rely on it for your main source of those nutrients, if you can help it, try to get it from a more regular fertilizer source. Oh,

so, well, terribly organic. So well, it's, like, super perfect for a quick fix. It's shelf stable. It costs nothing. And like we said, you use it once really, like, if you see an iron deficiency, yeah,

yeah. You don't want to use it on a commercial grill. For your regular source of this stuff. I don't think so you'd have something else you know, going on in there.

I do like that quick fix and that, and the TM seven, which is a powder so it also sits around forever. These are just a couple of products you should have on hand. I think we need to do a episode called products you should have on hand. But those are some good ones for sure to have in the store. Now, for sulfur, when you see a sulfur deficiency, what do you tell a grower to reach for to cure their sulfur deficiency? Oh,

I often just go for the good old epson salts, because the magnesium sulfate, it's a real good, easy, quick way to get it. Because, you know, when you got magnesium that will show up at the bottom of the plant, it's very often you can see that the yellow leaves at the bottom are starting to show a little bit at the same time as the yellowing at the top from the sulfur. And you know, sometimes it's mistaken for Cal, mag deficiency, but calcium is usually not the thing that's lacking. I mean, unless you're growing tomatoes, because calcium doesn't bleach that quickly, but magnesium does, it leach very quickly, yeah? So when you give yourself that little magnesium sulfate, you're probably not going to OD your plant on magnesium, and you're not going to get on sulfate. It's going to be, you know, hopefully you're just, you're giving us a reasonable dose. We usually say one or two tablespoons per gallon, and judge for yourself what you think, or if you might, you might want to start low. You might want to start high. Everybody's got their own personal preference. And takes a few days

I would shoot for to start. Yeah, right. Takes a few days to set in, and the next thing you know, don't

expect it to happen in an hour, maybe not even the next day, but in a couple days, you'll you'll notice how that color does look better. It greens. If it doesn't, then you'll go away. Hey, maybe I misdiagnosed. Maybe I need to go back to the book and see if I missed something. So

I You said a couple really important things there, and that is why the Epsom salts are the gardener's trick. It's such a classic gardener trick that's a great fertilizer for your plants. And the reason that is is because it's got the magnesium sulfate. So we did just give away another really easy, quick fix, and for a deficiency that's easy to spot, which is those yellowing, dying off lower leaves. If it's really from the bottom up, you can just literally tell that's where it's starting. And it's not a fungal deficiency. That's like a magnesium deficiency, right? And then the sulfur deficiency up top, from, like we said, all the things like changes in weather and light intensity and all this stuff. So of course, magnesium sulfate is going to help a lot of gardeners, because it's going to have the sulfur to help with all the stresses. Your magnesium is already washed away because, like you said, it runs off really, really easily. Yeah,

it can wash a lot easier than so you add

Epsom salts to your garden, your veggie garden, or your cannabis garden, whatever, and it greens up the whole garden. And that's because it's just such a quickly bio available source of both magnesium and salt, which are so often lacking. Yeah, that is why the Epsom salts are magic, and why I support you. And

yeah, and you're not putting it on Well, you're not putting it on in ridiculous dosage amounts. You're not going on general, putting out hundreds of pounds of Epsom salts an acre of a farm or something like that. You're just, you know, running a couple tablespoons through your little potted plants, everything's going to be fine. Don't hear the salt, yeah, because salt. People hear the word salt, and they start getting scared, thinking like, table salt. You're not putting table salt on there. That's a different kind of chloride. That's a, that's a different kind of the sodium. Yeah,

the epsoms are gentle. They're easy for the plant to cleave those two minerals apart and uptake it. And you just, if you're worried about the magnesium, just do a flush after you'll be absolutely fine. I really, really like the use of the Epsom salts. As Mary Beth always says, unscented. Don't get any weird oils.

But, you know, I it probably wouldn't hurt to plant, but it might just annoy you to have that aroma right up, that aroma and you're chirping,

let's be honest, you're paying for it too. You're paying for ingredients. So, yeah, you don't want any goofy like, you know. Flavored Epsom salts, or whatever, unflavored, yeah, but

go to the place where they, you know, bath, yes, in the in every grocery store, in their same place to sell you toothbrush and toothpaste, they'll have Epsom salt somewhere on that shelf. Just

a dirt cheap, too, a dirt cheap. That's a great sulfur fix. Epsom can also be foliar sprayed. So a good home gardener trick, I of course, crush my sulfur deficiencies with peak bloom. Shout out rooted leaf. And their Cal mag fuel for magnesium and whatever you've got some

really good formulas in their product line for minerals. And, oh

my goodness, I'm so glad you two are friends. Yeah, this dangerous combo. God

said two are dangerous together. He comes out with the Oh god, I love his knowledge of the interactions of the minerals. That's great. Wow. He is a powerhouse. But

I want to highlight one more thing you said, because it's so true. People see this magnesium deficiency, the magnesium being the yellowing of the lower leaves. Remember guys like we just said, and they go, Okay, I'll add cow mag. And like you said, the plant isn't displaying a calcium deficiency, and maybe it can even handle more calcium. But what it can't handle is some of those cow mags are four or 5%

nitrogen. Oh yeah, that's crazy, especially during the time when you really don't need the extra nitrogen. You

can ruin a harvest if you're in, if you're in week six of flower, and you think, Okay, I gotta fix this magnesium deficiency, so I'm gonna add this Cal mag, and it's full of nitrogen. You could literally, you'll start seeing the Trichome production go down. It'll get all dark green. You'll get single leaves getting pushed out of the buds. And you

can attract all these pests as well, because they love a little extra nitrogen. Oh, boy. They're coming running with aphids or little sucking sweet arts that we wore, you know, the various kinds. They're all attracted to nitrogen. Nitrogen. Okay,

so mind blowing that you just brought that up, because it is absolutely true. I've observed it, something about this nitrogen spike and nitrogen toxicity, not only in vice all the insect pests, like you said, but I saw there's research that it, uh, that it increases your chance of getting pathogens,

yep. Why? Especially, do you know? Why does anyone know what kind of excess nitrogen will dissolve your roots. It'll turn them into so you got to be careful with that stuff. I know, like people always, you know, think of it's like a fog wall with a duck. You just shove more in, and it'll pump it up like a mobile but it really can be too much. So

it might be structurally damaging, making the plant more susceptible, as opposed to, like an attractant, maybe, or maybe

both. Well, yeah, I think both, because, you know, if you're talking about the insects, since the excessive amount of nitrogen and they come running, it's quite likely those other pathogens, due to, you know, they got their little sensors and their ways of knowing things that's smart in their vicinity. And you know, they've probably come a run into, or that may be the thing that triggers them to go from a dormant state to a I'm happy to be alive state, yes, if you know what I mean, yes,

absolutely. Really good point, though. And watch that high nitrogen, you guys, you're inviting a lot of other bad stuff when you get that high nitrogen, dark foliage, shiny foliage, clawing of the leaf tips. Yes, that high nitrogen, I know we're kind of just blasting through some and riffing. So maybe let's recap here. Remember the new growth. If the new growth is yellowing, you've already narrowed down. You've already eliminated a whole bunch of different possible culprits. If it's just the new growth that's yellowing, look at it. Does it have the tip and the edge highlights? It's probably iron if that's the case, or is it yellowing more evenly, rolling over the veins, kind of coming from the center of the new node outward. And that's definitely your sulfur deficiency, monic sulfur. Now, do you have the zebra striping? And pretty much, that's it. Maybe some twisting and rumpling and weirdness. That could be the zinc. Okay, that could be the zinc. That zebra striping is skipping those veins, making it look like stripes. So that could be the zinc. And then we also talked about magnesium deficiency, real easy to spot. That's just your lower leaves getting yellow from the bottom up, whole rest of your plant looks

your older leaves. Yes. Now, often there's an issue with using magnesium and manganese just because they sound similar. True, magnesium is going to show at the bottom of the plant, and manganese is going to show on the newer girl. So when somebody says, Oh, you have a manganese, don't, don't jump right away for the magnesium. Look carefully and see which one they were talking about. Manganese is harder to find in a supplement. So, you know, I usually go for things like, I'll just say, just get some soluble seaweed. Dollars, things like that, are usually loaded with trace minerals, enough for the plant without being at a toxic level.

Is that, because of the Fed, just for the fact that it's from the sea, right? Are all these, all these sea products are loaded with my

everything washes to the sea. Everything washes to the sea. And so it all collects there. It goes up into the kelp, because that's the kelp speed and all that stuff too, right? So you get those kelp things and, you know, process them into finer and finer forms. The soluble seaweed powder tends to look like little black crystals and dissolves in water. Really super available. Stains everything

black. Be careful with it. I like that. It's

so little goes a long way. So like a quarter teaspoon in a five gallon bucket, I think, or something like that, at the average they used to recommend first you make concentrate of the powder, and then you take part of that concentrate to make your thing that you pour into the plant. But I usually just skip that middle step and just put a little bit in the water and pour it in there, and that's fine, but it'll take care of most micronutrient deficiencies pretty quickly and safety, especially if you're using good humic acid, because you know how I feel about the humic acid.

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it's a salt, that just means it dissolves in water. So don't be scared of that word,

yeah. Don't sew your fields with it. But, yeah, you use a, use a little bit that C 90 is literally dehydrated ocean water. And it's got, it's a broad spectrum. I think even the primers and rooted leaf I think might I have talked to Nick about that, but, but it seems like a lot of these come from the sea. Then you bring up the humic acids you're always talking about. The best humic acids are from lake beds. Yes, beds

and lake beds. Yeah, exactly. Those are the sources you can get that stuff the best quality, yeah, or even out of your own compost. If you have your own compost available and you want to go through that process, that's simple and super cheap,

good call, but that's why we got to keep our waterways and our oceans and our forests and soil clean. So yeah, that's, yeah. That's really interesting that you find all this stuff, all you know, molybdenum and all these micronutrients in in salt water and sea products, kelps and seaweeds, very, very cool. So we gave some really good, specific diagnoses and fixes for these things. I do want to talk for a second more about humic acids? Humic acids are going to clear up a lot of these problems just on their own right. Mary Beth, because not only do they contain the minerals that that you might need, that you might be running low on, not only do they help chelate and help with the uptake of those minerals, but humic acids are also slightly acidic, as they are an acid, yeah, and lower the pH, which, guess what? Most of the micronutrients that you're dealing with are taken up at a lower pH. Do I have that right?

I well most well if you say, you know, in between five and sevens for most. To the nutrients want to be taken up. But some of those ones that we were talking about today like a low, so you know, if you're in a six zero

sulfur, there are some exceptions. Molybdenum, for instance, is taken up at a at a quote, more really high. Yeah, yes, it's higher

over eight. But you know, you if you've got, if you have the chelation, what happens there is you, you're assuming, hopefully, that you have a living soil with biology in it, the humic acids are the favorite food a fungus. Far like so many people don't know, humic acids are the favorite food. And if you have the biology in there, they are going to be able to change the pH just at a given moment, anytime they want, like if they want to access that molybdenum and the soil might be whatever they can exude their little exudates and change the pH at that moment in order to free up the molybdenum and allow it to be brought into the plant. That's one of the best. It's

one of the best features of living soil, right? Like, obviously, you promote living soil because regenerative

energy take over. Yeah, they know better than us, and they're really good at doing it, right? They've been doing it for so long before we got on this planet, right? Seriously, they know how to work this system, and they do make these exchanges when you have the living biology. That's why you want to, you know, hopefully grow with living biology. But if you don't, then you have to play God more. Sometimes you can do things like, suppose you're in a really strictly salt, you know, soluble thing. You get yourself something with molybdenum, and mix it separately with some high pH water, and then apply it that way. So at least at that moment, that will be the pH of the water. And then later you can adjust just your butter in some kind of way. And

again, that's why these micronutrient, kind of broad micronutrient products are good to have on hand, because you just need a little bit slaps them in there, and it'll contain all these, all these weird little micro nutrients. Now, take a breath, everybody. I think we just covered like 1234, different deficiencies and how to identify them. Take a breath, because I think we're going to do one or two more before we wrap it up here. That's That's how jam packed this episode is. Well, if we look at the top, what is it? 1234567,

nutrients that are in the immobile category and an equal amount in the mobile category. So usually, when you're talking about the stuff that is the immobile category, where it shows first at the top, or the newer growth of the plant, you know, there's are all kind of related. But look at there's what, seven of them, zinc, manganese, iron, copper, boron, sulfur and calcium. Those are all going to be kind. But you know what I want to just say about copper? Right off you, it's so rare to ever see a copper deficiency, I doubt if you'll ever see one.

I was just going to say, I don't think I've seen you in the member chat once go get some pennies and throw it in

there. No. And it is kind of funny. When it's described, it's described as your leaves will kind of take on that color. They'll look copper, and even though they're lacking copper, it's very strange. Yeah,

you're right. I've only seen pictures because you're right. I've never seen that in so you get guided disregard copper. That's one you never need to learn. It's probably not going to be that. Yeah, I want to, I want to break out of mobile and immobile and talk about these overlapping symptoms. You brought up one that I want to focus on before we go. You said, you know one of the symptoms, one of the symptoms of sulfur deficiency, can be streaking purple stems. Now I used to be in caveman brain mode when it came to purpling, which is either Okay, the plant can obviously be naturally purple. As you said, cannabis can produce anthocyanins, but if the plant is looking deficient and maybe a couple other things are there isn't purpling also a sign of phosphorus deficiency. Is that a thing?

But that's that's manifested in the leaf and not in the stem. Boom. So this is specifically a stem issue, yeah, you would only just see this streaking the stems,

so the phosphorus purpling present in the leaves.

Yeah, that's kind of an overall leaf, kind of looking little, kind of purpley blue, yeah, you'll see him get that tinge. Yeah, it's a tinge. And, yeah, it isn't necessarily like a swath. It's a Yeah, blotchy looking tinge. But it's really will have those tones that make you go, haha, got it?

Got it. So now phosphor is getting recycled more like a battery. It's not something you need to be applying all the time, like your calcium, like your like your potassium,

and flowers, fastest move and puppy in the soil. Yeah. And what other

signs are we looking for when we know it's a phosphorus deficiency? Yes, the purple on the leaves you might have, the patches, the spotting. What else do you see with phosphorus deficiency and. Oh,

let me see. I'll go down to my little chart, because purple is the thing that goes right to my mind. Oh, well, there you

go. So I was right to like that. That's usually what I would I would see some unnatural looking purpling on the leaf, and then I would basically kind of jump to phosphorus drooping. So

shortage is going to cause stunting of the plant. You'll notice, why is my plant not growing? And it's going to delay maturity. So you might say, Why the hell is this far never going to finish? And if you're growing a root crop, if you don't have enough phosphorus, you know, like your carrots and potatoes, they're going to be pretty under developing. Is wimpy looking,

it goes to the roots, and that's the root crop, I gotcha. So you don't get good yields on the root crops, but, but the purpling leaves kind of the dead giveaway, huh?

Yeah. But just if you know over long term, the roots and the shoots that will both be suffering and then stunting and immaturity. So those are things that you would see. Take

a look at your roots. Your root ball isn't filled out, and they're looking a little thin and wispy. And then you see the purpling patches. And maybe those purpling patches are all over the plant. Being that, you know, phosphorus can kind of appear in multiple places. It's not localized to the new growth. All good signs that that could be a phosphorus deficiency. Now

here's the other thing about phosphorus, though, is that it will an excess will show almost the same symptoms, but the dark purple will be even darker, but they'll have really necrotic edges. It'll start looking like it's being poisoned, because it is, it's being Oded, and the newer parts of the growth will be more pale yellow, but the older parts will just get ridiculously dark purple with a dead, you know, edges, particularly on the tips.

Ah, that makes it even more confusing, though, because the last one I wanted to cover was the one that I feel like I'm just now getting a handle on identifying, because it also can, can show purpling, but a molybdenum deficiency, which why have we been seeing so many of those? Mary Beth, what is the deal where we Why do we see these deficiencies come in waves

all the time? I think that it has to do with like the timing, like when the plant needs it. Most everybody's lacking at the same time,

everybody's in flower or whatever. Yeah, that could be, yeah.

One of the things about molybdenum is it drains out of the soil pretty easily. So often, when you really need it, it's already washed away. I didn't know, have enough reapplied, you know? And hopefully, if you're using things like valuable seaweed powder, you'll never run out, but

it's one of those things that runs off that's that's good to know, uh huh. But

in the cannabis plant, it will often show up looking really similar to a potassium deficiency. But the the way that the, how am I trying to say the outer edges, the marginal scorching is different. It is slightly more intense. And I don't know hard to say, like, is it each tip was individually dipped in something that killed each individual Yes, rather than being kind of painted the

way that one crush tell me if this is accurate. First of all, you're right. You see the purpling like you would with maybe phosphorus. But in addition to that, it seems like the the damage, the scorching, the necrosis, it's taking place not just at the margins, but at the serration tips,

at the serration. Tips Exactly. And like I say, each tooth looks like it was individually dipped, you know, somehow it's very distinctively dead tooth, whereas when it's in the potassium, it's more like an overall scorch, not just on those teeth. And it kind of eventually gets, you know, more intense as the thing progresses. But another thing with molybdenum, which can happen but doesn't always happen, is you'll get sticky secretions on the undersides of the leaves. So that is something that you can check for. If you're, you know, in doubt and not sure if that's happening, that would be a thing that would say, yeah, it's definitely that. And it can also cause the cupping. And, you know, because of that scorching, it'll have cupping along the edges of the leaves. It looks pretty snarly. And I guess, I think it has to do with the timing of the thing, like, for instance, the stuff that locks things out. What is what locks up molybdenum? It's iron. Oh, really. So maybe there was some reason that that was not, maybe that was something that was, you know, too much of it present in the soil, added

too much liquinus, and then you add, get the molybdenum deficiency. The answer, then for that that's going to antagonize something. Else, it's it's a wild ride. No, that's why you only add a little bit at a time. So Mary Beth always says, trace minerals.

Yeah, yeah, you start little, and if it, if you not seeing results, you might add more, or you might try to see if it's a different thing that's imbalanced. Yes, that's exactly right. The dance I liked Steven Rais news analogy of, you know that that chart of trying to balance nutrients, it's like you're you're spinning plates on 100 sticks, and you gotta keep them all balanced while you're riding a bicycle. And if the least little thing is imbalanced and everything crashes, and it's kind of that way with your nutrients totally

it's like spinning plates,

yeah, try to keep it balanced. But

hopefully those two pair well together, because they both show the purpling of the leaves. But I'm telling you guys, you'll see a difference with the purpling of the phosphorus deficiency versus the purpling of the molybdenum deficiency, where the serration tips the sawtooth the tips of the Sawtooths of the leaves are burning and dying and dying back along with the purpling. That's how to tell those two apart from one another. I think we covered five or six deficiencies in this episode that went way off the rails, guys. I hope that that was a good deep dive. I mean, there was a lot of good information in there. Mary Beth, I learned a lot today. There's a couple of of key indicators that I didn't know. So thank you for for enlightening me even further on my own show today, always fun. And guys, this is just the audio brainstorm that you're here. And this is me getting in your ear while you're in the garden, describing these things to you. We have some amazing video content coming out, both for the members only, in Patreon and on our YouTube channel. Get on our YouTube channel, youtube.com/grow, cast. Make sure you're subscribed, and then, like I said, we're going to culminate this into some sort of PDF, like document, even if it's multiple pages, we're going to make it happen. So one more time. Mary Beth, thank you so much for being such an amazing community member, for educating here on the podcast, for all of your talents, I really, really appreciate you. I cannot express how much we appreciate

you. The feelings mutual. Really appreciate you as well. The whole community is just a nice thing to be part of.

Well, listen, we are honored to have you in it. Mary Beth, you can find her in the Grow cast membership, members only, server exclusively, basically. But where else can people find you? Mary Beth, in case they want to follow you or follow your friends?

No, because I'm basically retired, sure. So this is the thing that I do that gives me pleasure. And it's like I say, I love interacting with the people, and if I can help anybody, life feels better to me. Oh,

that's amazing. Seriously, we love you. You are the best. And all you listeners, stay tuned to this program for more. Mary Beth about the only place you can find her. So thank you so much. Everybody. That's all for today. Hope you're doing amazing things in your garden. This is Mary Beth Sanchez and Jordan River signing off, saying, Be safe out there. Everybody see you next time on growcast, grow smarter, bye,

bye.

That's our show. Thank you so much for tuning in, everybody. I appreciate it. Of course, go to grow cast podcast.com get on the green list. It's free, and we're shooting out an email every week, really proud of the content that I've been putting out there. So be sure to hit it up. Everybody. Grow cast podcast.com, will also take you right to all of the seeds for grow cast seed CO, grab a pack. There's some vaulted packs up there right now. We got some big stuff coming for grow cast seed CO, so stay tuned to that dial. And then, of course, the membership. I appreciate you members so much. Grow cast podcast.com/membership, come and join the greatest community in cannabis cultivation. We would love to have you everybody, but I just appreciate you tuning into this show. Thank you so much. I hope you're doing incredible things in your garden. We'll see you on the next grow cast podcast. Be safe, everyone. Bye, bye. You

it can get confusing. I.