This week was a big learning experience. I started adding a bit of bloom nutes to my feeding schedule and I forgot to check my ph before feeding. It caused my soil to go from a solid 6.5-6.8 down to a 3 or 4. My plant was NOT happy with that and luckily i was able to bring my ph level back up. I’m also having nutrient deficiencies as well due to being overcautious with burning. So that combination really messed with me. But i’m learning and I was able to fix the issue. Hopefully next week will be better.
Those crispy top leaves are from overfeeding the plants. Since you're using FFOF soil (which is extremely hot) you should be waiting until week 6 or possibly the start of week 7 to feed your autoflower ANY nutrients. FFOF soil has enough nutrients to "carry" plants into week 6 or 7. I've learned through trial and error the same mistake you made. And I did it multiple times. By the end of my auto grow, some of my girls were so fried from overfertilizing that there were basically zero fan leaves left on some of them. If you're growing photoperiod plants it's a different story. You don't have to worry anywhere near as much about overfeeding those.
I actually just started to do what I told you with my autos and not feed until week 6 or 7. I have a Fast Buds Strawberry Pie in FFOF soil thats on day 38 that I've given nothing but water, and there is not one sign of any kind of deficiency. I'll keep you posted with how she ends up
@JasonMichael420, thanks for the advice! However the dead leaves were due to a ph imbalance as well as a nitrogen deficiency. Once the ph was balanced and i fixed nutrient lockout, the leaves stopped dying. I just hadn’t trimmed all of them off.