Week 7 of flower and it took a nosedive

Hi everyone,

New poster here, been lurking for a long time though. I'm on my second grow, part of which is a herijuana jack in scrog. All had been going well through vegging and flower, but a week or so ago I noticed a little tiny tip yellowing when i went back and looked at the video I'd made ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnUNkgDhVtg ). For the next watering I fed just 6.5 ph'd water. I obsessively check my plants and every day it's getting worse. Yesterday I noticed distinct brown spots on the yellowed leaves and that some of my buds had started to "deflate". I checked the Jorge book, looked like phosphorus deficiency from lockout. Made sense since I'm in scrog and don't really overwater to flush regularly, though i do alternate feed and plain ph'd water when i water. I'm in a 7 gallon pot and flushed with 15 gallons of ph'd water yesterday (down to a runoff of 800PPM) and then gave a ph'd feeding of Fox Farm schedule Feeding for the week I'm in (Tiger Boom and Cha-Ching, both P and K rich). While I didn't expect immediate improvement, today things are worse. In particular, buds coming off the lower left two branches are really deflated and their surrounding leaves are entirely shriveled. Here are some pics, thanks for any advice. Again, i flushed it pretty well and gave a fresh feed from there yesterday. I have other plants being grown, but this was set to be a big yielder. She has some resin, but isn't fully developed. Could be harvested for some low grade i guess if it's too late and i should just take the decent buds now. Maybe i just need to plain water flush her again and just let her go on that? I really thought it was the K deficiency and it should be pretty available in the feeds I used according to the Jorge book. Because the worst of it is localized to lower branches, i did ensure that all of the branches are intact, nothing is broken beneath the scrog.. all good there.

Other info about my grow:
4x4 tent
600W
65F at night, 75-78F when lights on
45-50% humidity
FoxFarm feeding schedule with the powdered "enhancers"
My other plants all seem to be doing just fine using the same nutes in the same tent.
The problem just started a week ago.

The only other factor is that I got a couple clones from the dispensary the other day. one of them either burned or had something else wrong with it as it's leaves turned brown and brittle the day after i brought it home. It was never in the tent with this plant, but could I have spread a disease maybe that would have an effect like this? Thanks all, happy to provide any more info or answer any other questions, I really want to do all I can here.

Cuban Bee said:

FoxFarm feeding schedule with the powdered "enhancers"

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And CalMag with each feeding.

Dude no one can help you if you don't tell what medium your growing in. Also if in soil how often are you watering? Looks like over watering, do you have soggy soil? How ya roots look? Might be early signs of rot.

looks like over-watering to me....

Sucks when it happens...I have a qp of 7week widow sitting in freezer compliments of me not realizing one plant wasn't keeping up with the rest of the girls....

Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for responding! I'm growing in 70% FoxFarm Ocean Forrest 30% perlite. The seed for this plant was planted in November and vegged for 5-6 weeks, so I assume the OF has been leached of it's initial nutrient load.

Currently the soil looks wet since I just ran 15 gallons through it. I typically water twice a week and use a moisture meter to help guage the dampness given that I'm in scrog and lifting the pot to measure the weight is a challenge. Similarly i cannot take the plant out of it's pot to check the roots in the scrog.

Thought i'd go ahead and post a pic of the base of my plant and also the whole tent with the other plants. The other plants are all doing great! They are also not in scrog and get pulled out on to a watering table to be watered and drain. The problem plant in scrog sits in a tray that captures the small bit of runoff it gets and typically sucks that water back up within 10 minutes of watering. I'll definitely be holding off on watering anymore for now, but open to any other suggestions as well. I did overwater previous plants during veg/seedling and thought I'd learned from that mistake. Those plants did not show the spotting this one does, they yellowed up increasingly from the tips.

the prob seems to me like its too hots and plants got too dry

Can we get a clear closeup sans the yellow light of the damaged colas in question?

jd4083 said:

Can we get a clear closeup sans the yellow light of the damaged colas in question?

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Thanks jd4083, here we go. The first three are of colas that have seemed to wither altogether. The last one is one of the other colas that has spotting on the leaves but still seems to be maintaining bud integrity:

Slightly off-topic, but I would seriously look at either getting a water breaker or finding a softer one. That or dial back/change your pump. This is going to sound rude, because it is, but the top of the root ball looks like you're using a pressure washer.

I've never seen that... It kind of looks (from a distance) how a plant with botrytis looks... But the close ups don't look like it at all.. What r the temps n rh high n lows for the tent?

Mikell said:

Slightly off-topic, but I would seriously look at either getting a water breaker or finding a softer one. That or dial back/change your pump. This is going to sound rude, because it is, but the top of the root ball looks like you're using a pressure washer.

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Thanks. I'm hand watering with a 2G can that has a breaker on the end, but will see if I can find something lighter. Think I should add some fresh loose soil to the top?

mowood3479 said:

I've never seen that... It kind of looks (from a distance) how a plant with botrytis looks... But the close ups don't look like it at all.. What r the temps n rh high n lows for the tent?

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62F was the absolute low point with lights off and 78F with lights on.

Thanks!

Yup, my best guess is some form of fungus... Do the affected buds turn to mush when u squeeze them ?

What about rh? Lights on n lights off?

Cuban Bee said:

Thanks. I'm hand watering with a 2G can that has a breaker on the end, but will see if I can find something lighter. Think I should add some fresh loose soil to the top?

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Wierd, I've only seen that from over powered watering. Which doesn't really seem like the case if you're using a watering can. Perhaps it is though, either way I'd plug up a few holes with glue or the like. Anything to slow down the flow.

It's not a huge issue, just something I take note of and was trained away from.

mowood3479 said:

Yup, my best guess is some form of fungus... Do the affected buds turn to mush when u squeeze them ?

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Yes, the buds mush when I squeeze them on the impacted branches (first three pics above). The other branches' bud's are still firm (though the leaves on those branches have the spots from the pic above). RH is between 46-51 throughout the 24hr day. I run 6in vortex style fan at about 60% and have another fan oscillating among the tops.

I'm of a mind to just chop the bad branches at the main stem and see how the others progress at this point. At least then i will be able to tell if the "mushiness" spreads or just the leaf spotting. The mushy tops don't seem like they are going to recover.. but if anyone thinks otherwise, please tell me to save them! Maybe the "mush" and the "spots" are entirely unrelated badness. For what it's worth none of the other plants in the tent exhibit any of these problems in the slightest, so maybe something airborne is less likely? I dunno.

Mikell, thanks. I use fabric pots. I wonder if part of my problem might be being root bound in the 7 gal, it's a really solid root mass at the top of the pot.


Thanks everyone for their input.

Yes.. get that rot out of there. Sounds like botrytis to me. Keep close eye on everything else. Could definitely be poor pocket of airflow ..stagnant area.. If you examine them closer after you cut you should be able to tell better. Those roots don't look like anything is wrong with them to me, but who knows.


Go into your room right before lights on and take a RH reading. It might be a lot higher.

I hate to say this but I think your plant has a fusarium infection. Fusarium Wilt is bad news in a big way. The fungus invades the root tissue and grows up into the capillary tissues into the stems. This clogs the capillary tissues which leads to wilting. The fungal infection also produces toxins which kill the upper plant tissues. Consider any soil runoff from this plant to be highly infectious. TREAT THIS PLANT LIKE IT HAS EBOLA

This plant is a total loss. I recommend that you carefully place the whole thing in a trash bag, including the container and drain pan. Maybe fold the SCROG screen up with the plant and just fit the whole mess into the trash bag. Then double bag it. You'll be tempted to keep the unwilted bud, but there is a chance you could contract a fatal lung infection from smoking it. Your call. I'm still alive to write this.

It is typical for the infection to lurk with low level symptoms of nutrient lock out from the root infection. It blows up in late flower though when you most hate to lose the plant. Take this seriously. It has the potential to end your growing career. Your other plants don't look like they're as far along in flower. There might be time to inoculate them with fusarium antagonistic mycorrhiza or other beneficials such as in Rootshield, Actinovate, Mycostop, or other mixes. Place your order now if you want to help those other plants protect their roots from infection. I ordered my Rootshield from Johnny Seeds and they were quick. You'll want the inoculant for your next crop anyway so get something quick.

Consider the probe on your moisture meter to be contaminated. At the very least wipe it down with alcohol. People have sold their houses and moved to try and escape contamination with fusarium.

Stitch's Complete Guide to Sick Plants (look at post #10)
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=11688

Hampy's experience with fusarium
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=4221745#post4221745

My experiences with fusarium
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=299988

The farm has an informative thread on fusarium. Do a web search on "Welcome to the fungal"

Good luck


P.S. You say this plant started having trouble a week ago. When did you get the funky clone?

Crusader Rabbit, thank you so much. Looks like exactly what the problem is and i could see it going after this plant that's been topped and tied so much. The clone was from about 2 weeks ago and is long gone. I'm going to dump the plant and santitize both tents in the AM when the lights are back on. Will also look into the rootshield now.

Absolutely devastating to be honest, I just started growing in Sept and had really been trying to do it all right. ugh. really disappointing if it was the clone from my favorite dispensary, I'd grown everything else from seed.