Droopy, dead leaves, tips curling, leaves funny color

[JQP]

I'm at a loss here folks. My plants were doin SO good, now not. They all get treated the same, some are doing great, others not. When you only have 4 plants growing, and don't know what if any are females, it gets me worried!

You can check my grow from closet construction through today at http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=113433

Here's my very recent problem. My tallest plant (I think its a male anyways, but don't know yet), looks terrible. That's the one with the "-1" on the pic, and then the "-1a" is a shot of the bottom of the plant. "-4" looks bad too, but not quite, and compare that to "-2" which looks great.

I've was foliar feeding these, then stopped last week, preferring to just water as necessary. They are in a mix of soil that is 2 parts Ocean forest, one part Light Warrior and one part vermiculite. I've been watering them most recently with Grow big in a 50% dilute mix. It's almost like they're over-fertilized right? I watered them as necessary last night and this a.m. with plain 6.5 ph filtered water. It's about 75 in the closet and 65% rh. I'm feeding them CO2 as well (sugar, baking soda and yeast in a gallon of water - home brew CO2!).

Any ideas appreciated!

JQ

 

[reddy1]

i am no expert at this but i'll give it a shot. you really should fill out one of those detailed forms. there could be other causes that you are not mentioning. like what is your runoff pH? what kind of water do you use. etc.

photo 1 i can see burnt tips in a claw shape indicating they were overfed. ocean forest has plenty of nutrients already in it, back off your feeding to 1/4 strength grow big every other watering. they also look overwatered and wilted, you said you watered last night and this am. that's too often in soil. don't use vermiculite next time, you want the medium to dry out a lot between waterings, that's when it grows the most. stop spraying your plants unless you need to(pests, pm). photo 2 and 3 may indicate a calcium mag deficiency.

the homebrew co2 is a waste of time and money. your plants look pretty good though. you just need some minor ajustments. huge leafs, what's the strain? any preflowers yet? good luck man.

 

[MtnKuSh]

poor a ton of ph'd water in 1 pot water real good..and just a little water in another pot..if the 1 that was watered real good does better then its underwatered... i would not spray plants and wouldnt bother with the co2..or nutes.. just alot of pure water.. sumthing tells me they have alittle nute probs but nothing real bad seems to me underwatered

 

[JQP]

reddy1 - this is bag weed, best I could do for right now. Pretty sure the three in these pics are indica, and I have one sativa you can see over on that thread I included. The indica was pretty good stuff, the sativa was tremendous. Can't afford store-bought seed just yet. Short on cash.

When I said I watered them last night and this morning, I should have been more specific. I watered #4 last night, #1 and #2 this a.m. I let them dry out before watering, check by pot weight. Haven't needed to water in a week, so I don't think I'm over watering, but who knows? This is my first grow in decades.

I haven't checked run off ph, I'll try and do that. Problems started when I went to 50% ferts dilution, so that's what I'm guessing this is.

Calcium and mag deficiency eh? I'll have to read up on that.

Thanks for taking a look and offering some suggestions.

MtnKuSh, I'll give that a try after I let these babies dry out again. Usually I don't have to worry about water for 5 days or so. Hopefully they will pick back up. Jiminy Cricket, they're just weeds! Thanks for the good suggestion.

JQ

 

[reddy1]

guess i was wrong and didn't read that right. its hard for me to say but perhaps the underwatering was causing a build up of salts that caused a lockout. give them a flush of 2x the volume of the pot size. and then try again.

fox farm is good stuff, just really strong. less is more. if your on a budget for equipment look into a HM ppm meter, they are only $16 with free shipping on ebay. comes with calibration fluid. i read you use pH drops, that's good.

you really should fill this out to get expert advise. be detailed and honest.

SOIL:

How long has this problem been going on?
What STRAIN are you growing?
What was the establishing technique? (seed or clone?)
What is the age of your plants?
How long have they been in the soil mixture they are in now?
How Tall are the plants?
What PHASE (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in?
What Technique are you using? (SOG, SCROG etc)
What size pots are you using? (Include how many subjects to pot)
What substrate/medium are you using? What brand of soil mixture are you using?(percentage of perlite, vermiculite...etc?)
What Nutrient's are you using?
How much of each nutrient are you using with how much water? *Knowing the brand is very helpful*
How often are you feeding?
If flowering, when did you switch over to using Bloom nutrients?
What order are you mixing your nutrients? (example: veg nutes 1st, bloom 2nd ect)
What is the TDS/EC/PPM of your nutrients used?
What is the pH of the "RUN-OFF"?
What method of pH test was administered? Using Strips? pH pen?
How often are you watering?
When was your last feeding and how often are you feeding?
What size bulb are you using?
What is the distance to the canopy?
What is your RH Factor? (Relative Humidity)
What is the canopy temperature?
What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include fluctuation range)
What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.)
Tell us about your ventilation, intake exhaust and when its running and not running ?
Is the fan blowing directly at plants?
Is the grow substrate constantly wet or moist?
Is your water HARD or SOFT?
What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water?
Are you using water from a water softener?
Has plant been recently pruned, cloned or pinched?
Have any pest chemicals been used? If so what and when?
Are plant's infected with pest's?

 

[Hydro-Soil]

My plants were doin SO good, now not.
-snip-
I've was foliar feeding these, then stopped last week, preferring to just water as necessary.

And you're surprised? They're not getting the nutes they need and the really droopy one just looks a bit overwatered.


Either up the nutes when you feed them or go back to foilar feeding like you were before.

 

[JQP]

wow, great list of questions! Here's my replies:

How long has this problem been going on? Since I went to 50% dilution with Grow Big
What STRAIN are you growing? No clue. Bag weed
What was the establishing technique? (seed or clone?) Seed
What is the age of your plants? 43 days
How long have they been in the soil mixture they are in now? 23 days
How Tall are the plants? Tallest is 18”, shortest is 14”
What PHASE (seedling, vegetative or flower) are the plants in? Vegetative
What Technique are you using? (SOG, SCROG etc) Straight up
What size pots are you using? (Include how many subjects to pot) 1’ (30 cm) tall X 1’ (30 cm) wide
What substrate/medium are you using? What brand of soil mixture are you using?(percentage of perlite, vermiculite...etc?) 2 parts Ocean forest, 1 part Light Warrior, 1 part vermiculite
What Nutrient's are you using? Grow Big
How much of each nutrient are you using with how much water? *Knowing the brand is very helpful* Just went to 50% dilute, back to plain water after these problems popped up
How often are you feeding? When I water
If flowering, when did you switch over to using Bloom nutrients?
What order are you mixing your nutrients? (example: veg nutes 1st, bloom 2nd ect)
What is the TDS/EC/PPM of your nutrients used? ?
What is the pH of the "RUN-OFF"? 6.0 to 6.5
What method of pH test was administered? Using Strips? pH pen? Drops
How often are you watering? When the weight of the plant is light
When was your last feeding and how often are you feeding? 5 days ago – was doing it every watering
What size bulb are you using? One 150W HPS, one 175W MH
What is the distance to the canopy? 6” (15 cm) + or – (mostly plus)
What is your RH Factor? (Relative Humidity) 75-85
What is the canopy temperature? 75-80F (24-27C)
What is the Day/Night Temp? (Include fluctuation range) Gets to 65 during dark
What is the current Air Flow? (cfm etc.) Manually switched – bathroom exhaust fan. I turn it on when I’m home for 15 to 20 minutes.
Tell us about your ventilation, intake exhaust and when its running and not running ? Passive air intake at bottom of space (about 10 sf,/100 cuft, or 1 sm, /3 cm)
Is the fan blowing directly at plants? I have a small 4” fan manually switched that I turn on every day
Is the grow substrate constantly wet or moist? No
Is your water HARD or SOFT? In Between
What water are you using? Reverse Osmosis (RO)? Tap? Bottled? Well water? Distilled? Mineral Water? Filtered through a HERO system (expensive under sink kind of set-up, includes reverse osmosis)

Are you using water from a water softener? Yes, but filtered through the under sink system
Has plant been recently pruned, cloned or pinched? No
Have any pest chemicals been used? If so what and when? No
Are plant's infected with pest's? No


Lemme know what y'all think, and thanks!


JQ

 

[Hydro-Soil]

Your plants are suffering because you changed the amount of nutes they were getting. Right now they're starving.

Try going back to what you were doing last week first before making things more complicated. Your plants were getting a large amount of nutes and then you shut them off, of course they're having problems.

Going to pure water has only made the low nute situation even worse. The problem will continue to get worse until you get them the same level of nutes they had before.

 

[Kodiak]

Hi JQ, My advice would be to wait a few days or even a week before doing anything, the problem might solve itself as long as you do not water or feed them for some time. Wait and watch.

If the problems persists you might have to do something about it. My best guess here is overwatering. It causes several other problems as well, like ph fluctuation and nutrient lockout, which is probably why you are seeing discoloration on the lower leafs (resembles N-P-K deficiencies). I don't think that the brown wilted leafs in some of the pictures is a problem, it's normal that some leafs dry up and fall off as the plant relocates energy. I bet that the soil at the bottom of the pots is really wet and the leafs are drooping from lack of oxygen to the roots. The top soil might be dry but the soil in the bottom can still be wet. Check that the roots coming out of the pot are nice and white, if they have a dark color they are not doing well. I guess you could sample the soil in the bottom of the pot by cutting a small hole in the side of it. Feeding them more at this stage will probably make things worse and from what I can tell the color of the leafs tells us that most of them are infact quite well fed. You could flush the soil by showering the plants several times for a few minutes at the time. This way you can flush out the excess nutrients and salts and "reset" the soil. After that you could start feeding the plants again but you would have to allow the pots to dry out a bit before doing so.

If overwatering is the problem, there a quick and easy cure, and that is repotting the plants. This way you can replace the over-saturated soil with fresh soil and get the plants into larger pots while you are at it. If you repot the plants I'll bet that these problems will disappear within a week. No use fighting these disorders (which can take a long time) when they can be easily cured by replacing the soil. Either way repotting cannot hurt the plants in any way as long as you are careful not to break the tap root. Never lift the plant directly from the pot by grabbing the stem. When the plants are still small I remove the pot by grabbing the stem at soil level with one hand and turning the plant upside down, then I just remove the pot and carefully turn the plant upright again while supporting the roots with the other hand. Repotting larger plants is a bit of a challange but the easiest way is to tilt the plant on it's side and removing the pot while providing enough support for the stem and root roots so that they stay intact.

Do not water them too much directly after repotting, the plants like moist but not wet soil. Scratch at the roots a little bit while repotting, this will encourage the plant to grow more roots and fill up the new pots. Plant them a bit deeper than before, that way you will get new adventitious roots growing on the stem as well. You might have to veg them a bit longer than you planned so that the plants will have time to recover from this problem. This will also allow for the roots to grow a bit before flowering. More roots equals more mass equals more bud.

Just my

Here is a link to a guide on nutrient disorders . Have a look at it as it might help to identify the problem.

Good Luck

 

[JQP]

Boy, great info and a great reference Kodiak, thanks man!

After reading your analysis and then going to that link you posted at the bottom of your post, I feel much better. It's really that big old tall indica I'm mostly worried about, and I would bet $s to donuts it's a male, though I would be more than happy to be proven WRONG! All three indica have great secondary branch growth, all the way from the first nodes up to the top, and the two shorter ones look great. So I'm just gonna clone them sometime over the next few days, give it a week as you so sagely suggest, then go from there.

I was heavily into foliage feeding these babies with ferts in water, and I have a sneaking suspicion that is my problem. I'll mist them once in a while with filtered plain water, and that's it. I'm assuming the Ocean Forest/Light Warrior mix has plenty of food for these weeds just as it is.

Now if I go to 12/12, should I feed them [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]Big Bloom (0.01-0.3-0.7) or [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]Tiger Bloom (2-8-4)? Or just see what happens with plain water?

Man o man, this weed growing can get confusing for an old guy like me!

While I've got yer attention, the secondary shoot growth on my sativa is small, but I have at least two nodes with fan leaves and tips growing. They're just tiny! What do you think about taking them off as clones? I'll post a few pics here so you can see what I mean. First one of the "crop" then the 2nd and 3rd of the sativa.

Thanks!

JQ
[/FONT]

 

[Kodiak]

Sure JQ, no problem man. I try to help to the best of my ability.

I would keep them in veg a bit longer until you have fixed the problem.

The plants don't look that bad in the first picture but in the second and third there seems to be a lot of damage in the lower canopy. Keep an eye on them and try not to give them anything until the pots are completely dry, then give them water and nutes. Use a nutrient solution you know they can handle and give them a mix of veg and flowering nutes, that way you will cover all grounds.

Leave all the damaged growth on the plant for the time being as that will help to distribute the damage evenly, and hopefully the top of the plant will be spared.

Tiny branches are not good for cloning. You need at least two nodes above the cut for the clone to have a fair chance of surviving. Actually, the bigger the cutting is, the better.

Hopefully that was of some help.

 

[JQP]

Pics #2 and 3 are also right under my HPS bulb Kodiak, so are tinted yellow to begin with! I try and move them around equally, but forget for some reason which one was where yesterday...

That first pic is of all 4 plants. Other than the tall indica and my anemic sativa, the other two indica are doing great (ones on the right under the MH)! Nice and short and bushy, long shoots coming out, great bud material.

The shoots on that sativa do have two nodes above the fan leaves, they're just tiny. Bah!

I wonder how it would work to combine two lamps, one MH and one HPS in one hood? Have one lamp at one end the other one at the other end? I've been thinking about doing that with both MH or both HPS, but haven't done it just because the lights are always on when I'm up and about. What I really need is another mailbox or two to play with. I've been toying with the idea of making a bat wing out of two of them...

Gonna finish off my clone cabinet tonight I think. Got some threaded rod to run through the 2X4 framing that will get my 4' floro fixtures as high as possible.

Thanks again Kodiak!

JQ

 

[Phillthy]

You need better air circulation as well. 15-20 minutes of new air into the room is not enough.

 

[h^2 O]

i would NOT deprive them of water - instead I would flush the shit out of them. Because if it is an npk issue the salts would just get locked into the soil if you didn't water it. And then when you watered again it would release those salts that were locked up. and again and again. FLUSH. If it's not changing after flushing well and a few days re-pot in different medium. The strain may not be able to handle the specific medium you're using (while other plants can). There are also strains that have those droopy type of leaves, so.....

 

[reddy1]

Now if I go to 12/12, should I feed them [FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]Big Bloom (0.01-0.3-0.7) or [/FONT][FONT=Verdana,Arial,Helvetica]Tiger Bloom (2-8-4)? Or just see what happens with plain water?

JQ
[/FONT]

this comes from very skilled grower ograskal who is no longer on this site. his plants look amazing.

Its really VERY SIMPLE....I strictly use Foxfarm Oceanforest soil with approximately 30-35% more perlite added to the mix....Yes, I use fresh soil evertime...
For Veg, Foxfarm Growbig> 1 capful per gallon> every watering.....
For flower I use TigerBloom and BigBloom combo > 1 cap TB and 1.5 caps BB per gallon> almost every watering....
If the plants look like they need more, I simply add a little more GB during Veg or TB during flower....If they look like they need less, I feed less...For the last 2 weeks or so I give straight water....Thats all...Really simple..Nothing but Foxfarm Soil and Nutes....Been doing this for years now and my plants love it....~ogr