Elevator in the Forest

[ChaosCatalunya]

Hi EM,

Sorry to hear of your dead bits, I too have seen something very similar in my outdoor Coco (pots) plants... so strange and no idea what it is, some recover, some do not. No Soil plants have done it yet and my big THunk is recovering well, a ReCon did not....

Could your Grey Streak be a lucky Fox Poo ....with a dash or two of your traditional British Rain ?

 

[Elevator Man]

It hasn't rained for ten days though, so I'm still struggling to think what that might be. Aske a few friends who've grown outdoors and they've never had a plant just keel over 'for no reason' before - and it's never happened to me either, so it's a weird one. I'm keeping an eye on other local nature/wildlife forums/sites just in case something is afoot...

 

[Ulysses]

That is a bad case of Botrytis, my friend...

I'd hammer the whole crop- indoor and out- with some Greenscure or Bacillus Subtillis (sp?) before it spreads too far...

 

[Elevator Man]

Well that was puzzling me, as I couldn't see any actual fungus on the plant at all. The middle pics last week showed the plant just withering from the top down, but I was looking everywhere for fungus fluff, but couldn't find anything.

Unless the deer have Botrytis spores on their mouth, and chewing the stem has allowed it to get infected fully without developing the grey fuzz? Is that a possibility?

 

[Fingaz2]

Check the roots of dead plants my friend, they will tell you more than the top. I suspect there is something in the soil, leatherjackets or toxins, are the roots white or black? Have they been sprayed by someone? After checking pics again, there is no healthy growth of weeds or grasses anywhere, only bracken & brambles, that shit will grow anywhere. There is something wrong with that soil. A simple test for toxins is to take a bagfull home. Try to grow some Lentils in it. I dont think they will thrive. Sorry.

 

[Moldy Dreads]

The black suit on the leaves looks like a sort of fungus for sure..

The author suggests insects may be causing the fungus spread on some plants :

"Excreted honeydew collects on these Ixora leaves. A black fungus, called sooty mold, soon colonizes the carbohydrate rich honeydew. Photo by Doug Caldwell, UF/IFAS"

He suggests using insecticidal soaps to keep insects managed to prevent the fungus spread.

 

[h.h.]

So if I ran your IP number and searched Google Earth in your area...Not that I'll ever make it over there and I don't know if you have IP numbers or if anybody over there cares that much, but

 

[swampdank]

I didnt read you entire thread bro.But I had a few do that last year. F13. The funny thing was they were in pots, outside. But some made it fine. I blamed the humidity for letting the bot rot fester.

IDK. Strange shit.

 

[Elevator Man]

So if I ran your IP number and searched Google Earth in your area...Not that I'll ever make it over there and I don't know if you have IP numbers or if anybody over there cares that much, but

h.h. - But what? What point are you trying to make...?

 

[h.h.]

h.h. - But what? What point are you trying to make...?

No point really. Just old school paranoia. Your first thread made me want to Google England and play "where's Waldo" to see if I could spot your grow site. By the length of your thread it seems my concerns were uncalled for.

 

[esbe]

support fingaz idea, sorry for your loss elevator bro

 

[Elevator Man]

h.h. - please don't get paranoid on my account...

But Google Earth is the least of my worries really - it's hardly in 'wilderness', and could be discovered on foot daily by many peeps, but so far hasn't (I hope). Plus the size of my crop doesn't really warrant any cyber-cops monitoring me from a bunker!

Of course, Google do now have some very serious questions to answer on their role/remit, seeing as they've decided to start shopping grows they find in their source images - which makes them unofficial, commercially-oriented spies for hire, basically...

As for the dead plant, I'll dig it up next visit and see if anything else transpires (or expires!).

 

[h.h.]

I agonize over your troubles. We have it easy here. I used to work security for Lord Hanson and they cherished their gardens here. God forgive I pick an orange. They were all flown back to England. Too bad he wasn't a pothead.
I'd be looking at nutrients as well. With all the competition a stronger immune system might be in order.

 

[DoobieDuck]

Eman..so sad to stop by for a visit and hear of your problems..did you pull the girls and look at the roots? Moles in your area by any chance? Good luck my friend don't let it get you down..you'll recover..DD

 

[Elevator Man]

I haven't had chance to get out again yet - once a week is the most I can do at the moment, but I should make it in the next couple of days. There's no moles as far as I can tell - there are in the fields a mile or two away, but this is a steep, wooded hill covered in bracken, so it's not really rodent territory. The biggest threats to my grow, as far as I can tell, are the larger animals that roam through here, and people!

But I'm OK - there's still eight left, and they all look healthy so far, so no big depression yet. To be honest, that's not really my style - too busy to get depressed, generally...

 

[Ulysses]

If you do get out, take a spray bottle filled with milk.

My research has uncovered three ways to battle botrytis:

Greencure- potassium bicarbonate and a soap. Effective but washes off leaving the plant exposed to spores again. Baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and soap is somewhat less effective.

Serenade- commercial fungicide- expensive. Contains Bacillus Subtillus supposed to kill the spores.

Milk- supposedly the lactobacteria in the milk work to suppress the spores- I haven't tried this one yet... Unpasturized would be better???


I noticed a similar patch of 'fox yack' on my lawn. I threw lime on it and it's gone now but that was probably a matured spore patch...

Deer don't have the spores in their mouths, it's on their coats. As they lay in the moist grass, or in a mold infested field, they get covered and then spread the spores running through the bush. The spores are also present in the air naturally waiting for the right conditions to bloom...

I'm fighting it here too. I've lost several tomato plants to it this year. I'm worried the Floral Patch is infected and the spores are dormant waiting for a nice rain... The speed at which the plant succumbs is dependent on the concentration of the spore infection... Nasty stuff...

 

[Elevator Man]

I used Hydrogarden's Bud Rot Stop last year with reasonable results when it got rainy- I'm guessing that's similar to Greencure? It has friendly bacteria that eat out the Botrytis. Stinks rotten though...

Thanks for the info on the deer/spores - that makes sense now, and especially as they do sleep in my area, definitely - the flattened circles of bracken are a dead giveaway.

 

[Elevator Man]

It's finally raining - the first in 15 days. Whoever said the UK was rainy?

That saves me a job, though I might still hit them with some more nutes when I visit in a day or two. I'll also dig up the dead plant and see if the roots hold any clues - will update as soon as I've been.

 

[Elevator Man]

Another visit...

Another visit...

Well, it turns out that the rain we had yesterday was very localised, and a friend who lives nearer the plants than me said that it barely dropped at all out there, so I decided to pay another visit today - and well worth it, as it turned out gorgeous again.

So firstly, for the forensically-minded, I dug up the rootball of the dead MoFlo to see if anything was amiss. And not really, to be honest - all the roots were still white, the earth was slightly damp, and there was no sour smell to speak of at all - just a fresh humus smell. So I'm still puzzled, frankly.



But the really good news (and I can't quite believe it), is that the Highland Oaxacan Gold is not only flowering, but according to my calculations, triggered around the 6th-10th September - at 53°N! Which means an end of November finish date. That might sound late, but it should be more resistant to damp conditions than the more indica specimens, and my spot is very sheltered from cold North-East wind and rain due to the steep slope (and most plants are behind trees, and facing South-West).

So I'm really, really pleased to see actual buds on this - and slightly purple too - who woulda thunk it?



The other fast MoFlo is still going strong, and still refusing to branch much, so it looks like an almost single-cola plant, but I don't mind really - finish time is more important on this one:



The Flo #4 is also picking up speed now, and developing some proper clusters:



The Blue Satellite #2 is still worrying me, as I just can't see this one dealing with heavy rain at all - all the leaves are upward-facing, the buds are going to jam into one solid mass, and I think mould will develop easily. That said, it's strong and healthy, so just got to wait and see what happens, I guess. But there' a rich irony here that the most indica plants are later and slower to trigger than the pure sativa, which I touched on in another outdoor thread here:



The Blue Satellite #3 should fare better, and is getting some buds at last - both these phenos finish quick (8 weeks indoors), so they should finish in time - just got to pray for dry conditions the last few weeks:



The indica Blueberry #1 is definitely not going to grow any taller, making it the shortest plant out there, but it's budding nicely, so might get close to an ounce if I'm lucky:



The sativa Blueberry #2 is looking nice now, and although not tall, is quite bushy, and developing buds more evenly than it does indoors, so again, I'm hopeful of a small but tasty harvest off this one:



And last up,the Kentish Creme, which is already dropping some shade leaves in preparation. It's adopting its usual posture of only branching at the top, so I'll get a vase of buds, but already the trademark heavy resin coverage is appearing:



The other two plants that were heavily eaten - Flo #3 and MoFlo 1B_1 - are too chomped to produce anything sadly, though they're still alive - but I'm being harsh enough not to feed them any more - it's a tough world out there!

But all the others got another good dose of mixed veg/flower nutes, Cannazym and Rhizotonic, and a good dollop more of bat guano. I'll try and leave them a couple of weeks before the next trip, when I'll probably give a few one last feed before harvest - others are probably going to need some help for a few weeks yet - especially the Mexican...

 

[coxswain]

Pushing boundaries there. At 53 deg! Trully amazing! Thanks for sharing. We'll have a very nice reference.