Fungal disinfection

[FeltchWyzard]

Hey magical wonderful people!

I've realized through CrusaderRabbit that I've definitely got something final going on.

Initially it comes on looking like whack pH problems (I now have like 6 probes including a trimeter and guardian). Leaves get yellow, small, deformed, dry tips. eventually they will turn pale and sometimes get pale purple splotching. Stems turn purple and hard then woody. Stalks get real unstable at the bottom by the roots. Roots are tan and easily breakable no bad smell though. Cloning is out of the question. Runoff is dark on the worst plants, amber like a nice beer but not significant ppm, pH rises maybe 0.5-1 from feed in.

Last night I cut down some bad adults and hacked into them to see into the stems and stalks and found some browning inside where the major stems had browning in the core surrounded by dry woody matter. The smaller stems were just dry and woody surrounded by green tight skin. The major stalks mostly had thick brown kinda fuzzy or finery innards (pics below)

Whatever this is either is airborne or comes over from surface over trays and into pots from there. Or possibly by leafs touching.

Does anyone know what kind of fungus this could be? How about some potent fungicides I could use to save the ones just starting to infect(heard of ridomil, is that good?)? Should I clean my room with fungicides? I had been cleaning with physan but now realize my sterile equipment could be reinfected since clearly what I am dealing with is very infectious.

I have been using beneficials like hydroguard,organism xl and ogbiowar but I think they are just slowing the growth. I need to bring out the big guns and fully sterilize and run a couple sterile grows maybe with zone then get back to bennies.

 

[FeltchWyzard]

More pics

 

[FeltchWyzard]

Even more. So this browning in the middle of the stalk had turned a lighter tan the next day. This middle core I believe is the xylem.

 

[spence360]

Toss it -Not worth it
fungal pathogens like fusarium and pythium are NASTY
STERILIZESTERILIZESTERILIZE

and then next time use tons of beneficials from the get go
I am going to oppose crusader rabbit on the trichoderma debate
I believe it is "worth the risk" due to its ability to help protect plants from root pathogens.
But Bacillus megaterium is supposedly helpful with inhibiting fusarium as well, and am just learning about other Bacteria & fungi that might also be helpful such as Sacchromyces cervisiae (brewers yeast) and bacillus mycoides

 

[_tessarecting]

Zone is where its at, I still use it every watering for hydro

 

[FeltchWyzard]

Thank you so much! I'll look into those bacilli and I have a brew supply down the street so that's good!

So here's what I've done since last post and then what I'm planning to do:

Cried. A lot.

Inoculated fresh og biowar brew (recipe on their website) of foliar and root and applied to foliar and soil
Two days later I added an actinovate solution
The next day I transplanted into coco mixed with ogbw powder 1/2 tsp per gallon, got about 50% perlite in the mix. I have ordered rootshield to use on these and future crops.
All trays and pots were cleaned with 34% h202 mixed 1:5 with water (wore nice thick elbow gloves)

What I'm gonna do is let them fill out their new pots for 2 weeks then empty the room, already killed off anything too young.
Since I never identified exactly what I've got I'll spray and scrub everything with some different forms of fungicides like copper and thiophanate, wait a few days and then blast physan followed by h202. Maybe erythromycin? Would that be effective if applied as a spray? I would definitely follow that shit with h202 to make damn sure it doesn't get into my plants. Whatever regimine would then be followed in flower room 2 months later once these plants graduate.

I think once I have done this and scrubbed the hallway between my rooms I'll be good but I'm shopping around for the best inoculant. So far trichoderma seems the best but does anyone know if any bacteria can be roommates? There's also another fungus called gliocladium that a product called prestop contains and they claim is more effective than trichoderma. There is just more scholarly information on trichoderma specifically with root crown fungus. Anyone have experience with any of the following:

Prestop
Botaniguard
Mycostop

Green cure
Spectracide immunox
Bonide infuse

Would eagle20 be good to use to spray down my equipment/room with(to then spray and clean with h202)? Also I put a picture of some leaf damage that to me is a give away that I'm dealing with root fungus though I am open to outside opinions. Then I also the in a current flower room photo to feel better about myself. As you can see the healthier ones turn out just fine once in flower, but it's very strain dependent(this one is Hindu kush)

 

[FeltchWyzard]

Zone is where its at, I still use it every watering for hydro

I like to run bennies if possible but maybe I'll do a zone plant to see if maybe my solution is a sterile grow

 

[spence360]

I personally steer clear of things like spectracide and eagle 20
Since taking a pest management class, synthetics like that really scare me.
Though I have used eagle 20 in the past I have determined that is is not worth it, and not really fully effective either.
Also, synthetics and beneficials don't work so well together
things like eagle 20 can severly harm your microbial population

I'd say use silica and neem
look up buildasoil and modern cannabist
http://themodern.farm/

and trash your old soil and pots completely
(use it in your yard for things resistant to fusarium)

and in my opinion a sterile grow is bad as well
if anything gets in, it will go crazy as it has no natural checks so to speak

 

[_tessarecting]

Elaborate on that last sentence please.

 

[Mikell]

Don't bother mate, he drank the Kool-Aid. After that they're impervious to reason.

Note how he isn't even aware of the medium the OP is growing in, overlooked in his haste to promote BAS and organic soil. Classic sign of Kool-Aid poisoning.

I can't see the logic behind using myclobutanil to clean a room, especially when you have Physan.

Saying that, I'd love to hear how myclobutanil becomes less effective after taking an afternoon lesson in IPM.

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

From looking at the photos in your other thread which showed plants with darkened wilting tops, I'm certain that you're dealing with fusarium. I thought that after reading the description of your cloning problems. The discoloration of the interior of your infected stalks is another indication that this is the correct diagnosis.

You're dealing with a fungus that produces countless microscopic reproductive particles (spores and others) which now coat many surfaces in your grow area. Initially the infection targets roots and moves upward through the tissues of the plant. Any hydroponic system or recirculating watering system is especially susceptible to this pathogen because the reproductive particulates are easily transported through the water to infect other root systems. I was using big cloners with sprayers in a water bath, and growing plants in coco using Maxibloom in flood and drain tubs. I don't know if there is a better way to raise this pathogen. It took me down hard.

Probably your best bet is to throw away all your equipment, move, and start over.

There was a study testing the effectiveness of different disinfecting agents on fusarium spores. including Physan. They found a water-chlorine bleach solution to be as effective as anything else. The effectiveness of chlorine does depend upon the pH of the solution, but I can't remember which it is.

But the reality is that your scene is hopelessly contaminated. Like everybody else I thought that I could run some bleach and Physan through my system and I'd be able to continue on with my same old methods. Wrong. What makes this so infuriating is that the infection doesn't really fully manifest itself until the plants are fully in flower close to finishing... then they just get sick and die. All that time and effort gone to waste. So tweak things a little bit and see if ya can waste another three or four months of time, effort, and electricity and maybe get a better result. The threads I read discussing this said such half measures won't cut it and they were right. I went several years thinking maybe this time I'd got it right and disinfected enough, but the plants always got sick in the end.

Finally I admitted that I was losing this war badly. Instead of tweaking my failed methods that I hoped to keep using, it became apparent that what I needed was a successful grow, whatever that took... and then afterwards I could tweak those successful methods if I wanted to experiment. And so I set up a small grow in a different room using twenty gallon tubs of organic soil mixed with wormy biologically active humus and a mix of beneficial mycorrhizae. Established oats and clover first as companion plants to get a thriving microbial mix colonizing the roots to out-compete any pathogens. Mushrooms were popping up everywhere. After that I introduced the cannabis plants. I even planted seeds directly in the soil to avoid contaminating exposed roots during a transplant. And I got my first truly successful infection free harvest in something like four years. Maybe five actually. And this next crop is on schedule for harvest too with no signs of infection.

So you can keep fucking around changing your methods by half measures and probably keep repeating failure. Or you can abandon your formerly successful methods that don't work anymore, and switch to something that has given others success in this exact same situation.

The way I was growing before worked like a charm. I had an automated cloning system, an automated hydro-coco system for veg tables, and an automated hydro-coco system for the perpetual flower room. For years this set-up cranked out a variety of beautiful plants like clockwork. I'd go back to it in an instant if I could. But I can't because those methods won't work for me anymore. Maybe eventually they would, but do I want to spend months working on another grow that is likely to end with an infectious failure? I think I'd rather work from the place of success that I now occupy.

 

[Thcvhunter]

The color if your xylem is a dead give away -- Fusarium (likely oxpysporum).
Its devastating in a sterile environment. Ive had it - reall bad. Never had it again since going probiotic in my garden. Shit, i can reuse soil after having broadmites with no problem.

Mmmmm, this Kool-Aid is so tasty. But I dont drink it for the tatse. I drink it because its Science and it works.

 

[Mikell]

Can't be what it's cracked up to be if you fail to make basic distinctions re: xylem and pith.

Crusader, knocking it out of the park as per usual, though I disagree with a point or two.

 

[FeltchWyzard]

I dunno if moving would help me much. I'm in a room within a room and in that room I lined all my walls with panda, which I can replace for about $100. My floor is a 17mil reinforced billboard vynil, a little more expensive but replaceable nonetheless. I'm going to try just disinfecting with bleach, physan, and h202 for a solid week then maybe doing a trichoderma, gliocladium, streptomyces triple punch on everything for a bit.

CrusaderRabbit, have you tried any of those agents? Found this wonderful article showing they are ok roommates and won't let fusarium ruin the party:

https://www.google.com/url?q=http:/...IVFQ3w&usg=AFQjCNF7421ew6ag-s6Jy8t_ElaBFTlNaw

I'm also trying to be optimistic, and if it were that impossible to get rid of, wouldn't it just follow me to my new place on my hair, clothes, vehicle, girlfriend, etc and eventually reestablish? I figure if I'm persistent enough, perhaps I can create more good spores than bad and make sure bennies will establish before fusy everytime.

And while I agree it seems like a sterile grow and one with specific bennies might be equally effective at controlling the issue I currently have, which is why I'm for sure going to put zone to work on a few plants, I don't like the idea of having no og biowar or met52 in my soil. Anyone else who has had root aphids will feel me on that. Thanks everyone, I'll update how things end up!

Also in that leaf shot is hard to see with the low resolution but there are black specks running up the veins. Stop me if I'm wrong but there isn't anything other than root infection that does that?

 

[the gnome]

Never had it again since going probiotic in my garden. Shit, i can reuse soil after having broadmites with no problem.

Mmmmm, this Kool-Aid is so tasty. But I dont drink it for the tatse. I drink it because its Science and it works.

speaking of the science
broadmites are not a soil borne pest

another koolade infected grower schooled hard

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

I used Actinovate in coco and soil, and RootShield in soil. There might have been one uninfected plant with the RootShield but it got culled with the rest. Tried the fungicide Ridomil Gold also to no avail.

The model I went with is building a diverse and stable biological soil community... I guess rizosphere is the word here... the biological community that interacts with roots. That's the point of starting with companion plants to get a root colony going. Diversity adds stability to biological systems with the increased interconnections between organisms. Actinovate and RootShield each use microbial predators which function to knock down an overpopulation of pathogens, but also take out the other microbes which you wanted for diversity and resilience in your little soil biological community. And the twenty gallon containers of soil provided volume to give more stability in temperature and moisture.

If you read the Mosaic Virus thread, there's several people who described some infectious agent following them from grow to grow. I think it was probably fusarium that haunted their lives. Yeah, it really is maddening when you start thinking about how you're spreading this stuff everywhere. Can really weird ya out. That's the point of using competing organisms. You know you can't eliminate every spore so just overwhelm them with beneficials. And you don't need to buy beneficials in a bottle. They're in any healthy mulch pile, but it doesn't hurt to add some endomicorhizzal fungi (Glomus sp.)

Mikell, if you think I got something wrong you should speak up.

 

[Mikell]

I don't feel like arguing (I should go check my temperature..).

I was tempted to dispute that growing in coir with soluble inevitably leads to uncontrollable pathogens, but now I see you were refering specifically to F&D.

And so saved myself the pleasure of chewing my shoe.

Thcvhunter, I'd never have considered you a Kool-Aid drinker, but if you want to wear that hat feel free.

Kool-Aid drinker, as defined by Websters, is someone who pops into a help thread from a grower using soluble nutrients, proclaiming BAS and organics are the only cure.

Not Kool-Aid=Organic.

Broad mites? Root aphids? pH off? Homeless people religiously emptying your ashtray?

Neem and silica them away! Mindlessly repeat slogans, no matter how irrelevant! Order everything from BAS and apply daily, ensuring you drown your plants in aloe from dawn to dusk.

While that may sometimes be true it's generally irrelevant and self serving. Few if any follow ups or actual help beyond regurgitating a few more slogans.

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

I was tempted to dispute that growing in coir with soluble inevitably leads to uncontrollable pathogens, but now I see you were refering specifically to F&D.

And so saved myself the pleasure of chewing my shoe.

It wasn't my intent to communicate that salts and coir, even if in only F&D will inevitably fail to infections. I don't think the pathogen had always been present in my grow scene. Not sure how it was introduced... maybe on purchased seeds? Or maybe it walked in my back door with me one day... and if I'd been more careful with cleanliness and separating outdoor from indoor, then I'd still be cranking out one gallon plants in coco every month.

If failure was inevitable then people would have stopped growing with salts and coco long ago. But they haven't because it works great. There's solid reasons people do it.

 

[Avinash.miles]

I don't feel like arguing (I should go check my temperature..).

I was tempted to dispute that growing in coir with soluble inevitably leads to uncontrollable pathogens, but now I see you were refering specifically to F&D.

And so saved myself the pleasure of chewing my shoe.

Thcvhunter, I'd never have considered you a Kool-Aid drinker, but if you want to wear that hat feel free.

Kool-Aid drinker, as defined by Websters, is someone who pops into a help thread from a grower using soluble nutrients, proclaiming BAS and organics are the only cure.

Not Kool-Aid=Organic.

Broad mites? Root aphids? pH off? Homeless people religiously emptying your ashtray?

Neem and silica them away! Mindlessly repeat slogans, no matter how irrelevant! Order everything from BAS and apply daily, ensuring you drown your plants in aloe from dawn to dusk.

While that may sometimes be true it's generally irrelevant and self serving. Few if any follow ups or actual help beyond regurgitating a few more slogans.

hell hath no fury like mikell's scorn for organic kool-aid drinkers and their BAS mantras

also: f&d; flood & drain?

 

[Mikell]

Yessum.

I'll never support mail order dirt and am routinely confused at the number of people that do.

"But dood, the cost of input is nothing compared to the amount of dank you can grow".

AN users say the same thing.

Am I arguing with myself?

Yes, yes you are.

Shut the fuck up, Ralph.