Fusarium passed to cuttings?

[Elmer Bud]

http://www.manicbotanix.com/sitemap/22-beneficial-microbes-in-hydroponics.html

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

Added a paragraph to post #16

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

Moses;

The description of your plant's problems may better fit a Pythium infection than Fusarium. There are a lot of different Pythiums and they tend to localize their effects to the root system.

 

[moses wellfleet]

You mean other than being visible inside the stem?... I am hoping the trichoderma will knock it out and I don't have to throw away my cuts!

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

Mostly from your description of root problems and signs of lock-out, but without the radical wilting of mature plants.

Once something has internally invaded the roots, I don't think any beneficials can remove the pathogens. If you want to get some clean cuts then you might try taking clones from the most vigorous terminal growth. If the plant does have internal infection, the newer most healthy distal growth might be pathogen free, and give you a clean cut.

 

[Bongstar420]

I've had that problem with cloning in every clone rig I ever ran. It always happens when the media temps are below 80f with a touch too much water. Also many rooting dips are too strong...Every clonex run I did was 100% fail for example with dipngro next in line at 100% success. Clonex success came with 1:3 dilution.

I am cloning at 78f with high Fusarium or similar in the system. I pulled 40% in one week and tossed the ones I didn't wanna wait for with 15% rot. The rot was more dependent on cultivar then the location of the stem....though the cultivars effected could be the ones that are infected as mothers but a fair amount were about to root with reasonably healthy callous formation.

We will see if root fungi can be "cured" as I am not going to clean my room much more than sweeping the floor. I'm gonna use fresh media though since my current stuff (2yr old recycle; cropped 10 times) is super loaded with several pathogens....I'm not sure I will throw it away though. I have some ideas to get it back into commission this fall.

I don't know how people are failing with just Fusarium. I'm pretty sure I have RA, Fusarium/root pathogens, unidentified virus(s), Cyclamen Mite, Dagger Nematodes, and pervasive Fungus Gnats....there was Powdery Mildew on a clone I bought, but PM is passe for me....there were a few thrips, but thats another thing I have difficulty imagining being tough to deal with. I have some kind of soil/root mite, but I don't think they do anything atm.

I never get sudden death without high PPM and high root moisture. I frequently have seen healthy veg plants pushin 2000ppm with PPE...with rot, they die at that level. I've saved plants with rot/high ppm, but its months to rebound if you can get past the rot.

I still pull average yields with top shelf quality. I seriously doubt I actually do more than anyone else does aside from my proprietary nutritional program.

I haven't had a successful grow in almost three years now. I have little doubt that it is fusarium, though I never took samples to be lab tested.

One of the first things to go was my cloning. For a number of years my home built spray cloners popped out happy rooted cuttings like clockwork. Then the root production started faltering and unrooted stems began succumbing to something that turned them to a soft brown mush. I'd lift the cloner lid, and while watching underneath give it a gentle shake. Afflicted stems would wriggle like soft noodles. Above the cloner lid, plants first showed distress by a yellow-browning and softening of the youngest leaflets. Some where in this time a few mature flowering plants showed the sudden symptoms of wilting bleached tops... and death.

The adult infections didn't increase for a long while but cloning became nearly impossible. I'd bleach cloners, and run them with bleach in the water. Tried earthworm castings in the water. Mycorrhiza (Great White) on the stems gave me some beautiful lush white roots a few times. Bubble cloners didn't go. Cleaned with Oxidate and Physan. A little success with individual cups of perlite, but it was not enough. The infection now decimated several crops near harvest. A brand new cloner got the last batch of rooted cuttings, from plants from seeds, but then no more.

I had gotten really meticulous with my sterile cloning technique, but still lost most all. Then I had a run of plants from seed and had been keeping a group of males in their beer cups on the veg table while their sisters were put into larger pots in another room. The root bound males were getting along, when I thought they might be showing a slight distress, a slight mottled interveinal chlorosis. But they seemed to be doing OK, and I shrugged it off. Then I took cuttings from everybody and into the cloner. A week later I lifted the lid and gave it a shake. All those male cuttings did the pale brown noodle shake. It was then I realized that infected plants were bringing the pathogen into the cloner. It didn't matter how sterile my razor blade was when the cutting's vascular tissue already contained the pathogen.

It makes total sense. A water borne root infecting fungus that enters the plant and travels up the vascular tissue. It's going to be in some of your cuttings. Maybe not all. Many articles mention fusarium sometimes only killing certain branches of a plant. Think of that old grade school demo of slitting a celery stem halfway and placing the two separated ends in glasses of different colored solution, giving you a bi-colored leafy celery top.

This disease doesn't fully manifest itself until after a plant is well into flowering. So it may not obviously manifest itself in a veg state mother. And you mention soil with beneficials. I was growing in coco coir in flood trays (perfect for infection) using Maxibloom salts.

My plants showed poor root development, but never showed the swelling or discoloration of the stem base described in many articles. The infected stems of cuttings became soft, brownish and mushy, but they weren't covered with a slime or anything. It was the plant tissue which was soft. I could test stems by rubbing them with the edge of a toothpick. With healthy stems the toothpick bounced along a firm green stem. When infected it was like a push-broom moving an inch of wet snow on a concrete slab.

The farm has a interesting fusarium thread, "Welcome to the Fungal,..."