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Plant leaves feeling dry/paper like

Rtaym22224

Active member
Been having this issue since I set up my grow room. I’m doing 24/0 right now previously 18/6 had dry leaves equally in both scenarios.

I keep an oscillating fan keeping a decent breeze on the plants all the time, temps are regularly 73-76.5 degrees RH always at about 68%. Plants not receiving full light intensity yet since I switched to 24/0.

New growth appears to have deep “ridges” which tells me environmental stress? Advice please? Should I start foliar spraying wirh ph corrected water?

Too much airflow in my tent? Should I slow down my intake fan?

Not using my exhaust fan at the moment.

Co2 990-1480 24/7

I keep a portable ac blasting near my intake to keep temps in those ranges. I think this hurts my humidity. Am I making a mistake using a portable ac anywhere around my grow area?

Best I can do for the next few days until I get my exhaust fan routed out the window to remove heat. My lights produce a lot of heat for LEDs.
 
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Rtaym22224

Active member
Another photo of the ridges I mean. The new foliage also appears too dark to me
 

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GoatCheese

Active member
Veteran
Led lights are dehydrating the plant tissue cause they're either too close to the plants or you use too much power. The ambient RH% of your tent maybe spot on but leds create hotspots that will dehydrate the plant tissue when the photon beams warm it up.

Fan blowing directly on the plant will make things worse.

So the first thing to try is directing the fan somewhere else so that it will keep circulating air in the tent/room but so that it won’t blow directly on the plants. If this doesn’t help – and it will take a day or two for the plant tissue starting to feel softer again – next thing you need to do is turn the power of the leds down abit or raise the light higher.
 

GoatCheese

Active member
Veteran
Yes, your temps are too low which is worsening the dehydration issue. Try to get the temps to atleast around 28 C or around 83 F during lights on
 
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Ca++

Well-known member
How do the roots look?

Need to know a bit more about this soil, and how it's been fed.
 

Rtaym22224

Active member
Yes, your temps are too low which is worsening the dehydration issue. Try to get the temps to atleast around 28 C or around 83 F during lights on
To do this and maintain vpd i would need RH at like 75% I can’t do this even with a $500 evaporative humidifier. I have a second one on its way however, both to run during lights on with a good dehumidifier on a controller to keep it under control.
 

Rtaym22224

Active member
Led lights are dehydrating the plant tissue cause they're either too close to the plants or you use too much power. The ambient RH% of your tent maybe spot on but leds create hotspots that will dehydrate the plant tissue when the photon beams warm it up.

Fan blowing directly on the plant will make things worse.

So the first thing to try is directing the fan somewhere else so that it will keep circulating air in the tent/room but so that it won’t blow directly on the plants. If this doesn’t help – and it will take a day or two for the plant tissue starting to feel softer again – next thing you need to do is turn the power of the leds down abit or raise the light higher.
I will take the strong breeze from my oscillating fan off my plants immediately. Lowered power on my lights 18%.

Can’t go back to 18/6 for reasons I can’t or don’t need to go in here it’s 24/0 now or nothing at all.
 

Rtaym22224

Active member
Also there is advanced chlorosis on those leaves. Are you measuring the waters pH?
Ph corrected water every time. Foliar sprayed combjnanation MAP Epsom grow big two times on plants that didn’t need it

I will measure Ph of runoff next watering.
My ec is in check I’m not over feeding. Maybe I shouldn’t have sprayed.

How do I fix a chlorosis issue?

The roots were healthy white when these went from 4”x4”x3.5” cubes and went into 1 gal grow bags. I have not inspected roots since as I do not at all want to disturb them or expose them to light. I believe I have jealrhy root systems because the stems are quickly getting much thicker and the new growth is rapid. Running co2 24:7 lights on my plants are craving nutes and water right now like crazy and they tolerate every watering well (and I’m still perfecting watering methods)
 

Rtaym22224

Active member
How do the roots look?

Need to know a bit more about this soil, and how it's been fed.
Fox farm ocean forest added 20% perlite lava rocks at base of all plant grow bags. Mixed in earthworm castings a tiny amount of guano as well.
Clones went from cubes into 1 gal bags. I believe they’re rooting well and strongly, quickly. They are thirsty and hungry.

Using fox farm nutes. Mainly feeding with soil “amendments” rather than nutes. I give a very small amount of fox farm grow big per watering as I don’t believe they need it.

Using sledgehammer, bembe, boomerang kangeroots microbe grow big

Also recently added 1.5” compost/mychorrizhae to topsoil of all plants they seem to love it.

Should I try feeding these plants iron? Will check runoff ec and Ph asap at next watering
 

revegeta666

Not ICMag Donor
Ph corrected water every time. Foliar sprayed combjnanation MAP Epsom grow big two times on plants that didn’t need it

I will measure Ph of runoff next watering.
My ec is in check I’m not over feeding. Maybe I shouldn’t have sprayed.

How do I fix a chlorosis issue?

The roots were healthy white when these went from 4”x4”x3.5” cubes and went into 1 gal grow bags. I have not inspected roots since as I do not at all want to disturb them or expose them to light. I believe I have jealrhy root systems because the stems are quickly getting much thicker and the new growth is rapid. Running co2 24:7 lights on my plants are craving nutes and water right now like crazy and they tolerate every watering well (and I’m still perfecting watering methods)
Chlorosis should be fixed adding more magnesium. But reading your last posts, seeing you measure both pH and EC, I would say overwatering issues. Overwatering can cause the roots to start rotting and stop assimilating nutrients. Both watering too much quantity and too frequently. Do you think that's a possibility?

In any case it looks like some kind of root issue if I had to bet money on it.
 

Rtaym22224

Active member
Chlorosis should be fixed adding more magnesium. But reading your last posts, seeing you measure both pH and EC, I would say overwatering issues. Overwatering can cause the roots to start rotting and stop assimilating nutrients. Both watering too much quantity and too frequently. Do you think that's a possibility?

In any case it looks like some kind of root issue if I had to bet money on it.
Early on trying indoor soil again after way too many years I was overwatering. Replaced a bunch of plants as I was trying to perfect my environment.

I would say If anything these plants went 1 full day to 1.5 days too long without a watering this time around.
 

FletchF.Fletch

Well-known member
420club
Misting with plain water will help combat stress from light intensity.

Also, Fox Farm is considered generally to be Hot. You're thinning it with Perlite, but then adding extra soil amendments. This makes it even richer than straight Fox Farm. Problem compounds when fertilizer is added before the Plants have had a chance to digest much of what was already mixed into the soil.

Mist with plain water to increase humidity and reduce stress. Allow your Plants to use the nutrients in the soil before beginning regular feedings (even at low concentrations) or it will worsen. Keep threads for problems in the same grow as a single Thread so anyone trying to help gets the full picture.

Good Luck.
 

GoatCheese

Active member
Veteran
You can use 24h lights ON and your plants will start to recover once you get your set up corrected and dialed in. 18/6 would give them more time out of the heat radiation produced by leds but your plants will improve even in 24h cycle when you get your setup dialed in better.

It’s sensitive stuff to get leds working thru out the year and the different seasons, esp. if your seasons are largely colder and too dry for cannabis growing, like up here in the North

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What is you hanging height above canopy with your leds atm? What kind of led lights are you using, again?


Sometimes it’s better to hang the leds higher and use more power, than turning the power down and hanging the leds lower
..esp. if you have to get the temps up cause using more power would generate more heat into the tent.

I think, with leds/cobs it’s largely about the right balance with power and hanging height in your particular environment/growing style/set up/grow light or led chip output.

So it’s good to try many different height vs. power setups. = I have to turn the power down 15-20% during winters over here just cause the air is so dry and i can’t raise my cobs any higher. So it’s not an easy thing to get right all the time but an important one to get as good as you can.

I think plants need a good amount of distance to the lights, more than many of the grow light manufactures recommend for their lights.

Even with just growing in soil vs. coco/hydro you need more distance to the leds with the soil plant, cause soil plants dehydrate easier under leds in the same environment. Hydro-style plants have much more moisture in their tissue and so can take the heat radiation abit better. = you can use more power with hydro/coco grown plants. But the grow light companies rarely mention this if ever.

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Never used one myself, but an AC near a intake fan could be contributing to the dehydration problem, i’d think. Now your intake is blowing cooler dry air into the tent + which is then getting circulated/blown by the fan inside the tent making it even cooler

..and when this cool air then hits a plant, it will make the dehydration issue even worse.

I have my circulating fan pointed at my cobs not at my plants, and the plants are getting the blow that’s bouncing off the tent walls.


I don’t know your tent size but even for a tent with just 100cm x 100cm footprint i would rather have two smaller circulating fans in the tent than one larger fan/blower.

I just changed a 20cm wide circulating fan for a 15cm fan in my bloom tent and saw a noticeable improvement cause the plants wont get blown at so much anymore, The leaves look and feel better hydrated now with the same cob hanging height and power settings. So air movement is a delicate thing to get right with leds

So think about what could be the best circulating fan set up for your situation and how the air bounces off the walls etc. They are relatively cheap mod, few smaller clip on fans vs. one big one, but they can have a big improvement on the situation.

It’s sensitive stuff and annoying as hell when you don’t have it just right.


Cannabis in general doesn’t like dry cool air blowing on it, it seems – it’s a big problem for me up here most of the year – some genetics are super sensitive to it and it can stun their growth quite dramatically. I had a X18 pakistani and one Afghan Kush that practically stopped growing for weeks – in veg and bloom both – till the enviro conditions improved in my cab and tent to their liking.

Some skunk1 hybrids are also very sensitive to dry and windy environment and led lights. Then i have an oily CBD Critical Kush hybrid that can take leds fairly well and won’t get dehydrated that easily compared to many others.

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Have you tried making your intake passive and using the exhaust to move in the fresh air? Maybe the AC cooled air would be mellower for your plants when it wouldn’t be blown into the tent but rather sucked in by the exhaust.

I think this is worth experimenting with. I’m sure it will work better one way or the other.
 

Creeperpark

Well-known member
Mentor
Veteran
Full steam ahead just keep going and she will pull out of it. Nothing really wrong with the plant above. She's just a high ridged leave plant due to the strain. Four days later she's probably already better. 😎
 

HempKat

Just A Simple Old Dirt Farmer
Veteran
I have my circulating fan pointed at my cobs not at my plants, and the plants are getting the blow that’s bouncing off the tent walls.

This seems like the best bit of advice given the situation you've described and the way the pics look to me. I see on lower leaves what appears to be light stress which would suggest you had the lights too close or set too strong previously but have managed to correct it other wise it would be on the top leaves as well which says to me the light stressed leaves were the top leaves or at least closer to the top when it happened (the bleached out area lower and on the left side in the pic). Since there is still some form of stress going on it may still be worthwhile to reduce the power on the lights a little more even if you managed to stop the light bleaching. The RH might not be at optimal levels but it doesn't sound so low that it should be causing widespread problems like it appears in the pic. Plus if you redirect the fans so they're not affecting your plants so directly it might even improve. In an indoor grow air movement created by a fan is important but people often make it too strong and point it directly at the plants. In my experience I've never grown with LEDs yet but it's always been better to have the fan blowing more towards the heat source (the light) but at an angle that allows the air movement created by the fans to bounce off the walls and affect the plants indirectly. Plants don't need a lot of movement from air circulation to positively effect their growth. It just needs enough that the leaves slightly dance or flutter in the breeze. So my advice would be to adjust the position of the fan (even if it oscillates) if the fan is at any point blowing directly on the plants and maybe nudge the power on the light slightly lower or raise the light slightly higher. Then give it a few days to see what impact these changes have on the plant. Since you're running the lights 24/7 and can't change that due to circumstances I would say don't mist the plants. In general I advise against misting plants in an indoor grow and most especially during lights on. If you do mist plants, IMHO it's best to do so just before lights out allowing the moisture to evaporate and/or be absorbed by the plant when it's dark so that any moisture on the leaves is gone when the lights come back on. little beads/droplets sitting on leaves under a bright light can begin to act like tiny magnifying glasses and that would tend to undo any benefit achieved by reducing the light's power or moving it further away. I know in nature plants get rained on but in nature plants generally have an opportunity to dry off before the sun comes back out at full strength. In an indoor environment it's not necessarily advisable to completely mimic nature because other factors imitating nature are kind of idealized. Misting plants is okay once in a while at the right time as kind of a treat but if you do it too often the plants come to expect it (get addicted to it) this isn't so much of a factor in the veg stage but misting plants can lead to big problems in the flowering stage so it's best to just not let the plants have any chance to get used to it at all. Kind of like giving sugar to a baby, it's okay once in a blue moon as a treat but you don't want it to become a habit so it's best not to do it at all.
 

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