Sick plant here, what is your diagnosis?

[Derorli Panza]

Hail,

I am on my first grow here.

I have 4 plants growing currently , CInderella99xBlueberry from .JoeyWeed/Hemp Depot. They are just over 3 months and 1 week of total life from seedling.

As of right now all 4 plants grow together in the same closet with a 400 watt lamp about 3 feet higher than the plant tops due to heat concern. I personally could lower the lamp pretty close, and hold my hand there with no problem for a long time, however my digital thermometer starts reading in the 85-87 range, and some of my leaves develop what appears to be burns that crack easily like dead leaves.

Also, being that I think I am getting pretty close to flowering, given it has been over 3 months now, there is a surprising lack of smell. Fenting into the bedroom, a person standing in the room with their eyes shut would not be able to smell the plant. Is this a sign that something is wrong?.

Thank you awesome guys for your help. I love it here.

Pics are included below.


How long has this problem been going on? two weeks
What STRAIN are you growing? Cinderella99xBlueberry from JoeyWeed
What was the establishing technique? seed
What is the age of your plants? approx. 97 days of life
How Tall are the plants? between 3-3.5 feet
What PHASE are the plants in? veg.
What Technique are you using? (SOG, SCROG etc) I am giving them all the space they want.
What size pots are you using? 1plant to each pot, 3 gallon pots.
What substrate/medium are you using? What brand of soil mixture are you using? MIracle Grow Seed Starter mixed with vermiculite.
What Nutrient's are you using? Miracle Grow 20:20:20 N:K (contains trace amounts of micro nuts)
What is the pH of the "RUN-OFF"? Approx. 7
What method of pH test was administered? electronic ph meter
How often are you watering? every 3rd day
When was your last feeding and how often are you feeding? 2 days before pic below
What size bulb are you using? 1 400watt
What is the distance to the canopy? 3-4 feet
What is your RH Factor? (Relative Humidity) 40%at night/ 40% daytime
What is the canopy temperature? approx 81 day/ low of 79 at night.
What is the Day/Night Temp? approx 81 day/ low of 79 at night.
What is the current Air Flow? 100cfm approx
Is the fan blowing directly at plants? no, trying to create a stream of air above canopy to move the hot air away.
Is the grow substrate constantly wet or moist? no
Is your water HARD or SOFT? soft
What water are you using? tap
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

These 3 pics are of the same plant.

 

[MickTheBrag]

its heatstress keep a fan blowing across the tops of the plants close to the light. just like a natural breeze in outdoors. and get as much ventallation in to your grow space as you can. otherwise no major problems.

 

[Hazeseeker]

Yeah i'd go with heat stress, i've been keeping my light 6 inches higher than i would in the winter due to this heat, looks a little hungry as well and possibly a touch of LSF, have you checked the roots incase it's rootbound?

Peace
Hazeseeker

 

[CannaZine]

Hi there;

I think you may have a couple of different issues going on.

First I think the plant looks a little hungry. Seed mixes are notoriously light in enrichment, and don't feed the plants for very long.

All of the smaller leaves which get good light, are darker than the larger older leaves. The plant moves nitrogen from the older leaves in times of shortage, to fuel new growth. So the older leaves go yellow while the new growth is nice and green.

With the yellow leaves withering and drying it looks like P and K is short as well as N. I would say a well-balanced NPK feed or two would make a world of difference, rather than just a high nitrogen feed.

Secondly, the bottom of the plant isn't getting enough light, which is causing your leaves to drop.

3 feet tall, with the light 3-4 feet above means there's no usable light at all just beneath the main canopy.

Hope this helps.

Good luck

red dragon

 

[66buds]

What is the age of your plants? approx. 97 days of life

What PHASE are the plants in? veg.

was the 97 days a typo?

 

[knna]

I think you need more exhausting, i think you are growing with very low CO2 concentration, and it seems as a heat problem, when your temps/humidity are right (well, a higher humidity would be better, specially during vegging, and it will help with this issue).

But i believe you soil has a ph out of range, or you waterings. So many nutes problems are mostly due to root damage or very bad ph. I believe its the latter. Aditionaly, or caused by it, your plants are hungry.

 

[SCF]

they need nitrogen now! but dont over do it as they are starving...... nice 2/3rd of a dose is good. But quick, shes dying..... looks like some potash too. full fledged nutrients is in order... but first check the PH.... and keep the soil moister than that dry pot you have posted in the picture... She can use more moister now in her older age....

c99 is a hungry woman!

 

[Derorli Panza]

Thank you very much for all your informative replies and assistance. I am a newbie and this is my first grow.

66Buds -- As of the post, the plants have been living for 97 days( aka 3 months and 1 week) from the moment the first 2 baby leaves appeared on a stem sticking out of the soil/seed. To my knowledge I am waiting on evidence of sex before switching to a 12/12 light cycle. Speaking of this, the producer of the seeds, Joey Weed, says on the hemp depot website that this variety of C99xBluberry "should finish in 8 weeks or less". Am I missing something here, as I am going on 3 months now and have not seen pod development yet?

Here is the situation. I have a 10x10 bedroom, with a closet in dimensions of 5 feet wide, 8 feet high, and 2.5 feet in depth. The house has a central A/C unit running nearly 22-24 hours every day, where the temperatures in the house reach 70-72 degrees without a problem. I have a ceiling fan in the room itself going at high speed and a smaller fan running at the plants, (the closet has the doors taken off, so i am not intentionally holding heat into a small closet)

I have a 400watt hortilux bulb using a 400watt lumatek system I purchased brand new, and a reflector. I use a pretty high speed 6 inch fan blowing constantly (I have tried different positions, 1. blowing over the tops horizontal, 2. positioning the fan immediately below the bulb, on the ground, and blowing air vertically straight towards the bulb, 3. positioning the fan on the ground to blow into the closet)

I have been able to get the bulb and reflector to within 6 inches of the canopy, place my hand on the canopy for 1 minute, and not feel any discomfort. With the fan blowing I can touch any part of the reflector and not burn myself. A digital thermometer will however read the canopy at 82-85 degrees, and then my plants look like crap.

So I have tried raise the reflector and bulb high enough up so that the plant s will not do as bad, yet I am failing. I want to have a green thumb.. The pride from successfully growing these plants from seed to harvest might be more satisfying than any buds I am able to collect.

As for nutrients, on a past "help me" post, people viewed the pictures and indicated I had an over abundance of nitrogen... so I got scared and stopped giving so much nuts.

I have only ever used, NPK 20:20:20 with some minor micro nuts from MiracleGrow. It comes in a blue crystal powder, and the directions say you should use one scoop per 2 quarts of water, and I was doing that in about 1 quart of water (scared to over water plants), about once every 2 weeks.

I have not checked the roots. (Don't really know how or what I would be looking for, but guess I need to research this site a bit more on this topic.)

Lack of CO2, probably so. I have not been spending much time in that room to supply my own breathe, and have not been opening a window either. That is my bad. I would be more than happy to sleep in the room if I could block out the 400watt light at night, without raising the temps if I put a sheet up to act as a partial door.
I have to keep the bedroom door shut and locked for security reasons. People who share my home do not have knowledge of my indoor gardening.

So I gather my biggest problem is heat issue. I am currently runing at tempts of around 82 in the day, 76 at night, with the 400 watt bulb at approx. 3 feet away from the canopy. I need to figure out how to lower my temp 7 degrees or more during the day, and ideally lower my bulb down closer to the canopy. I already have 2 fans blowing in the room, which is being supplied by the central A/C unit.
I am at a loss as to what I could do besides trading my 400watt lumatek for 400watt equivalent of CFLs. It would be a shame to waste a brand new expensive 400watt lumatek unit due to heat.
I do not really have the luxury of getting a window unit at this time. Remember, if the 400watt was not producing heat, the room temperature would be perfect at 70-75 degrees.

Any additional advice as to how I may better solve my heat issue?
1. I have 2 fans blowing circulating air, one being a ceiling fan, and 1 being the mobile fan which will be positioned to blow horizontally over the canopy.
2. central a/c that keeps the entire house to within 69-75 degrees at all times.
3. grow closet is completely open to a bedroom for air to circulate.
4. I do have a 162cfm whisperline inline fan deal siting on a shelf inside the closet, but I have not put it to use. (Do I really need to install it up in the attic and have it suck air from the ceiling of the closet? I was hoping putting a hole could be avoided.)

Thank you again for your assistance. Sorry for the long post however I wish to be clear. No plants should be allowed to suffer! Please do not call the P.E.T.C... the people for the ethical treatment of cannabis! I am ashamed that I am not yet as good a farmer as I would like to be. So help me!

 

[knna]

I think you should flower those plants and get what they can produce, wich is going to be little probably, and concentrate on a new batch, trying to fix what lead your plants to the actual situation.

Things you must fix:

-Air renovation or suplementary CO2. Plants needs mainly water, light and CO2. The latter is very often forgotten by new growers. Without CO2, plants cant photosynthetize. You need to renove the air of the room or if you want it to be sealed, to add CO2. Its a must, you wont never get a decent yield growing on low CO2 air. Plants consume lots of CO2, a new room may be depleted of CO2 in less than 2h, and under decent CO2 figures way before that. CO2 lack is very often confused with heat stress.

-Dont give 3 months of veg. Its for tree style growing, and it cant be done with a 400w on horizontal position. One month and a half is more than enough. With health plants, that is often still too much, due the preflowering stretching. A 400w dont have enough penetration to flower more than 3' plants, so there is no sense on vegging so long.

-As you have an AC system, you dont need to place your lamp 3-4' over plants. 1'1/2, two as max. Depending on footprint, you may place it still closer.

-Let night temp to drop more. Your differnce between day/night temperatures is very low, just 2F. On veg, try to have a difference of at least 5F, and about 10F is advisable. During the transitional period to flowering, a low difference limit stretching and its used widely, but on any other stage you want larger differences, or plant's metabolism is affected. Especially on late flower you will want a larger difference.

-Add nutes more often.

-Think that overwatering isnt a issue about watering with too much water, but watering too often.

I still think your soil may have a high ph. Check it, and add more organic matter in order to low it if its high. To check it, take some soil from your plants, mix it with 2 parts of distilled water, shake, let stand for at least one hour, filter it and measure the ph of the water.

You didnt stated the ph you use when watering, just the run off ph. If its lower than the run off, it means that soil ph is high. Up to 7 is manegeable, but if its higher, you need to correct it. Ph often isnt critical when growing in soil, but if your soil mix isnt adecuatelly mixed, it may be a problem. Maybe im wrong and your ph is right, and all the signs are due to low CO2 and old plants, but check it, Once you know it, and know how to adjust it, you wont need in the future to measure ph, but when you start is very useful and a deta needed to diagnostique.

Good growing

 

[accessndx]

It's funny: there's evidence of PAST over nutrification.....and recent nutrient deprivation. As one of my esteemed colleagues posted above.....they look like they're starving.
Couple of pointers: 1)to check the roots.....look at the bottom of the pot....see if root tips are coming out...if they are....it's probably getting "root-bound" and would need to be transplanted if not flowered soon.
2) When in doubt with nutrients.....mix a weak solution into a spray bottle....and spray the plants down. Even if the soil is getting "locked"...the nutrients will be delivered directly into the leaves. This is really only a good suggestion for vegative growth.
3) As far as vegative growth is concerned: these plants look good to transplant outside and let them go for the rest of the season. Typically you'd wait alot less than 97 days to begin flowering. Your plants should be able to be flowered at about 4 weeks of vegative growth (sometimes alot sooner). I guess it depends on what you're trying to do.
4) Tug on those "dead" looking leaves that are all curled up.....if they pull right off great. It will allow greater light penetration and better air circulation...plus they're doing no good.
5) When flowering....cut of the larfy looking bottom shoots beforehand...so most of the flowering potential is put into the tops.
6) Bend of "train" the tops down a bit....you'll get greater surface area for buds to develop on such a big plant.

Lastly: a comment nobody seemed to make about your "smell" question.....

Some strains don't really smell that much during the vegative phase. Some don't even smell that much during flowering. I wouldn't necessarily say it's a PROBLEM....
In fact it may be to your advantage since you have others living in your house that don't know what the dealio is. Smells have been the downfall of many a grower....it's the telltale sign something is up....hence investigation.
As many people that say it was their electric bill or other suspicious activities that caused issues: smell is right up there with the worst of the problems.
Be thankful in the interim that things aren't stinking too bad....but be prepared to supress/mask or scrub the odors out if things get too hairy.

Other than you needing to give your plant a bit more TLC and keeping it smaller...nothing else seems to be too awry. You'll get better in time young Jedi. It the meantime...enjoy the fruits of your labor and get a move on flowering that gal.

 

[Derorli Panza]

DING DING DING!!! I think we have a winner for a VERY big newb mistake. And I thought I was soooooo smart having read the entire book (The Cannabis Grower's BIble) and spending countless of hours researching and reading this wonderful site.... I was under the impression that I had to keep 24 hour light UNTIL I see sex and pre-flowering develop!.. WTF!!

I guess I could have started on a 2nd or third learning grow, instead of wasting all this electricity etc.

Thank you all again for your MUCH needed help. I am gonna go get me a timer and get on this 12/12 while working on keeping things dark. Sleeping in that room would be so much nicer at night when the 400 watt isn't blasting!

I was originally going to scrog, but decided I might keep things simpler since I had the room for height, to let them grow more or less naturally or at will. These babies looked very happy at 12 inches under 180 CFL bulbs, no heat issues there.

knna -- thanks for the ph measuring lesson here. I was doing it all wrong apparently.. I am going to have to test how you describe.

accessndx-- I lifted up the pots, and yes there are some white roots poking out of the drainage holes, and thank you for addressing the smell question. I have a 4inch can filter already, just have never really needed to use it. Awhile back around 12' in height they smelled a bit more and I would run it the inline into the carbon filter for awhile. Normally just siting in the room for 5 minutes was enough to get rid of the strongest smell... don't get me wrong, it may be a blessing, and my biggest concern would be flowering come along and all of a sudden it starts showing her blueberry traits and the gig is up.

I wonder if it would be wise to try and make clones for the next batch, or perhaps the offspring might be bad guys. I still have 5 seeds leftover from my initial order, + 10 seeds of included random freebies. It would be nice to get a few seeds from this current grow, just so learn how and that I can.

Thank you all again so very much.

 

[accessndx]

I wonder if it would be wise to try and make clones for the next batch, or perhaps the offspring might be bad guys. I still have 5 seeds leftover from my initial order, + 10 seeds of included random freebies. It would be nice to get a few seeds from this current grow, just so learn how and that I can.

So let me get this straight; you haven't dropped the light cycle to 12/12! How do you know if that's a gal or a guy? I didn't scrutinize the pictures closely...but that could be a total dude in your pictures.
Here's my suggestion: take a few clones.......let them root. Start flowering that plant. If it's a guy....kick it in the balls and send it packing. If it's a gal....then we can see how she turns out and you'll have clones already working so you can put 'em for Sea of Green (SOG). If the gal doesn't turn out the way you imagined...you can drop the rest of the clones....but my suggestion is try to grow it out a few times (the same plant via clones) before chucking anything. Environmental problems, pest problems, nutritive problems.....practically everything can influence the development (size, smell, potentcy, etc.) of plants. 1 time growing 1 plant doesn't tell you everything about its' potential. If I chucked everything that didn't look spectacular at first sight....very few plants would have been kept.
Good luck.

P.S.-one other thing....I did take another look at the plants uptop.....please add soil to the top of the pot. There's about an inch or two there that you could pack with soil. Here's the reason: you're probably going to flower that shortly....and probably not going to transplant it into a bigger pot. If you have roots out the bottom it may be getting close to becoming root bound..which will stunt the growth. You can pack down the existing soil...and add soil on top surrounding the main stem. Any part of the stem that is moist and comes into contact with soil will start to develop roots. So if your plant can't put more out on the bottom, it will form some wherever the new soil is....hopefully that will give you an edge and more yield. Please hit that thing with some nitrogen before you flower.....it should be a bit greener and healthier looking...or you're going to see some sad ass underdeveloped nugs poppin. You just want to cut nitrogen RIGHT BEFORE you flower. Since it looks deprived...give it a few days with "foliar feeding" (spraying with nutrients onto the leaves). It will circumvent the roots and get the stuff right into the leaves.....also good if you're going to do some cuttings shortly. NEVER FLOWER BEFORE YOU'VE TAKEN CUTTINGS that have rooted......always have redundancy and backup. That's just my 2 cents.

 

[Derorli Panza]

accessndx-- Thanks for the extra information. I have since added a double dose of nutrients, I added soil to fill the pots up,and better positioned the fan to blow over the tops. I also have now switched to 12/12 (I don't think I am going to worry with clones at this grow, I am going to keep things simpler this go-round and hopefully farm some extra seeds to the immediate next grow!!! ) Now that I am in the 12/12.. the night time is allowing all the heat to clear out, so when the light is on the next day, it dosen't nearly get as a hot throughout the day. Since I also have the lights out at night, I am sleeping in the room to add CO2 to the air. Things are looking up right now and the plants seem pretty happy and greener. I have taken plenty of pics so I can make a grow diary post after harvest in great detail.