Bottom Leaves are Wilting and Falling Off

Since i started flowering two weeks ago leaves from the bottom branches have been wilting and falling off. I change the water every week and the ph stays between 5.8-6.0. at first i thought that it was normal for leaves to fall off during flowering until I took a look at my plant today and one of the bottom branches was completely bear. please any info will help

It is completely normal for them to start dying off, especially if the rest of your plant looks fine (which to me it does). Are you using any nutes right now? If so, which one(s) and how much of a dosage? Your plant is starting to focus it's energy on producing your buds, trichomes, all that good stuff, and less energy on producing the fan leafs. Your leafs will start to die off and fall off just like you have noticed. Easy for us first time growers to freak out when we see some kind of "death" on our plant, but if it's just a few leafs and especially during your flowering stage then it's (usually) normal.

More experienced guys correct me if I'm wrong. Good luck man, it looks like you've been doing fine so far

they might not be getting enough light through that thick canopy you have. you can spread the stalks out and they might get more light and survive but its not really a big deal since those will just produce popcorn nugs any way. you could just prune them yourself and then not worry about them.

Both of those are great answers ^^^^^.......its not really a big deal but i add extra cfls pointed at the middle and bottom of the plant to ensure they get light down there.

right now i am using dyna-grow nutes. foliage pro, bloom, and pro-tekt. 20ml of each of the pro and bloom and 15ml of the pro tekt in 3.75gallons of distilled water.Is it ok to prune them in flowering i heard that it will stress my plant and stop bud growth. Thanks guys for all the helpful answers I guess i was just sweating the little stuff. i think tonaloc989 is dead on the canopy is really thick on this plant. Its kind of my fault i let them over grow my space which is 2ft x 2.5ft x 7ft.

here is what the grow space looks like. I have two plants in there fighting for the light.

Yeah man it looks like it is probably just not getting enough light, through all those top leafs, quite the canopy haha. If they are dead then you can pluck them, or let them fall off. I like to give my dead leafs a gentle tug and if they come off then they are obviously ready, if they don't then I leave them and try them again the next day.

i wouldnt prune them after week two of flowering but before that shouldnt cause too much of a problem.

Thanks for all the help guys.

Like the others have said, it's normal for a plant to drop leaves that aren't getting enough light. Any part that isn't contributing will be shed.
Most of that crap down there needs to be pruned anyway. Wait till the end of the third week, when the stretch is over. Pruning before then can cause the plant to believe a predator, (deer, rabbit, etc.) is attacking and cause undo stretching. I usually prune the week before the flip and 3.5 weeks into flowering.
When you do the pruning, you need to thin those plants severely. CFL's aren't going to give you the light penetration you'll need. Not saying CFL's wont grow good bud, just that they're more suited to smaller plants in a SOG. IMHO anyway.
Hope this helps,
Fred

wow that is extremely helpful fred thanks a bunch. i will give it a try.

One more thing, other then the obvious, what else do I need to trim to get the most out of my harvest? The only trimming i did in veg was topping them. I was scared shitless about cutting the wrong thing.

Any areas that aren't getting good light have to go. Get down on the floor and look close to see where the light penetration stops. Should be a pretty clearly defined line. EVERYTHING below this line has to go. Any branches that start below the line that have decent buds extending above the line need to be stripped up to those buds. Does that make sense? Maybe I shouldn't have taken those last couple of hits.
Above the light line you will need to thin. Anything with weak skinny stems are the first to go. Stop and look it over. Is light penetrating better? All the remaining branches are probably going to have some weak puny budsites near their base, close to the main stalk. Snip that shit too. I know it looks like they're good bud sites and it'll make your ass hurt to do it, do it anyway. That shit will never even grow into decent popcorn.
At this point it's probably going to resemble Charlie Browns Christmas tree. Have no fear, those bitches will fill in again in a few days. Get more lights in there if you can. Used bathroom light strips work great for this. You can get em at Habitat for Humanity stores for a dollar or two. I have a shitload of em in my veg room. Don't try to hook a bunch of these to some shitty $2 Walmart extension cord. Electrical fires are nothing to fuck with.
Be careful and take your time when trimming. Remember, you always do it again in a couple days if necessary.
Fred

Sweet that really clears it up for me your are a godsend fred. thanks and happy growing.

Looks like a little heat stress and maybe low RH, whats your temps and RH? I ask because looks like some of the upper leaves have brown tips and some leaves are curled up like maybe from low RH.
Anyone else see what I see?

Smucker G said:

Looks like a little heat stress and maybe low RH, whats your temps and RH? I ask because looks like some of the upper leaves have brown tips and some leaves are curled up like maybe from low RH.
Anyone else see what I see?

Click to expand...

I keep the ph at 5.8-6.0 and the heat never goes over 85f. Thanks for looking out smuker but the brown tips and leaf curling came from me not checking the res for three days when i went out of town. By the time i got back the plants had drank all but a gallon of water. I had to learn the hard way that hydroponics has to be check at least ever other day.

After trimming my babies I saw a little improvement in bud growth and smell. I guess all that dieing foliage what just holding my girls back. I will try and get some pics up with a better camera. The camera i have suck balls at close up pics. peace and happy growing.