eperienced growers, please help with ongoing problem

I have been growing for several years, and have encountered this problem in my last 3 grows and am getting very frustrated.



These are White Rhino, started from seed, in Organic Roots 707 potting soil. I had the same thing happen using Fox Farm Ocean Forest so I don't think it can be the soil. And it has happened using other strains as well, both from clones and from seed.


Currently they are under CFL's, but it also has happened using MH lamps in the Veg stage. I fed them once, at 1/2 streangth, about a week ago. I was very careful not to get any on the leaves, so it is not burn spots from getting nutes on them.


I treated yesterday with seranade, thinking maybe I'm looking at some kind of fungas infestation.

I tried growing my last batch, THC Bomb, into flower when they showed signs of this, and had to just pull them up and regulate them to the comopst heap, as they just got worse. It seems to start in the larger lower fan leaves, and progresses up throughout the plant, usually on the older growth. It severely retards bud formation as well.

I've tried completely scrubbing down my grow room and my flower room with bleach water and soap, I also bombed with DR. Doom befor putting any plants into the rooms. The incomming air is filtered and temps are fine. ( 65 deg to 80 deg ) The ones in the pictures are in the house, where temps are usually around 70 deg.

For Veg I use CFL's. For teens and mothers I use a 400 watt MH, and in my flower room I use (6) 400 watt HPS lamps.

I am getting so damn frustrated with this thing,. I've tried different nute regiments and treating with various fungasides. I did have a minor spider mite infestation on my last grow, which I successfully treated with spectracide and neem oil. The plants in the picture are bug free, so its not bug bites.

I understand that our brother growers on the east coast are having problems with some kind of blight, could this be a manifistation of it? ( I'm in Calif.)

ANY HELP WOULD BE A GODSEND

Thanks in advance

How old where they when giving nutes?

You using new pots or are they just the old ones cleaned out?

massah said:

You using new pots or are they just the old ones cleaned out?

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I've been cleaning all utinsils, pots, etc with bleach water. I do reuse my pots, but I clean them with soapy water and bleach

djlifeline said:

How old where they when giving nutes?

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The larger plants in the pictures where fed when they where around 3 weeks old. I should mention that I generally do not feed my babies until after the final transplant, just befor switching to 12/12. I figure that the soil has still retained most of the nutriants until the root mass gets big enough to fill the pots. I've tried various feeding schedules though and it doesn't seem to affect the outcome. One post I read on another site mentioned foliar feeding with micr blast as a cure. I may try that after my next trip to the hydro store.

Thank you for replying to my post. Any input is appreciated

Hmm, blight has been a problem on the East Coast for generations. I'm in the Midwest, and an outdoor gardener. We don't have blight here, so I would find it difficult to believe it somehow passed us up to target the West coast. I looked up your medium, only not sure what the much more really is.

Sunbiz1 said:

Hmm, blight has been a problem on the East Coast for generations. I'm in the Midwest, and an outdoor gardener. We don't have blight here, so I would find it difficult to believe it somehow passed us up to target the West coast. I looked up your medium, only not sure what the much more really is.

"coarse peat, coco fiber, compost, perlite, pumice, worm castings, bat guano, fish bone meal, soybean meal, feather meal, kelp meal and much more.​

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If it was the medium, why would it show up regardless of what I used ( Foxfarm, 707) I even tryed using a Generic potting soil from Home Depot ( western brand ), thinking maybe something was missing in one of them.

I should also mention that I am on well water, so there is no chlorine in the H20.

My outdoor plants seemed to do fine on last years grow. Multiple strains, same water in Super Soil.

Randm said:

If it was the medium, why would it show up regardless of what I used ( Foxfarm, 707) I even tryed using a Generic potting soil from Home Depot ( western brand ), thinking maybe something was missing in one of them.

I should also mention that I am on well water, so there is no chlorine in the H20.

My outdoor plants seemed to do fine on last years grow. Multiple strains, same water in Super Soil.

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When was the last time you had your well water tested? It might be contaminated with something and you are unaware!

Your outdoor plants that use the "same water" also get rain water that wouldn't have the same contaminants...I'd get your well water tested...that might be whats causing this...

Randm said:

If it was the medium, why would it show up regardless of what I used ( Foxfarm, 707) I even tryed using a Generic potting soil from Home Depot ( western brand ), thinking maybe something was missing in one of them.

I should also mention that I am on well water, so there is no chlorine in the H20.

My outdoor plants seemed to do fine on last years grow. Multiple strains, same water in Super Soil.

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This is a tough one, usually problems can be detected by eliminating the sources one by one. If it isn't the medium, and it isn't the water...then obviously it is an outside variable.

Which brings us full circle to a disease I have never seen.

Well shit, sorry I couldn't help more.

what is the ph of the water you use on the plants?...to me that looks like some plants that suffer from several waterings from a ph'd water that is too high in the 8.2 range... do you supplement calcium n magnesium as well?

massah said:

When was the last time you had your well water tested? It might be contaminated with something and you are unaware!

Your outdoor plants that use the "same water" also get rain water that wouldn't have the same contaminants...I'd get your well water tested...that might be whats causing this...

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I hadn't thought of that.....

I haven't been filtering my water, I figured its well water that reads 7.0 on the ph chart. ( did I mention that I do check my ph and adjust with ph down when it looks like it needs it?)

What would I be testing for? Pathogins or some kind of mineral imbalance??? I did use my well water to water my outdoor plants with, but the plants grown outdoors had a bigger root area what with being in the ground and in large (50gal) smart pots.

I do know that our water has a fair amount of mineral content by the buildup where it sits and evaporates ( cat water dish, rim of the camode, etc. might the lime, and other minerals be 'locking out' the nutriants? If so I would have to get an RO filter I guess. I just hate the idea of running out and buying a whole bunch of stuff on a guess.

I'll give that one a definate look see.

Randm said:

I hadn't thought of that.....

I haven't been filtering my water, I figured its well water that reads 7.0 on the ph chart. ( did I mention that I do check my ph and adjust with ph down when it looks like it needs it?)

What would I be testing for? Pathogins or some kind of mineral imbalance??? I did use my well water to water my outdoor plants with, but the plants grown outdoors had a bigger root area what with being in the ground and in large (50gal) smart pots.

I do know that our water has a fair amount of mineral content by the buildup where it sits and evaporates ( cat water dish, rim of the camode, etc. might the lime, and other minerals be 'locking out' the nutriants? If so I would have to get an RO filter I guess. I just hate the idea of running out and buying a whole bunch of stuff on a guess.

I'll give that one a definate look see.

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That's about the only thing I could think of if all your other variables are in check...there could be pathogens, or weird things like arsenic or something in it...

Sunbiz1 said:

This is a tough one, usually problems can be detected by eliminating the sources one by one. If it isn't the medium, and it isn't the water...then obviously it is an outside variable.

Which brings us full circle to a disease I have never seen.

Well shit, sorry I couldn't help more.

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Thanks for looking anyway, I know that somebody has to have seen this befor

Corso312 said:

what is the ph of the water you use on the plants?...to me that looks like some plants that suffer from several waterings from a ph'd water that is too high in the 8.2 range... do you supplement calcium n magnesium as well?

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Haven't on these plants yet, The well is ph 7.0, I don't check my ph very often, as the well is a constant 7.0 and I just adjust with a little ph down. I should be more religious about checking though, as I don't do that every time. Is it possible that the well would have major ph changes throughout the year??? The plants in the pictures have never had ph adjusted water, just straight well water. Is 7.0 to high??? But if it changed throught the year, then I would be seeing different effects at different times of the year due to any changes. This problem seems to consistantly go on throughout the year

I tried using cal/mag on the last batch of plants when they showed signs of this, but it didn't seem to do anything.

So far I see that I need to:
be more vigalent with my ph.
Maintain as clean of an enviroment as I can.
Try foliar feeding with Micro-Blast.
Possibly get an RO filter for the water.
Regularly treat for mold and bugs ( been doing it on a weely basis anyway )

Any other ideas??

as long as the PH of your water is between 6-7.5 you should be fine...its the soil's PH that you should worry about...and the only way to test that is to make a soil slurry and let it sit for 30 minutes then test that's PH, but you've said you've had this problem with multiple types of soil, so I doubt that its a soil issue.

Any idea what the PPM/EC/TDS of your water is? I'd still send it off to a water quality lab to just make sure...and you always want to filter well water anyway...you never know wtf is down there in the ground breeding!

Bro are monitoring the ph? may have drifted out a little. Also i see a lot of powdery mildew, get a dehumidifer and/or a sulfur burner asap. Mold will affect the weight.

massah said:

as long as the PH of your water is between 6-7.5 you should be fine...its the soil's PH that you should worry about...and the only way to test that is to make a soil slurry and let it sit for 30 minutes then test that's PH, but you've said you've had this problem with multiple types of soil, so I doubt that its a soil issue.

Any idea what the PPM/EC/TDS of your water is? I'd still send it off to a water quality lab to just make sure...and you always want to filter well water anyway...you never know wtf is down there in the ground breeding!

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No idea on PPM ec etc, never checked it. What should it be reading? Zeros, all the way across??

Yeah, it looks almost like a Mg deficiency to me...but here is my own experience...I ordered one seed for a perpetual grow...the site said it was awesome smoke, but to feed it lightly...that is all they said about growing it...feed lightly...well the plant is some superb awesome crazy super good smoke...which is ht eonly reason I haven't gotten so damn frustrated and thrown it out! No matter what everytime I grow this plant it just looks like hell, the leaves curl down like claws, and they just never look as good as other people's plants...I was doing hydro and I got fed up and switched to soil my ongoing grow. I also started to think maybe it's this plant and not that I am terrible at growing things...so I ordered some more seeds, and you know what the new Rocklock, Super Lemon Haze, and LA Confidential all look better than my 3 C-13 Hazes (which is the problem child I'm talking about)...I think it is just an ugly plant...it's growth is good, and the plants look so much better in the soil, but still I have 3 totally healthy looking happy plants, and then these 3 sativas that just look sad...so it might not be anything at all but the plant, if this is the same strain you grew before...I have decided I will just grow more individual plants of the C-13 Haze each time...they mght be ugly and make me feel shitty while they grow, but when they finish---Mm Mmh!

Just checked the ppm. I got a reading of 150
also the ph is around 6.5 ( I just have test stips so its not the most accurate measure, I'd say between 6.7 and 6.3 )