HELP! Curling Leaves Heat Stroke (pics)

good2bkind

Well-Known Member
Another cry for help, from yet another noob!

I have a single female in flower, almost week 3. Her leaves have been curling under for about 1.5 weeks.

Cabinet temps in the past few days have past 100. I implemented a solution a couple days ago of two fans in the cab (used to be one), and a 2.5 gallon of frozen water.

My temps are nice, about 82, and my humidity is finally normal.

Before, humidity was way over in 'dry' and temps when I checked at lunch around 12:15 (it's 10am now) were about 92 degrees.

This was implemented yesterday, but the plant has not shown signs yet of de-stress.

As the leaves have been like this for at least a week, I am growing concerned.

About every other day I add nutes of 10-15-10 in a fairly small amount of water, about 1/4 gallon. I have not seen nute burn as such, though there is obvious light burn as at times the plant touched the lights and this is adding to stress.

I also water every other day with 1 tbsp molasses to about 3/4 gallon of water.

Normally one would not water so frequently, but because the cabinet temps have been so high, the soil dries totally, and pulls away from the container.

My last watering was yesterday morning, a little from the nute jug and a little from the molasses jug and putting my finger in the hole at the bottom today, the soil there is still moist from yesterday's watering, probably because I have lowered cabinet temps with the frozen water, otherwise, from experience-- it would be bone-dry.

Obviously the plant is rather emaciated, but I am not too concerned as leaf color is healthy, buds look okay. Plant stock is purple on the lower end, signifying some nute deficiency, but the upper half of the stalk is healthy green.

Water is tap water allowed to set at least a day.

I have no way at this time of monitoring pH.

The bottom leaves are yellowing but taking there time to fall off-- one cannot just touch them and have them fall, they are still secured to the plant and not totally dried out, I assume this is normal for a plant where most of the light is at the top giving power to the buds, if you will, so I will let these fall as they may.

The middle leaves are fairing okay, not that they matter so much but it should be noted that they are further from the lights.

Most lights except for one (farthest left, lit) are 42 watt floros at 6500k. There's an aberrent light off to the side that is of a warmer spectrum, which I unscrewed as it was not 6500k and was facing the wall anyway.

Soil is organic, there are no pest problems.

My concern is that this plant is looking limp. Many people would say "overwatering, NOOB THREAT!" but with cab temps reaching 100 in the past days and soil pulling from the container, I'm not sure about that diagnosis.

But anyways, whoever has seen this before and dealt with it successfully, please let me know any ideas you have on the subject.
 

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Djay

Active Member
just a hint, why dont you give us the "cliff's notes" and allow us to refer to your original post if we have any questions....
 

nemad

Well-Known Member
im noob too, but i have some ideas why this is happening:
1)overwatering (you sad that it dries quickly, i think water cant dry so quickly in such big bucket, maybe dries only on top of the soil, but inside its still wet)
2) as I noticed, its normal, that bottom leaves gets yellow.
3) buds take most of plants energy, plant is giving buds all the strainght, so theres nothing left for leaves. it could be because your plant is really tall..

maybe im wrong, im learning and having first grow, so dont take serious my tips :)
 

greenbehemoth

Well-Known Member
Hi good2bkind, how's it going. I'm in my first grow and no expert, but I think there are several factors going on with your plant. Please forgive me if I'm saying stuff you already know - I will just throw down a few things that come to mind ;)

I agree pretty much with what nemad said. Obviously the heat issue was the major one and hopefully you now have that under control. I would normally say watering every other day is too often, but with the excess heat it was probably a necessary evil. Now that the temp is down you should find you don't need to water so often. About every three or four days would be the norm. Also it's better to water well, ie until water runs out of the bottom of the pot, and then wait until the plant is thirsty until watering again. Make sure the soil is dry at least two inches below the surface before giving her more.

Also looking at your plant I think it is indeed suffering a little from too many nutes. This can cause the leaf tips and edges to curl down and the leaves to become "puffy", and eventually they will start to brown at the tips and around the margins etc. I would suggest every other watering, ie about once per week say, and perhaps a little less than the recommended dose. You should figure out how much water your plant takes, and then add the correct amount of nutes to that volume of water, together with your molasses etc, rather than adding nutes from one jug, molasses from another jug and so on.

It might be a good idea to flush the plant well with pure water asap, using about two to three times the volume of your pot. This will help to rinse out any excess nutes that have built up in the soil. Then let the soil dry out in the normal way and water again with nutes, molasses etc. Also try a little epsom salts (say 1 tsp per gallon) every watering. They seem to like it a lot and it should help perk the plant up for you.

I do suggest you test the ph of your water and water-nute solution, and also the run-off that comes from your soil. Try to keep it around 6.5. You can get ph testing kits in a supermarket for a few quid.

Finally it is normal for the lower leaves (and eventually most of them) to turn yellow during flowering. This happens as the plant starts to draw nutrients from the leaves to help "feed" the bud production and ripening process. However this is a relatively slow process, so be careful it's not happening too quickly. Some of your yellowing (and other) leaves do show scorched tips etc, so again just be careful with the nutes possibly?

For all that she still looks pretty green and healthy. I'm sure if you keep the temp down, water as I've suggested and cut down on the nutes a little she will perk up fairly quickly. Hope I've been of at least a little help and wasn't just stating the obvious. Wish you and your girl all the very best - hope she turns out nice for you ;)

greenb.
 

good2bkind

Well-Known Member
Thanks Nemad and Green Behemoth.

Green, I appreciate the well-written and thoughtful response. I feel like I already know more than when I posted this and probably other readers will as well.

I will follow this advice and I very much appreciate your response.
 

greenbehemoth

Well-Known Member
No probs good2b, glad you found what I said useful. As I said I'm no expert, just trying to share some of the knowledge I've picked up on this excellent forum. Many thanks for the rep, it's very much appreciated ;)
 
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