Mystery Problem : Symptoms - Overwatering, Crinkling, Curling, Red/Brown Edges

Ok, this is extremely frustrating for me because the textbook fundamentals of botany are being disproved in front of my face; repeatedly. I'm so angry that I had to take pictures so other people could finally see the symptoms I've been trying to describe for years now. Years you may be thinking to yourself? Yes, years. The reason it has lasted so long is because this extreme stressing does not take place during every grow; and it's not overwatering so simply replying, "water it less," is probably the stupidest thing you could tell me, because that's where I started my troubleshooting - 3 years ago!

One thing for sure is that this problem is connected with young plants. Once the plant can absorb and transpire a 16 oz. dixie cup in a 24 hour period, you're safe from this problem I'm having.

The effects are the same as when the plant is shocked or stressed in some way. The leaves drop completely and in this case, even the nodes have drooped. The leaves begin to decay by yellowing then browning then curling (I'm assuming the plant is eating itself for some reason). At this point, it may not be worth reviving the plant because since it loses its leaves metabolism slows to a crawl, and veg takes 2 months instead of 2 weeks (extremely frustrating).

So here we go, last night I fed all plants the exact same nutrient solution. I have a variety of plants and each plant's strain is different. Their ages are also different and the problem plant is about 3 weeks old. I purchased this cutting and was very gently with this one, because I am currently having the worst grow of the last few years, and have stressed many prior cuttings to the point where they had no leaves remaining, and it wasn't worth waiting for recovery. This clone was so nice, with 5 or 6 sets of leaves, branches, and lots of fuzzy white roots. Since many other clones totally wilted when I put them in the dixie cups with coco and perlite, I simply rested this one atop the coco/perlite, and let the roots grow down into it. For 3 days things were ok and roots grew pretty nicely, so I simply dug a hole into that same mix in the same cup and put the cube in it; then it completely wilted, as if it didn't have roots or a bunch of foliage to transpire the water. It's almost like the plant wont take up the water and drowns. WTF!! It was just eating fine enough to grow tons of white roots out the bottom, how the hell could I have overwatered it? Anyway, the plant loses its leaves and struggles for days then revives. Usually by now for whatever reason the shock doesn't repeat itself, but today it did.

Look at the pictures. Notice the other plants in similar cups, but with more dirt than the shocked plant. The other cups have twice as much dirt. Also, one of those plants doesn't have roots past 1/4" outside of the 2" rockwool cube. I took pictures to show the plant had roots all the way to the bottom and a little outside the dixie cup it was in, so it had a bunch of roots. These roots are mostly white and about 3-4" long.

This looks like a moisture problem, and that's why people are so quick to jump to the overwatering claim and if not that it's the strain's sensitivity; I say that's bullshit.

What's crazy is there is more detail that I can provide about this issue, but no one has the fundamentals to tell me what approach to take in troubleshooting; it's just textbook responses (ph, ppm, temperature, fan, nutes). That's what got me to where I am, up shit's creek without a paddle.

Someone with some knowledge in the science of botany please diagnose this issue because I'm fed up with coco and it seems the only other choice is to change growing mediums.

Thanks

P.S. If it's something totally obvious I would have no problems admitting how dumb I was to overlook it; in fact, I hope it is something simple.

well after about 15 hours the plant is dead. a truly mystery problem that requires me to either stop growing or to change medium. wow; and after 50 views w/ pics no one can diagnose it. The food leaves completely bleached yellow and dried and brown on the edges. So who says this is simple and straight forward? All the knowledge about growing don't mean shit if you can kill a plant that's 3 weeks old in 24 hours.

First off, I am by no means an expert grower or botanist.

I have not had much experience with soil grows either. In other words take my advice with a grain of salt. But since you are on here at RIU and asking for advice from the community, ill provide you with mine.

When plants droop like that and others around it seem to be uneffected this is probably due to the fact that the tempature might be too high for that strain. I know you said that most of the replies you have recieved in the past 3 years have been textbook responses but the reason you get those textbook responses is due to the fact that most indoor problems are misdiagnosed as a lack or excess of fertilizer. Often, disease and insects cause such problems. Other times, problems are caused by an imbalance growing medium or water pH. Keep pH from 6 - 6.5 in soil to allow nutes to be chemically available.

Temp and humidity also influence growth. Keep them in a range of 70F - 75F during the day and 65F - 70F during the night and keep humidity at 55 -65 percent in vegging and 50 in flowering. Excess sodium (more than 50ppm) in water supplies restricts water and nutes from being absorbed by the roots.

YOu can avoid most common ailments by keeping temps, humidity, and light at proper levels. Use clean water, the proper complete nute solution, maintain EC and pH levels and change or flush the system with fresh nutes every week.

Again this is my opinion and I hope this shed some light on your fustrating issue. Keep up growing. Dont give up. Good luck!

Peace

Every once in a while a plant will gain consciousness. If that plant is a clone it might realize that it is only a clone of another plant thus it has no true identity, it then loses the will to live and wilts away.