Need more information on being rootbound

I have a male plant that I have been collecting pollen from. A couple things to note.. plant is under low lighting and has not been transplanted from his 2 gallon pot. He is just starting week 3 of 12/12. I am getting pollen and am not too worried about this plant. I just want to learn about why this is happening...

Upper leaves are healthy and dark green. Leaves are pointing upwards. All growth underneath plant is wilty, dying, flimsy. I am not sure if this is a symptom of being rootbound or lack of lighting. Possibly a combination of both.

Here are a few pictures, possibly you can help me out with this. I am thinking it must be pot size and/or lighting....All other plants are in 7 gallon pots and are under 400 watt light. None have this problem. I guess i just want to be sure that this is because of nurture rather than genetics.


As you can see lower leaves are unhealthy and upper are healthy.




Closeup of lower leaves

that looks like under-watering droop. is your medium dry? is that a flood-light i see? those generate a lot of heat.

did u recently fertilize it maybe u juiced it to hard

medium is coco coir and i water once every 5 days. i actually should be watering more with coco but i dont. i fertilize at around 1000 ppm. would this hit the lower growth without affecting upper?

Get rid of all that growth that is dying or dead in there. Generally that area(ie the bottom middle of the plant) gets the least amount of light and leave will die anyways down there. I usually trim that whole area right before flower because nothing ever produces in that area(the darkest in flowering)

Did you spill nute water on those leaves? Looks like a lot of older growth, when did they start looking like this? Those are some of the older laves on the plant?

You answered pretty well, no light and a little rootbound. But as long as all the new growth tips are looking good I wouldn't worry about trying to transplant at this point, you will just risk shocking the plant already in flower.

coco is hydro, you need to water more....

ph0n3 said:

Get rid of all that growth that is dying or dead in there. Generally that area(ie the bottom middle of the plant) gets the least amount of light and leave will die anyways down there. I usually trim that whole area right before flower because nothing ever produces in that area(the darkest in flowering)

Did you spill nute water on those leaves? Looks like a lot of older growth, when did they start looking like this? Those are some of the older laves on the plant?

You answered pretty well, no light and a little rootbound. But as long as all the new growth tips are looking good I wouldn't worry about trying to transplant at this point, you will just risk shocking the plant already in flower.

Click to expand...

No i didnt spill nute water on the leaves. They have looked liked this for a couple weeks now. Like i said i am just using this plant for pollen...nothing else. He is a male. Im not worried about transplanting or anything. I am just wanting to learn for future reference.

This may be totally unrelated but I'll throw it out there anyway, because the symptoms look very similar to something i just went through.(soil grow) The fan leaves are dried, rolled up, with turned up tips, just like mine were. Also, I see other more healthly leaves that look a little like they've been heat stressed, like mine did. Now here's what makes me think they could be unrelated....mine were concentrated in the upper half of the plant, not the lower. Anyway, my problem was that I hit them with low PHed fert(5.2) for about 3 weeks. It's under control now, and that was definitely my problem, so I thought I'd mention it just in case it could be relevant to your situation.

the drooping/wilting on the lower leaves, and the fact that he waters once every (only) 5 days, makes me think it's just thirsty. all you have to do is water it and see if the droop goes away in an hour or so... you feeding and allowing for run-off?

no its not underwatering....coco has plenty of moisture. it is probably lack of light or root space

aeviaanah said:

no its not underwatering....coco has plenty of moisture. it is probably lack of light or root space

Click to expand...

lack of light or root-space doesn't cause your lower leaves to droop. a plant that big watered 1 time in 5 days in a 2 gallon container should suck the coco dry...

well it looks like PH fluctuations and nute burn caused by underwatering. also keep in mind males have a shorter lifespan during flowering than females.

as your plant sucks up moisture it leaves behind fert, as the coco dries the ppm of the remaining moisture shoots way up, the upper leaves have a higher rate of photosynth becuase of available light and can take slightly higher levels of nute. and as water availability goes down it begins to drain moisture from the lower branches to support new growth.
as the lower branches lose moisture, the nute levels in the leaves becomes too high and the leaves turn crispy.

but on a side note. i just want to make sure youve delt with a male in flower before. cuz in my opinion you have WAY to much male there, 1/10th a gram of pollen would pollenate several hundred plants. i usually cut off all but one branch for pollen collecting. and i normally keep 1 cloned male rootbound in veg for future use.

oh and being rootbound wont kill you plant till its huge, otherwise it just stunts growth. i rootbind my females in successivly larger pots to help with my whole bonsai exper.