New growth twisted and brown/yellow spots/necrosis - No idea what's wrong

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Smokey_Mcpot

New Member
Hello,

I've been having problems with my girls and i can't for the life of me work out what's wrong with them.

They are 3 weeks old in Plant Magic soil. Temps are around 30-32C but sometimes they reach 35c though i've never seen when this happens or for how long. I know this is not an ideal temperature however from what i've read it will only slow growth and is only a big concern after 33C and my plants don't show signs of heat stress. Sadly not much i can do about the temperature.

At two weeks i noticed the lower leaves starting turning yellow and dying on the two Strawberry Cough's and the Bubblegum (i think it happen on the first leaves of the others but didn't progress). At the time they were in very small pots. I fed with Plant Magic Organic nutes, 2ml/l then realised they did not need feeding that young so i transplanted them into 1.5L pots.

I read that it could be over watering, so i have been trying to wait till they get very very dry before watering but the problem doesn't seem to have stopped, perhaps slowed down.

On the Bubblegum i've noticed the new growth is twisted and has yellow/brown spots. It's happening on all new growth, top and side shoots. There is also some of the same type of spotting on the Lemon Skunk but no twisted growth.

A number of them also have the tips of the leaves pointing downwards. I think i have a number of problems happening at the same time.

The best i could find for the twisted growth was Boron deficiency caused by underwatering. Possible as the top of the soil has been getting very very dry deeper than 1 inch i'd say but the pots still had weight so i didn't water until they weighed almost the same as when first repotted as i have read to do.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for the essay..




All.jpg

All of them.

VK.jpg

Vanilla Kush - No real issues so far, looks good.

SC1.jpg

Strawberry Cough x2 - Yellowing / dying on lower leaves.

SC2.jpg

More SC yellowing leaves.

SC3.jpg

More SC.

LS1.jpg

Lemon Skunk - Tips of leaves curling downwards, also slightly brittle leaves. LS2.jpg

LS another shot of leaf tips.

LS3.jpg

Lemon Skunk - Yellow / Brown Spots

LS4.jpg

LS - opposite leaf.

LS5.jpg

LS - Top View
 
S

Smokey_Mcpot

New Member
LS6.jpg

LS - Some spots on another leaf.

BG1.jpg

Bubblegum - Yellow lower leaves, messed up growth on side shoots.

BG3.jpg

BG - Twisted new growth, Yellow spots / lines, not sure best way to describe it.

BG4.jpg

BG - All new growth coming out mangled and damaged.

BG7.jpg

BG - Every single side shoot coming out like it as well.
 
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Tim1987

Well-Known Member
Ok OP.
You wont like what i have to say. But i'll say it anyway.

Temps that high, for more than an hour or two in the day, are really bad. Period.
If temps are like that consistently over days/weeks at a time, its even worse. Even if temps are only high, a couple hours, in the day.
They do look stressed from heat.

Whats the temperature of your root zone?
If its staying above 21'C a lot of the time. Theres a good chance, you have rot. Besides there being less oxygen in the media. The yellow leaf looks a little like, the start of rot. The black curling tips, on your leaves indicate low oxygen, and wet roots as well.
Possible its nitrogen toxicity. But considering your environment it seems more likeky disease related.
Get those temps down. Dry the pots out to almost bone dry. Then resume as normal.

Secondly temps like those, attract pests. The white marks on your leaves, look like rasping marks, from mites or thrips.
Id get a preventative right away.

Thirdly your plants look close to needing a tranplant. Root bound plants tend to yellow, and twist, do strange things etc as well.

Imo, moving forward.
-get those temps down. 26'C is about ideal during lights on.
-Transplant with a lot of added perlite. It'll add a lot of aeration to your media, and make it dry faster.
-get a preventative bug spray, like neem or spinosad, and treat your plants for bugs.

Good luck.
Hope this helps
:peace:
 
S

Smokey_Mcpot

New Member
Thanks for the reply.

When you say temps that high, are you referring to the lower temps (30-32) or the higher temps (35) as i think the higher temps are rare - I've never noticed them, only looked at the highest recorded temp on my thermometer which was 35C,

I thought with heat stress the margins of the leaves curled upwards? Which is something i haven't had, yet.

How do i check the temp of the root zone? When i transplanted they weren't root bound and the roots looked normal. The roots are starting to come out the bottoms of the pots now and look healthy and i took one out a pot the other day, barely any roots visible but the ones the were looked normal as well.

Yes over watering is what my research pointed as most likely for the yellowing - I am waiting until they are bone dry now however the soil is pulling far from the sides (which i read means you are waiting too long between watering) and one of the SC's was wilting quite a bit the other day before watering yet the pot still had some weight. After watering all the leaves perked back up. I will wait until the pots are almost bone dry now, i'm just rather concerned about about underwatering. I think they heat is causing the top of the soil to dry out much quicker than the bottom.

I'd say they are almost definitely not root bound, i only transplanted less than a week ago and they roots have only just appeared through the bottom. As i say when i took one out of the pot there were barely any roots visible.

The soil i use has a decent amount of perlite added, i've used it before and found it to be very good soil with good drainage. I'll definitely look into bug spray, certainly don't want little pests ruining my plants.

I'm really not sure what i can do about temps though - Turning up the extraction and/or adding intake made zero difference in temps. I have no where to vent the hot air and no where to bring cool air in from. I have to keep the bedroom window closed as everything is very loud and the neighbors are right underneath it. I've started opening the other bedroom windows in the house so hopefully this will help a bit.

In an ideal world i'd have the extraction going off into the loft and the intake going through the wall into my room drawing air from there, however that's not really viable at the moment (i don't have the equipment of know how to avoid pipes etc). Currently the extraction is just going out the door and one of the intake pipes going out the same door drawing air from the hallway (passive intake).

The only other option is turn my ballast down to 250w or 275w and run the 400w at this which will obviously give me a lot less yield. I'll be switching to 12/12 in a week so hopefully that will bring down temps a little bit as the house will get chance to cool down for longer, it's boiling up there.

Thank you for your help :)
 
T

Tim1987

Well-Known Member
Smokey_Mcpot said:
Thanks for the reply.

When you say temps that high, are you referring to the lower temps (30-32) or the higher temps (35) as i think the higher temps are rare - I've never noticed them, only looked at the highest recorded temp on my thermometer which was 35C,

I thought with heat stress the margins of the leaves curled upwards? Which is something i haven't had, yet.

How do i check the temp of the root zone? When i transplanted they weren't root bound and the roots looked normal. The roots are starting to come out the bottoms of the pots now and look healthy and i took one out a pot the other day, barely any roots visible but the ones the were looked normal as well.

Yes over watering is what my research pointed as most likely for the yellowing - I am waiting until they are bone dry now however the soil is pulling far from the sides (which i read means you are waiting too long between watering) and one of the SC's was wilting quite a bit the other day before watering yet the pot still had some weight. After watering all the leaves perked back up. I will wait until the pots are almost bone dry now, i'm just rather concerned about about underwatering. I think they heat is causing the top of the soil to dry out much quicker than the bottom.

I'd say they are almost definitely not root bound, i only transplanted less than a week ago and they roots have only just appeared through the bottom. As i say when i took one out of the pot there were barely any roots visible.

The soil i use has a decent amount of perlite added, i've used it before and found it to be very good soil with good drainage. I'll definitely look into bug spray, certainly don't want little pests ruining my plants.

I'm really not sure what i can do about temps though - Turning up the extraction and/or adding intake made zero difference in temps. I have no where to vent the hot air and no where to bring cool air in from. I have to keep the bedroom window closed as everything is very loud and the neighbors are right underneath it. I've started opening the other bedroom windows in the house so hopefully this will help a bit.

In an ideal world i'd have the extraction going off into the loft and the intake going through the wall into my room drawing air from there, however that's not really viable at the moment (i don't have the equipment of know how to avoid pipes etc). Currently the extraction is just going out the door and one of the intake pipes going out the same door drawing air from the hallway (passive intake).

The only other option is turn my ballast down to 250w or 275w and run the 400w at this which will obviously give me a lot less yield. I'll be switching to 12/12 in a week so hopefully that will bring down temps a little bit as the house will get chance to cool down for longer, it's boiling up there.

Thank you for your help :)
Click to expand...
Ok.

Both temps are bad.
Anything over 26'C i get nervous.

You can check your root zone temps with a probe thermometer.
They're small pots, so the soil temperature is probably pretty close to the temperature of the room.

Hot roots dont drink either. They suffocate. Which in turn causes overwatering, and rot.

A good rule of thumb for the root ball. Is to imagine the plant turned upside down, infront of your pot.
The size of your plant is generally the size of your root ball. (new roots need to grow, before more stems, and leaves do)
A good analogy is to think of the seed when it germinates, and sprouts. Roots always come, before foliage.

Im not really sure of an effective way of cooling with temps like those. Air-con might end up being the only solution.

If your soil already has lots of perlite. Add some extra drainage like course river sand. Those kind of temps, wet soil is the last thing you need.
You stated you think you have been overwatering. But overwatering can be caused by hot roots, and poor drainage or aeration.

Best to not muck around, and have all bases covered. To avoid chasing your tail.

Good luck brother.
Much love .
:peace:
 
S

Smokey_Mcpot

New Member
Sadly i've gone way over budget on this and have no money left for a pH pen.

I've read that adjusting pH in an organic soil grow isn't necessary. I did a couple small grows in the past (not for a long time though) and was very strict on pH, in the end trying to adjust the pH seemed to cause far more problems than if i'd have just left it. The run off pH was always very different from the input pH as well. I've heard soil acts as a buffer for the pH?

Seems like it's the temperature causing over watering resulting in the roots lacking O2 combined with stress from the heat and mites or thrips.

It's interesting how the Vanilla Kush seems to be doing fine though. Different genetics i guess.

The weather is going to be a bit cooler for the coming week so that will help temporarily. I've got one window upstairs open now and will be opening the other soon (i have to seal them with netting as i HATE spiders and they love coming in). Upstairs was never cooling down - With windows open and switching to 12/12 hopefully the house will cool a bit and lower temps slightly. If only i could open the window in the grow room.

I don't know much about air con (it's rare over here in the U.K) but i'm guessing it needs an exhaust venting outside which would mean drilling a hole in the stone wall which isn't viable atm, plus i have no more money. The best option would be a hole in the ceiling for the exhaust but i have a feeling there are bricks missing in the party wall so the neighbors might hear my extraction and if any smell got through it would go straight to theirs. Plus i don't have the tools or a stud finder.

I may have to bite the bullet and turn the ballast down to 250w or 275w although i only have 400w bulbs so it's not going to be very efficient and will affect the yield significantly i'd imagine.

In the mean time i'm going to wait until they get bone dry before watering again, get some bug spray for the mites / thrips, get the window open in the other bedroom and in a few days put them into their final pots (25l which i'm guessing is way too big. I do have 10's but this will be the last report as they are going to 12/12 on saturday).

If there's still issues i'll turn it down to 275w.

I really hope i can fix this before the yield is affected too much.
 
T

Tim1987

Well-Known Member
Smokey_Mcpot said:
Sadly i've gone way over budget on this and have no money left for a pH pen.

I've read that adjusting pH in an organic soil grow isn't necessary. I did a couple small grows in the past (not for a long time though) and was very strict on pH, in the end trying to adjust the pH seemed to cause far more problems than if i'd have just left it. The run off pH was always very different from the input pH as well. I've heard soil acts as a buffer for the pH?

Seems like it's the temperature causing over watering resulting in the roots lacking O2 combined with stress from the heat and mites or thrips.

It's interesting how the Vanilla Kush seems to be doing fine though. Different genetics i guess.

The weather is going to be a bit cooler for the coming week so that will help temporarily. I've got one window upstairs open now and will be opening the other soon (i have to seal them with netting as i HATE spiders and they love coming in). Upstairs was never cooling down - With windows open and switching to 12/12 hopefully the house will cool a bit and lower temps slightly. If only i could open the window in the grow room.

I don't know much about air con (it's rare over here in the U.K) but i'm guessing it needs an exhaust venting outside which would mean drilling a hole in the stone wall which isn't viable atm, plus i have no more money. The best option would be a hole in the ceiling for the exhaust but i have a feeling there are bricks missing in the party wall so the neighbors might hear my extraction and if any smell got through it would go straight to theirs. Plus i don't have the tools or a stud finder.

I may have to bite the bullet and turn the ballast down to 250w or 275w although i only have 400w bulbs so it's not going to be very efficient and will affect the yield significantly i'd imagine.

In the mean time i'm going to wait until they get bone dry before watering again, get some bug spray for the mites / thrips, get the window open in the other bedroom and in a few days put them into their final pots (25l which i'm guessing is way too big. I do have 10's but this will be the last report as they are going to 12/12 on saturday).

If there's still issues i'll turn it down to 275w.

I really hope i can fix this before the yield is affected too much.
Click to expand...
Its all good dude.
Its all very fix able.
You'll find a way.
Plants are resilient little fuckers.

I just wouldn't switch to 12/12, until you have the issue sorted.

A larger pot of soil, will stay cooler for longer, than a smaller one. May be one thing you can do without blowing the budget?
Do you have a basement or cellar under your house? Or somewhere else thats cool? You could run your intake from there, and up your extraction, to force more cool air in?

You'll find some way dude.
They're fine.
:peace:
 
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