stem is rotting at base

quite a few of my clones are rotting at bottom if main stem, plants are two months after cut.can anyone tell me why this can happening?

damp off.

damping off is caused by that part of the stem being wet all the time.

If you have covers on your pots, leave at least 1/4 inch gap around the base of the stem for it to breathe.

If you are top feeding with drip, keep it away from the base of the stem.

Shoot some pics and toss them up here. For a mature plant (woody base) to damp off you really have to be soaked all the time. Generally damping off only happens to young plants.

On older plants that have an advanced case of root rot the base of the stem can get sickly.

I learned more mature trees (3/4" - 1" trunks) can get this from being covered when I cut circles of panda film to cover my 10 gallon pots (coco) to reduce evaporation. I just made an X in the middle and a slot from the center to the edge so I could place the circle around the base of the stem. The X cut flaps would fold up covering the stem base.

After several days like this and the coco never being very dry, I noticed the base of the stem getting a little funky, sorta pale and sickly where the flaps covered it, otherwise roots and the rest of the plant were extremely healthy. I cut the little flaps off so the hole was square and left a little bit of room around the stem base and the problem was fixed.

Renfro said:

damp off.

damping off is caused by that part of the stem being wet all the time.

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thank you for confirming my suspicions.the plants are breaking off at the dirt level,they are clones and losing too many as putting into 25 gal bags.

mikeold99 said:

thank you for confirming my suspicions.the plants are breaking off at the dirt level,they are clones and losing too many as putting into 25 gal bags.

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Renfro said:

On older plants that have an advanced case of root rot the base of the stem can get sickly.

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is that what this appears to be?

AnonymousConnoisseur44 said:

View attachment 4687159
is that what this appears to be?

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Hmm, I can't say for sure, higher resolution at that scale would be required so I could see it more clearly, Is it physical damage or something fungal I can't say for sure, I would gently move the loose soil away from the base of the plant and see how things look just below the soil level.

There are many fungal conditions like "damping off" and root rot itself is a broad term with more than one fungal entity involved. All of these conditions are caused by too much moisture. If the medium is constantly saturated then there isn't enough oxygen in the root zone and you can get mold / mildew growing on top of the medium and even the base of the plant itself. Usually once a stem becomes "woody" it can tolerate more but the saturated roots can rot out from under the plant and with advanced cases the base of the plant can turn brown/grey and you can start seeing branches just wilt and where they intersect the main stem you can see that junction looks unhealthy.

The key to stopping these conditions is simply less moisture. Allowing the soil to dry out more between watering and ensuring adequate drainage. Outdoor plants should not have a depression around the base of the plant where water can pool when it's raining, instead a little mound action to keep water draining away is a good thing, especially if it rains a lot where you are.

If growing outdoors and mother nature is raining on your parade you may need to sort out a tarp/plastic covering for the area under the plant, this could limit the saturation to some degree although I would also be watching for bud rot and other types of mold / mildew.

It was in a jiffy cube, With no sign of this it was in a party cock with no sign of this or that I really noticed but now it’s in a 1 gallon smart pots and now I notice it I gently dug around the base and this is as far as I can go before entering the cube

Here is the above looking health, The pistol tips look slightly brown

Resist the temptation to water too often. When the medium is dry and feels really light then we water it real good and then wait for the medium to dry again before watering again. Over watering is not about how much, it's about how often.

Renfro said:

Resist the temptation to water too often. When the medium is dry and feels really light then we water it real good and then wait for the medium to dry again before watering again. Over watering is not about how much, it's about how often.

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How do these routes look to you I slowly pushed away the soil and then ran water over to expose the rest I do use advanced nutrients B-52 with that caused the routes to look like this or do you think it’s shot

The brown ones worry me, thats the start of something not good.

The white is healthy root and the brown is root rot. The fact you can see both white and brown roots eliminates the possibility of staining as they would all be stained.