Sweet Tooth drooping after neem oil treatment

[GOONie]

Okay so im growing in a RDWC system under a 600w hps thats 14" from my babies. The room is generally in the 70s with water temps from 67-73. RH is generally near 20 and the fan is always running since theyre under 24/0 lighting in veg. Ph has been 5.8 the last few weeks and I slowly bumped the ppms up to 1000 over the last few weeks. Doing lucas formula with GH flora series.

I sprayed the plants with a neem oil solution of 1:20ml and none of the other plants reacted like this. After I found her drooping like this I tried rinsing her off with distilled water and then I put a small fan on her for a couple hours after spraying to help dry her out and keep any mold from forming. She is still in this condition 2 days after spraying and now im starting to notice some of her leaves are getting dry and crumbly.

Heres how she used to look and heres how she looks now after the neem oil treatment.

before


after

[GOONie]

No one has any idea??

[chunkdaddyo]

If the plant's roots are in solution, and you are experiencing droop........it usually indicates root disease. Even in water, if the plant stops feeding, this will happen.

What color are your roots? Does your reservoir or your dwc buckets have light leaks? If the roots are anything but a white/slight off-white color.......you may have the beginnings of root rot. You can try adding h202 (hydrogen peroxide) to your reservoir, and do so after a complete res change.

I've never seen plants go down like that after neem treatments, and wonder if some got into the res. One other question....did you apply neem right before lights out? I've always treated with neem right before lights out......if you're on a 24/0 light schedule, you should raise the lights.

Hope you get it sorted out bro.......sucks to put so much time and devotion and have your ladies get trashed. Good luck..........chunk

[GOONie]

After I sprayed them with neem I raised the lights around 10" higher. They are in a RDWC system so if it was anything to do with that it would of affected the other plants. All roots are perfectly white. From what ive learned the temperature was too high(even at 74 F) and there was too much need applied which clogged the pores on the plant debilitating its ability to take in co2 and to output oxygen through the leaves. Also since water cannot transpire it was just building up in the stems since it couldnt come out the leaves.

I ended up chopping the plant and what I learned from this lesson is NEVER spray your plants with neem more than once every 7-10 days and its better to use a little less and treat the plants again rather than give them too much at once and loose the plants.


Oh well lessons learned, now time to get back to growing some trees!

[-mu]

The plant was suffering before the neem, from overfeeding, by the looks of it.

AND...

Neem is generally applied at a rate of around 5ml in 500ml water (with a little castile soap, to emulsify the oil and act as a spreader, very important). Isn't it?

That's a ratio of 1:100.

I find that once every fortnight, even once a month or less is plenty. In fact, I can't remember the last time I sprayed, no need. I do remember putting a thick line of neem around all entrances to the grow room, and installing a small, and extremely effective insect-catching light.

It doesn't matter too much when you spray (I personally would not spray just before lights-out, as the plant is about experience a moisture high as it is), so long as you don't put the wet plant directly back under the lamps, let it dry first, it'll be fine.

-mu

[GOONie]

Good info mu, the ratio i worked out from the ratio on my bottle (2 tbsps:1gal) I figured that I would be safe with a 1:20ml ratio with a drop or 2 of soap. Never had any problems using it at that ratio before but i guess every plant is different. If you look at my journal the plants were basically dead when I got em and I was working out some bugs in my hydro setup but its all good now and plants are doing great.

At least ill know for next round now.

[-mu]

I'm just tight, so I always start with minimal dilutions!**

In reality, Neem works in a more wholistic way than your typical magic-bullet type insecticide, so you really don't need a lot. And it should last a couple of weeks in normal conditions, repeat. The continual background smell of it on or near your plants, is enough to deter most insect species.

-mu

** Another factor which makes giving recommendations for Neem particularly challenging, is the fact that different brands of Neem have WILDLY different levels of Azadirachtin. Higher is better, because you will be putting less oil on your plants.