guys im sorry to post my sick plant issues here but i really value you no-tillers/organic growers advice. i hope its OK, i just don't know what to do following up on what i posted yesterday, i noticed a couple of my clones that hadn't shown roots yet were displaying the same kind of symptoms (dying curling twisting leaves with necrosis) so i took one out of the cup, small roots for over two weeks but they look ok (to me). i didn't see anything at first but then i sprayed to soil with water to drench it, and then they came floating up, these 'springtails' ....after doing a lot of googling i thought these might be Symphilids but when i tried to capture one and put it on a plate it jumped, and then it jumped again and again, so must be some kind of springtail, right? but i thought springtails only eat decaying matter... these clones are 2 weeks from cutting, i dont see any decay, roots are white...but every friken time one of my plants has these problems i find these guys in the soil... anyway, managed to get some pics of the buggers (they are super small btw, about 1mm long) : (edit: the soil is wet here because i drenched the soil from one of the clones to get the springtails to float so i can take these pics, clone is in the garbage now) i am currently brewing a neem tea for a soil drench, also got some cigarettes soaking in water, i thought to add the nicotine solution with the neem later tonight...good idea? again im really sorry to clog this thread with my problems, im just at my wits end and i need your guys advice
You may be fighting a couple things. That mix looks like it needs more aeration to me. It shouldn't be muddy and pooling water on the surface like that middle picture.
I'm with Ficky, your soil looks way to wet. You should squeeze and handful of your soil and see what happens. With proper aeration and moisture, you should only see a drop or 2 of water come out and when you open your hand it should practically fall back apart. If your ring out a bucket of water and your left with a clump of mud in your hand, something is off.
the mix is coots clone mix 50/50 peat/ewc and its only wet because i purposefully drenched the soil to get the springtails to come out so i can take pictures. dumped out the soil into a plastic tray and flooded it with water. you can see the soil in the cups its not that wet at all.
I think that number is supposed to impress the buyer. lol The funny thing is that there are about 750,000 seeds per pound of Dutch clover so 10,000 isn't all that much.
the clone mix? its the first time im cloning with this mix. clones took their sweet time to root (15 days). in the past i have cloned in 100% coco coir and would get roots in under 10 days. then again temps were kinda low in the 70's so that might have effected the rooting time. btw the problem im having is not particularly with the clones, i posted about it yesterday but i have a mother plant showing the same symptoms and ive had plants die in the same way in the past. im not saying it is the springtails causing it but i do find them in the soil every time. the mother plant is in a sip so it cant be overwatered i dont think. my other mother plants are doing fine.
Think again. You can overwater in a SIP causing root zone issues if there is insufficient aeration at the bottom of the container. This is precisely the reason I pulled all the support media out of my SIPS and have the geoplanters resting on net pots filled with lava/hydrotron. I also mix the pots heavy aeration at the bottom decreasing the amount as I filled the pots. That was a while ago, no-till ftw! With my SIPs I feel the bottom of the pot. If wet let the res drop down until it's damp for a few days. Then refill. It's your garden my man, I can just comment on what I see. If that clone mix is working for you, more power to ya.
If you are still convinced its a pest, look up rust/russet mites. I hope for you it is not them. The description above sounds similar. They are really small about the size of trichomes and look like a mite crossed with a grub, 2 pairs of legs and yes "a spring locomotion tail". Often, they suck the life out of gardens before they are noticed and come in on shared cuttings.
I don't recall Coot saying his cloning mix was 50/50 peat and ewc. I know he had at least some kind of aeration in there. Most people have been seeing better results with a peat heavy clone mix with just about 10-20% ewc and properly aerated. HTH Solo
From what I have in my notes CC says 60/40 SPM/EWC mix and look at your SPM to determine if you need aeration. From my notes: <div>[SIZE=10pt]"You'll have to look at your SPM to determine if you need any aeration materials. What you want to use are the 'strings' of SPM vs. the fines/powder. Hydrate the SPM separately with water to insure that it is completely wet. [/SIZE] [SIZE=10pt]Sphagnum peat moss is a good choice because SPM contains disease-suppression compounds and vermicompost has been shown to accelerate the rooting process that you can review at YouTube using 'Cornell University vermicompost' as a search text string. [/SIZE] [SIZE=10pt]A 60/40 will give you very good results. "[/SIZE] </div>
those sips are made of airpots, the mix is very light and aerated. like i said ive had this problem with different plants in different mixes. ive only had sip for these specific mothers (its not really a sip its a burried plastic bottle with a wick sticking out of it and wraped around the bottle) but out of 3 mothers 2 are doing fine and one is sick, i treat all the same and water the same. ive scoped the plants up and down, nothing on the leaves or stems. only these springtails you see in the pics i posted above. i had a hard time getting a good focus since they are so small but they look exactly like this Temperate White Springtail: tbh i eyeballed it. but again im not concerned with the clones or the cloning mix. it just happened that 2 clones out of about 30 started showing the same symptoms as one of my mother plants, and plants that died on me in the past, one of which was in coco/perlite/compost mix and another was in a store bought soil. all the same symptoms and same end result, dead plants. i have 28 more clones that are doing great. i actually transplanted my first no-till just yesterday with some of them. my 100gallon SOG no-till
Yeah I always forget about how I layered lava rock in the bottom 2-3" of each smart pot, til I go to pick them up. Helps quite a bit in keeping the soil aerated while on a SIP tray, or elevating it off a concrete floor without one.
took the plant out of the ollas sip smartpot and, kinda hard to tell if the roots are ok or not since they are covered in DE. but the whole medium was bone dry! even though the bottle was full of water, the wick wasnt working for some reason...strange since i have the exact same setup for her two sisters and they are doing fine. anyway, i gave it a neem/kelp tea i had brewing since yesterday (all the plants and the no-till got a soak as well) and transplanted into a regular plastic pot with some extra soil i had from my no till. the other mother plants in the airpot ollas setup looking a lot better. in any case, i have clones of each of them and i was planning on making new mothers in smarpots with my extra coot soil mix i have. i just hope its really just a problem with the medium drying out and not fudging root aphids. i guess time will tell? anyway thanks for putting up with me i really appreciate you guys helping out.
Ain't that the truth. All I kept thinking while moving 150+ gallons of soil was "thank god I won't have to do this for a long time". GiMiK on the Essential oils - if using say 2-3 different oils is it 1-2ml each or is it 1-2ml of oil total?
1-2 mL per oil, per gallon is what I do. I usually keep it to ~1 mL a gallon, 3 mL per chapin once a week.
Thanks GiMiK and CW! Big bonus is the wife likes the smell of the new ipm. "Not like the dirt smell" from the Spino. Mrs Ficky : "What now, are you giving them aroma therapy. Like a damn spa in there?" Me: "Why yes it is, I serve them coconut water and spray them down with aloe and lavendar. Then they put out." Mrs Ficky: rollseyes
Perhaps Mrs. Ficky (and yourself, of course) would benefit from an application of coco/aloe/lavender?