I currently have 12 clones growing that consist of 3 strains. I am having an issue with my rock Bud that has just appeared over the last 2 days. The problem I am seeing is some droopiness/lack of perkiness. In the last 2 days temperatures have been near 90 or above with 85% + Relative Humidity levels. I guess my questions are: 1) Is it possible these symptoms I see are do to humidity and the plants inability to transpire with the air being so saturated? 2) Should I move the 2 Rock Bud to complete shade until the HHH conditions subside? 3) Has anyone else seen these symptoms with this strain under these conditions before? 4) Do you see where I have done anything wrong in my grow to have caused this myself? 5) Lastly, is there anything I could do different the next time around in order to insure this does not happen again? This is the URL to my grow it has all details and pics of my current grow. If any other information is needed to diagnose my problem please ask and will do my best to get info. http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/864818-pics-first-grow.html Thank you all in advance for any help or suggestions you may have. Sorry if this is a no brainer for some of you but this is my first grow. I have really taken pride in how it has gone and this is the first sign of trouble I have had. I apologize for my ignorance.
MGB most likey your plants are suffering a bit from the heat. I have cherry/grape tomatoes in 5 gallon smart pots that droop in the afternoon sun. But after a little water and shade thay perk right back up. I think the sun hitting the black fabric of the smart pots gets things heated up a little too much. I guess the fix could come with reasonable temps or if you could somehow change their environs a bit that could help. Perhaps a afternoon mist could help cool them down, and maybe wet the outside of the pots. I think that helps my tomatoes. The good news is as long as it does not go on forever the plants do bounce back fairly quick...good luck.....MIW
MGB, living in the desert I saw a lot of droop in my tomatoe plants/pepers, etc. during the day. The one thing that helped was purchasing sun screen fabric (beige) that I draped on poles over the plants during the hottest parts of the day - 1pm-5pm. My plants got some intense light from about 9-1 which was plenty. The fabric I used was bought at a big box. They have it in 4'rolls and you cut to length what you need. Using this fabric, you can mist your plants during these hot periods for relief and not risks burning the leaves due to having water droplets on the leaves while the sun is so intense. Hope that helps, MGB. Oh, also, some foliar spraying (after/near sunset)with kelp extract/seaweed fertilizer solution will help with the stress created by the heat. I can't remember what else, but I think those were two you could use to help your plants out with the heat stress. JaK
Good call Jakrustle, I think liquid silica is what you were trying to remember, it helps strengthen leaf tissue, and helps with heat.....MIW
Dear MGB, Here's another update on the silica story. If your plants are drooping and your roots are looking okay (not waterlogged or rotted off or chemical burned with NPK fertiliser salts) you may have boron deficiency instead of silica deficiency, or you may be boron deficient as well as silica deficient. This would show up as hollow stem marijuana, though you may not want to cut your plant off 20 cm (8 inches) below the top to see. Boron is potent, so don't just go get a box of borax and whack in spoonful into 5 litres (about 1.3 gallons) of water and stir it up and water your plant with it. You only want about 2 or 3 parts per million in your soil mix. It's hard to measure that fine, so you have to be careful. First, borax is 20% boron, and that means if you took a gram of it in 2 litres (slightly more than a half gallon) of water you would have a 1 part in 10,000 solution. If you took that and added it to a 6 gallon bucket and filled it up (to 6 gallons) you would have a 1:100,000 solution. If you used about a pint a day to water a 5 gallon bucket of soil it would take you 8 days to raise the boron level of the soil approximately a tenth of a part per million in boron. 2 tenths of a ppm is all I would shoot for as an safe adjustment, and if I had access to it I would mix in liquid humic acid to buffer it and feed it to the soil fungi as the intermediary to getting it into the plant. Signs of over-doing it are the plant starts to burn and turn brown at the leaf margins and leaf tips. This is where boron get the sap pressure of the plant up high enough to push sodium out the leaf margins, and it is sodium that does the actual burning. If this happens the solution to too much sap pressure is to build a stronger transport (capillary) system, and that involves getting more silica into the plant from the soil up. I have a few formulas for that, depending on what you have available in your local area, but an easy one is to go to a store where they sell bulk herbs and buy a pound or two of dried horsetail. Simmer this for 20 minutes in 3 gallons of water, cool it off and water with this for a few days. You might want to water all your plants with this as it will make them stockier and richer with resin and essential oils because it will enhance photosynthesis. More later if you're interested. Best wishes, Hugh Lovel If you're interested I can describe how the boron interacts with the silica to 'dope' the capillary vessels so they suck water a bit harder and build the internal tissues of the stem more strongly.
I think they are probably just a little stressed, since it is late July. Things get a little warm in most parts. Like others have said, my veggies show this. My squash look like they are dead some days it is really scorching. I have been using a soaker hose to keep them really damp and happy. I would keep the roots really wet. Maybe water in the morning good so they are nice and wet for the hottest part of the day. Mulching around the pots can help. I've also heard giving the plant aloe helps with heat issues. Kinda makes sense with the whole sunburn thing. For next year I would use Smart Pots instead of 5 gallon buckets. They dissipate the heat better and make the roots much healthier. I would say your current plants look pretty good.
Hugh Lovel, First I would like to welcome you to Grasscity and thank you for your contributions. We encourage discussion and debate here and having a member with your credentials is a good thing for our community. I'm especially interested in your reference to horsetail Equisetum arvense. A few of us here are just beginning to understand and use botanical based fertilizers that we make from plants either harvested wild or grown specifically. Stinging nettle, comfrey, yarrow, horsetail and chamomile are but a few of the botanical infusions we're experimenting with at the moment. I have Horsetail, comfrey, and yarrow growing on my property, and have stinging nettle available to me on family property. One of our regulars is feeding his medical and vegetable garden solely with botanical teas both as a food source and to prevent/control insects/PM. We're using Lavender, Rosemary and different members of the mint family for insect/fungus control and comfrey and stinging nettle for fertilizer. I for one would be interested to hear your take on these approaches to plant health and nutrition. Thanks for taking the time to post and I look forward to hearing more from you. cheers, chunk
Thank you all for your thoughts,suggestions,etc. As I said before I am all new to this. The more I try to learn the more I find out how ignorant I am to botany. MI Wolverine: Thank you for your reply. I suspect it is the heat but am not 100% sure. The droopiness is not major and it is only occurring in one of the 3 strains I am growing. Jakrustle: Thank you for your reply. After reading your post I did a tad bit of research on Silica. This is new to me so don't laugh at my question. When I googled silica I came up with products used for human skin and nails. Is this the same product you are speaking of? Hugh Lovel: Thank you for your reply. In all honesty I wish you lived near bye. To be perfectly honest your knowledge is so far and above mine that you make me feel even more ignorant then I thought I was on the subject of botany. My question to you is if provided a link to my soil, soil amendments, and Nutrients I am using, would you be able to tell me if you feel I have boron and silica content that would be proper in my grow? http://forum.grasscity.com/organic-growing/864818-pics-first-grow.html I would think the bat guano and the EWC's would have all the micro nutrients covered.As I said I am all new to this. To answer your question yes I would love to hear more from you but I am not sure if I have learned enough yet to fully comprehend what you are trying to convey to me. I am not a great book learner I am more of a hands on guy. I feel I learn better. Never the less if you are willing to teach I am willing to learn. Stankie: Thank you for your reply and the suggestion to use smart pots on my next grow. I fully plan on using your suggestion. Once again thank you to all that replied. Hopefully one day I will have the knowledge to help out a new grower so I can as you say "Pay It Forward".
Hiya MGB, Welcome to Grasscity. If you wanted to make a botanical tea that has both silicon and boron, simply find some Dandelion and harvest the leaves for a tea. Taraxacum officinale or the common Dandelion is full of elements and compounds that are beneficial to plants. Take a handful of leaves and puree in a blender full of water. Let this mixture sit for a few day and up to a week, then strain. Use 1/2 cup to 15 1/2 cups water to make a gallon and water your plants with it. If you can source horsetail as Hugh Lovel recommended, a mixture of these would make you a heat/stress tonic for your plants with little risk of damaging your plants. HTH chunk