Hi folks, I've been reading this forum for a long time, have been growing for a few years and for the first time I have encounter a problem that is ruining my crop for the second time in a row. I cant find out what is the cause of this and as you imagine Im getting pretty frustrated . The leaves edges are closing up as you can see in the pics attached. Strain is Withe Fire OG, 5 weeks veg, lights T5 and a stealth Grow Led 1250. Temps are always around 70/75f, humidity varies from 50 to 75%. So its not a heat issue. I just got an RO system cause I thought the reason was the water is too hard. But it didn't fix the problem. I show this to other growers I know and nobody could find out whats the reason why this happening yet. My last crop already went to waste cause all new growth was closing up as you can see in the pics. I wonder if any of you had this problem before. i use calmag, superthrive, botanicare pure blend 4-2-3, ph 5,8-6,00. I will really appreciate your help. Thanks.
When leaves curl upwards like that in to like a taco shape its usually one of two things heat stress or a magnesium deficiency. What kind of soil are you using? If your using regular soil then your PH run off is to low and is locking out calcium, magnesium and phosphorus.
Hi tplat, I was using Pro Mix on the first round, it was retaining moist for days and days (it really never got dry). I thought that was the cause of the problem so In this round I changed this for a mix of coco and perlite. I aim to have a 5,8 Ph, My veg lights are a T5 and an 1250w led reflector, temps are usually about 70s never higher, lights barely emit any heat. The strain in this case is the white fire (first round was alien OG, and got sick the same way) After feeding them I usually check the Ph of the drained water and its about 6,0. Thank you so much for replying, really appreciated your help. Im attaching more pics (this is how the development of this deficiency/toxicity/stress disorder looks like. Once again thank you.
When using coco ignore the PH run off and go by the PH going in. The PH run off coming out of coco will not be accurate. So you go by the PH going in not coming out. That's what I was told by Ed in the coco growing section of the forum. He and his wife are the coco growing gurus here. Also how tall are your plants and how big of a grow pot are you using? Also since your growing in coco he would be the person I would be talking to about your grow problems as he will know a lot more about coco grows then I do. All he does is coco grows while I do regular soil grows. I tried coco a few times and went back to soil. I remember you mentioned you got a water filter for hard water, we also have hard water that will leave water stains on your car windows. I don't sweat the hard water at all and only let it sit out for 24hrs to evaporate the chlorine. Our hard water has a lot of calcium in it and has an average PH of 7.2 year around. Its soft water or water with chloramine in it I would worry about getting a multi stage water filter or if your on well water and don't know what all is in it.
Also another question: did you rinse your coco good before using. Some coco brands from what I read are high in salts which is really bad and need to be rinsed out. The last time I read up on coco some brands pre-rinsed theirs and some didn't.
I was using 5 gal pots on the first round with pro mix (was extremely wet, never dried out), now I am using 3 gal pots coco, perlite (gets dry between feeds), plants are about 5 feet tall, 5 1/2 weeks sativa dominant, feed 3 times a week, flushed. they are on their way to bloom 12/12 as soon as i can address the cause of this curling edges. I am on well water, out of the tap is 300ppm, now since I got the RO system and went down to 6 ppm out of the filter. I thought this was going to fix the problem, clean water would be out of any type of excessive minerals. But this leaves curling up once again are proving me wrong. I would check the coco growing section, Thanks for the advice. I even start wondering if my ph Bluelab is giving me the right measurements. Someone was telling me today about moisture stress. This are two clones i recently got from a friend, they are on a 2 by 4 tent, with a fluorescent light, after 7 days of feeding them a very mild solution they are starting to curl up already just as the ones on the previous pics. Its nice to have challenges, but this one is taking me a bit long to figured out.
RO water removes a lot of the calcium and magnesium out of the water that the plants can use so you need to replace that which it sounds like your doing with the Calmag. When was the last time you calibrated your PH meter? Also don't go by the PH run off reading in coco go by the PH going in. Also I would not do 5 foot tall plants in 3 gallon pots you could also be running in to root bound issues which can also affect nutrient uptake. From what I was told as plants get root bound the roots can start to harden up reducing nutrient uptake. As for moisture stress I never heard of that but wouldn't rule it out since your humidity is really high. I`ve had high humidity a few times in flowering up around 75% but never had curling leaves like that. One way you can test your meter would be to go through the calibration process using like the Bluelab 7.0 solution and soak it in it for 2 minutes then when you press the calibration button press the one for the 4.0 calibration and if you get an error then your meter should be fine. A rep from Bluelab told me that how they have a customer check the meter for an error.
Thanks, yes I will check my PH meter, hope is not really good calibrated, I think the same about the 3 gal pots, I would prefer 5 gal pot,the person that teach me uses 3 gal pot and has no problems. Last crop was 5 gal pot, 2 1/2 feet tall plant and I had the same problem. The ones I am working now are almost 5 feet tall cause Ive been trying to address this problem for the last 9 days, they are sativas an streching way too much. The small two clones in the pics i attached in the last message ar in 1 gal pot, they are very small and they are showing the same disorder, so there is not rot root in this case. This time Roots look white and smells ok. I am in trouble again cause i need to put them into bloom asap and this problem is still there. Im checking my PH meter today, lets see what does it say. I also was going to follow your advice and post this on the coco section. Thanks for all the advice, I will keep trying to find the solution. really appreciated your help.
Bluelab makes dam good meters. I have the Bluelab Combo meter that I bought about 4 years ago and only replaced the PH probe once. Other then that never had any problems with it even when only needing to calibrate it every 30 days. Always keep the PH probe wet don't let them dry out or they can give false readings and need calibrated or replaced. What Bluelab meter do you have? I remember reading that when they came out with a new pen style meters some did have problems. I would be looking at either your meter needs calibrated or your humidity is causing a problem similar to heat stress or magnesium deficiency. Since your now using RO water you may need to use Calmag with every water and or feed. But your humidity is also a main problem with it being up in the 70`s. warm humid environment is a breeding ground for mold and powdery mildew PM for short. You might want to invest in a good dehumidifier or a window AC with dry air function if possible.
I do have AC, humidity goes really high after spraying. But usually stays about 50/60 (kind of high). The dehumidifier works almost as a heater, the dry air coming out of it is really hot and raise the temperature of the whole room... to fight that (and the heat from the lights)( double ended, air cooled ) I have a split 30k btu and the dehumidifier 60 pint, on constant. (My electrical bill is so expensive is almost depressing) I did have some PM problems in the past but i spray pretty often with a solution with milk and water, and other times with a baking soda solution and takes care pretty much of it and is under control. I am attaching a picture of the PH Blue lab pen i use. (by the way i havent calibrate it for months and months) I will start from there, calibrating the tool and see what happens.
If I remember correctly I read that some Bluelab PH pens when they first came out had problems. I never had to use a dehumidifier but thought they worked kind of like a portable AC where you vent the hot air out. I`m not a fan of misting or spraying plants unless I`m taking care of a problem. For example spraying for bugs or foliar feeding to help a plant recover from a deficiency quicker other then that I don't mist or spray. To me unless theres a need to why do something that can cause another problem. I would calibrate it right away you might not be getting a good accurate reading. Then after calibrated I put it back in the 7.0 and 4.0 solutions to check its accuracy, remember to rinse the probe off in water in between going from the 7.0 to 4.0 calibration solution. If you ahvent got any calibration solution yet only go with the Bluelab brand calibration solutions. Are you misting the plants while the lights are on?
Yes, I am going to take your advice and take care of the calibration. Im spraying with the lights off, just to take care of some pm spots i found here and there. Agree with you, not need to spray frequently unless is to help the girls recovering from something wrong. This is pretty confusing, I think it is not related to the genetics (since i am using a different strain but having same issue), is not the water (cause I'm using an RO system and feeding the right amounts of nuts), its not heat (temps never go higher than 75ish, lights are a mix of led and fluorescent on my veg), but i could be wrong. Things I'm considering: I did have serious problems with nitrogen toxicity and other nitrates on my last crop (one of the reasons i got the RO system, im on well water) Ventilation could be better Ph pen could be not accurate. Im runnng out of options and the girls keep stretching. Do you think i need to transplant them to 5 gal? Ill be testing/calibrating the ph pen tonight, I really hope thats the problem! Thank you for sharing your knowledge with me.
Hiha tPlat Idont know if this helps but i had the same thing and it was caused by a cat using my pots as a litter tray Idont know if you have cats but whatever is in the urine must have been rich enough to cause somekind of nutrient lockout and screw with the PH So i suspect you aught to flush and stablise good luck cos i know how frustated you must be getting
urine is very rich in nitrogen so it could be that and also to much nitro will delay flowering considerably THE JOY OF GIVING IS THE JOY IN LIVING
Do you add nutrients every time you water the plants? I had a plant that ruined by adding too much nutrients one day, the plant basicly died from top to bottom kinda like yours in the other picture Try not to overthink it, the way i do it is i buy ff ocean forest soil and plant the clone in there then just add water once i see some yellowing its time to add nutrients Try to keep a journal of when you added nutrients to what plant and how much
Hi FullBowlnfriday. Yes I do add calmag, a few drops of Superthrive, Botanicare blend, a touch of silica, ph down using mostly vinegar. sometimes just RO water with the right ph. Right now I am feeding by hand and treating each of them as an individual. Slightly raise the PPM since transplanting from clone, I have been using this type of schedule for a while. Not trying to over think it, but this ladies on the pics (round before, when the problem came first) were on soil and they start doing this slowly until i had to get rid of them. This is starting to appear on my new round once again so I need to think about it a little more. No pets in the house. Everything is pretty much as clean as it could be. Thank you very much for your replies.
This clones were perfectly healthy in another location. After a week of being on this new tent they are already showing the curling edges, different strain, inside a 2 by 4 tent spotless clean hosting only this 2 babies. You can notice even the lower leaves have the same problem, not just the top ones.
79% humidity is very high. If the others a fine then it might just be a pheno that doesn't like the humidity. Can you put it in a better ventilated spot and see if that helps? That is something simple that I would try........ Sent from my iPad using Grasscity Forum
Root aphids are almost invisible to the naked eye. With a magnifying glass and correct lighting, they are still difficult to see. They come in many colors and to the naked eye appear as if dust. They move slow enough that at two feed away our eyes cannot distinguish movement. I grew for four months and did not know I had them, but my plants suffered a horrific cal/mag def. that I could not fix, no matter what I tried. The buds produced and i harvested what should have been beautiful buds, but never quite developed as they should have. I started a new grow and this time my plants took a beating. The leaves began to die off bottom up and the new growth folded together as if praying, sometimes curling different ways. Nobody here knew what was going on and those that suspected root aphids said it couldnt be, because root aphids are black, except theres lot of different species of root aphids and lots of different colors. They devastated my crop, so i switched to hydro a few months later from soil and i avoided coco and other things that could easily hide root aphids, as i had read what their preferred environment was. I did hours of research, reading for 8-10 hours at a time, trying to absorb as much as i coulda bout root aphids. Ive seen a lot of threads popping up and being misdiagnosed as magnesium and calcium deficiencies the last year but most is fox farm soil, not hydro. I read one thread to about page 50 before i skipped to the end where a mod closed it and said, in capitals, you cant beat root aphids, throw our shit away and start over. I used every chemical i could after tryna use natural stuff to beat them, then went systemic and used shit i wouldnt smoke after using, to no avail. I finally through the crop and soil away, tossed all my buckets to the yard and cleaned my room top to bottom, then started over with hydroton. Few months down the road. Hope your issue is an easy fix and not raphids.
Hi pokesmot247. I think you are on the right track. After reading your post I was researching about root aphids and I found a pic online of a plant with a broad mite problem. Im attaching the pic I found. (it looks really similar to me) Im located in Northern California and there are a lot of bugs out here. (i even found a litle scorpion no too long ago) Thats the reason why I am trying to keep everything clean but It might be not enough. I changed to coco too, (as i said on a previous post, I did a lot of changes lately, RO system, Different strain, different medium, etc) sprayed everything with azmax, and clean the room spraying with a 10gal steamer with a solution of water and poison, before bringing the ladies in the room. But they could have been living on there any way. I might have to change the filters on my intake to a higher grade in case thats the place the bugs are finding their way in. A bug infestation is starting to make sense. I would keep on researching and would post any news. Thanks for pointing me on this direction.