HELP!!! singed plants!

[Ratlady]

Hi there! We've got a friend who I shall call Boy Wonder (he always looks perpetually in wonder at everything around him); he's got a small hydroponics set-up in a miniscule cellar that looks more like a coal hole. Yesterday he went in to check how things were going only to find a catastrophe - his 1000 watt lamp had exploded, leaving the filament dangling from its connector down amidst the tops of his plants. The light had been timed to come on 5 hours earlier at 6am, so it had been hanging there - still burning - for up to a possible 5 hours.

There are scorch marks on a lot of the top leaves of his plants; the rest of the foliage looks wilted & unhealthy. Boy Wonder - in quite a state over this, understandably - is currently flushing the plants in an attempt to rinse out any stress hormones. He wanted to know if his plants are going to be ok, if flushing them has been the right thing to do, & if the 1000w bulb could have done any radiation-type damage being so close to the plants without its glass casing.

Please help! Is there anything he should or shouldn't be doing?

Thanks.

[Zandor]

Flushing out stress hormones is a new one to me. Many things cause stress but scaring them with a bulb exposition is a new one. (sorry could not resist the joke)

But the good news is I bet the flush did not hurt anything so no harm done. The most likely reason the bulb blew is water touched the hot bulb or there were fingerprints on the bulb that left behind oil or moisture of some type.

Trim off the burnt parts and save as much of the green as you can, give it another light bulb and treat it as normal. The burnt parts will not recover so just remove them and new growth should start soon around the same area.

[Ratlady]

Thanks Zandor!

Fingerprints!! Aha!

He 'flushed the stress hormones out' because he's on the edge of insanity with anxiety over these plants - boy does he need a good crop! We suspect he must have money trouble: he virtually lives in his growroom, tweaking & feeding & tying them down - place looks like a spider's web there's so much string! :D

He's an ok guy, but he really needs to throttle back a bit. Most of his plants seem to be turning out male - I think it's his vibes scaring the femininity out of them! :D Lord he's uptight!!!

Thanks for the interesting info - gonna go buff up my bulbs now! ;)

[Zandor]

Tell him to watch the temperature, if it gets to hot seedlings can turn female and even a good female can turn into a hermie.

You can't have a good crop with out proper environment control.