Prepared for the worst- Stinky??

I'm just about to give up......

My last grow ended in disaster. By the time I got the fungus gnat infestation under control, my stock had been destroyed. I assume it was a fungus; the leaves spotting, yellowing and dying and the roots, at finish, were brown and withered, not mushy. The cuttings I took from those plants all failed, all 80 of them, every one the same, curled tips and yellowed leaves. There was something that smelled in those domes that I had never smelled before. Rotting, maybe?

Needless to say, I scrapped the whole lot and started anew.
Three weeks into flower and it's like deja-vu; spots on the leaves, yellowing and dying from the bottom up. I've read until I can't read any more, deducing that I've under-fed the ladies or I've over-fed the ladies or I have a pH problem or that they're root-bound or this or that....

I did have a few gnats coming in and out, figured they were camping out in the houseplants so I Bti'd everything in the house with each watering until no more gnats, the little fuckers.

Otherwise, I'm using Fox Farms Ocean Forrest (with which I experienced a bit of nute burn on my seedlings) and adjusting my nute solution to 6.8, feeding 1/4 suggested Alaska Morbloom every other water with one big flush at about three weeks into flowering. Runoff has never been out of range. Under 24 hours of florescent light, they were beautiful. Switched to 12/12 250W HPS, each is turning to shit the same way.

In a hurry, I took cuttings and flowered the mothers right away, not waiting for the cuttings to root. Now, they're failing in the same way I had experienced before, yellowing with ram's horns and that smell (what is it?!). They are ten days old and have been in a humidity dome near 80% humidity, 75-85 degrees F and have had a 65W CFL close enough to keep the temps up and steady. I have lost a few to damping off, they just fell over, but the rest look like they are dying a slow, painful death.

Until my last fail, I had a running 95% success rate with cloning. Now I can't get *one* to root. What am I to do?!?! Is all hope lost?!

Thanks!

some more of the flowering plants.

they all look great from the top.....

and, finally, the cuttings

E-indoor
E-soil
E-soil
CSL-Fox Farms Ocean Forrest
SCL-Fox Farm Grow Big, Superthrive, Gnatrol, Blackstrap Molasses
SCLR-runoff, 6.8
E-tap water
E-7.0
E-10weeks, 3 in flower
E-Alaska Morbloom,
E-every other water, once a week
E-flower, 250 HPS @ 1.5 ft. cuttings, 65W CFL @ 1 ft.
E-flower, 65-80F, cuttings 75-85F
E-Flower, 40% cuttings, 70-90%
E-flower 12/12 cuttings 24/0
E-flower, dual in-line with passive intake. cuttings, none
TR-peat pellets, no

Hmm.

Are you keeping the dome for the clones moist, And not the actualle plant it self?

My plants look amazing and Ive never had problems like this.
Id try to help you, But rusty trichrome will probly read this later, "Apparently I dont know what Im talking about"

I have been spraying the inside of the lid a couple of times a day with a fine mist and hit the pellets as they dry out, never the cuttings themselves.
I'm also leaving the lid off for a while longer every day to try to encourage them to grow.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by spiked666killer

Hmm.
Id try to help you, But rusty trichrome will probly read this later, "Apparently I dont know what Im talking about"

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Rusty has a big mouth,I've seen his pic's he's not that good.I dont think he even HAS a grow log...He just like's to insult people,and make long winded post's with big word's,to make himself look smart.

It look's like a deficiency, which one? Im not sure.I use General Hydroponics 3 part for my plant's,It has all of the trace element's in it.So i never need to worry about what they're not getting.My advice is to try a more well rounded nutrient program.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by pfunk211

I have been spraying the inside of the lid a couple of times a day with a fine mist and hit the pellets as they dry out, never the cuttings themselves.
I'm also leaving the lid off for a while longer every day to try to encourage them to grow.

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I have seen and had all of those symptoms you are showing. Unfortunately I wasn't scientific about the cure, so many things could be wrong. In fact I think many things are wrong.

When I got the spots as shown, I suspected a root fungus or heavy nutrient/PH burn. If this is the case, we destroyed the roots and it will take quite some time to repair. If so, foliage feeding is our best shot. If the clones have heavy root damage, it could be as long as a month before they are back. The ones that don't die that is.

You let your clones dry out? Not me.

Those grow bags are convenient, but I would worry about root damage from moving them. For that reason, I prefer cheap rigid plastic pots. That way, root damage is minimized when moved/turned.

Dry? They look dry too. If you are worried about root rot, mist the tops of the soil to prevent drying. In fact, a slightly moist surface will help keep things flowing by "Wicking" the excess moisture up, and allowing water to penetrate down when you do water.

You listed PH for your tap and runoff. What was your Nutrient solution PH? Did I miss something? I have experienced a huge swings in PH using organic ferts. Foxfarm, which I am using now, may be part of the problem as well. Makes me think something is out of whack with their consistency.

That Alaska stuff you are using doesn't have any nitrogen. Even with good soil you should consider a fert with some nitrogen even during the bloom phase. It also may be void of other needed nutrients.

Although your posted temps seem fine to me, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a heat issue. Ambient room temps are lower than what the plants experience directly under the light. Also if there is a root problem then they may just not be soaking up enough water even if the temps are OK.

MY FIX
Is the same no matter what the problem is.

Spray/mist with
1 qt water
1/4 tsp hydrofarm grow
1/4 tsp hydrofarm bloom
1/4-1/2 tsp hydrofarm micronutients

The micro has some calcium (A big issue with tap water), but using a 1/4 tsp of Botanicare CAL-Mag may help too.

Sure the above aren't technically organic but they are all derived from natural sources and purified in a lab. You also want something that will be taken up quickly since you are fixing a problem

I didn't mean to suggest that I let the peat pellets dry, or even near dry, completely. Once they start to turn light brown on the top, I give them about 10cc of plain water. I've read, over and over, not to mist the cuttings directly as the roots will be prompted grow in search of water. There are no visible roots yet; my clones are only cuttings so far.

All of the temps taken were from the tops of the leaf canopy, whether in veg or flower room. Greenhouse effect adds about seven degrees F to the cuttings when I cover them with the dome. I'm finding that the cuttings are standing easy with hours of no dome and very low humidity, about 30%.

I'm mostly concerned with the cuttings and getting them to root. If the plants that the cuttings came from have Pythium, as I understand, the cuttings will also have Pythium systemically. If they only have a nutrient disorder, we can fix that pretty easily.

It's pretty hard, though, gauging what is going on by looking at pictures: P deficiency mimics fungus; under-fert looks like fert burn; gnat larvae cause everything to look like everything else.....

I feel like all I can do is keep the variables in check and wait to see if they fall over on me one day. I just hope someone shows up with a "I know what's going on".

I appreciate your time, friends.

Which products are you using on both, the clones and flowering ladies?
How much Superthrive are you using for clones? How much for the adults?
Mixing brands is a bad idea. Some doubling and trippling of ingredients is the hazard. (especially with the micronutes and heavy metals...blackstrap molasses can magnify this problem)
Growbags are fine if you never move them around. If you move them around, roots get smashed and broken.
How much molasses, and how often? (look-up the blackstrap ingredients)

Since you are having problems with both clones and adults, I'd look into the additives you are giving.
In the mean time, would stop the Superthrive and molasses till the plants are looking better. (you aren't giving the clones molasses, are you?)
How are you testing ph of your runoff?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Divestoned

Rusty has a big mouth,I've seen his pic's he's not that good.I dont think he even HAS a grow log...He just like's to insult people,and make long winded post's with big word's,to make himself look smart.

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Compared to you, who opens his mouth and removes all doubt about his maturity and skill levels? Aww...widdle stoned diver is bummed nobody is asking his expert advise, and feels he has to lash-out at every opportunity. Perhaps it's past nappy-time?

But once an ignorant prick, always an ignorant prick. Get you diagnosis correct every once in a while, and perhaps we won't have to keep correcting inappropriate and sub-standard advise you offer as remedies. I'm still waiting for you to get even one diagnosis and treatment plan correct.

Perhaps you should chose a different hobby, because you really suck at this one, but hey, every class has a clown. And I guess you're it this semester.

The cuttings' pellets got misted once with 1 drop of superthrive and one drop pf 6-4-4 in a quart of water for a bit and the dome was misted with that same mix for a week or so then I switched to straight water.
The flowering plants get one drop per gallon of ST and only once did I get up to a 1/2 strength nutrient mix from the normal dose of 1/4. I've only mixed Grow Big and Morbloom once, after the flush, and they were both at 1/8 strength. They've only gotten molasses once, 1Tbsp/gal and that is just before I noticed the "burn" the worst.

The cuttings exhibit an entirely different set of symptoms. Number one, not rooting. Two, sporadic yellowing. Three, leaf tips curling up into tight little horns.

I only notice "burn" or "spots" on the fan leaves, too. The growth underneath is lush and green....

I test the pH regularly by watering one plant a little extra, 100ml or so, catching the runoff and measuring it with a pH test kit for aquariums, three drops and blue-blue green.

Here's another, almost related question:

A 20-20-20 nutrient solution at 1/4 strength would be a 5-5-5 solution, right?
Is there any need to dilute a 6-4-4 then?!

I did notice, during a transplant into bigger bags, that the most effected plant's roots were oh-so-not-white, rather brown but not "mushy". This was after the molasses dose, so I figured maybe they were stained, but the others were pretty much snow white.

I lost three Philodendrons to root-rot over the winter.

If one cutting from an infected plant was introduced to my humidity dome, the whole dome would be lost, right?

Coincidence??

Could it only take one gnat with one spore attached to fuck me?!

I can't get past this idea of fungus even though I have been meticulous with my watering/feeding schedule.

I'm pulling (what's left of) my hair out here!

20-20-20 and 5-5-5 is the same thing. It's Ratio's I believe.

Just a couple of suggestions...
Clones:
Nitrogen and hormones (ST) can slow or prevent root formation.
No nutes or molasses for clones till well rooted.
When misting the dome, clean, ph'd water only. You don't want to feed the leaves, you want to force her to form roots to feed herself.
Open dome once or twice a day for a few minutes. This provides fresh air and mold prevention, but never let the pucks dry-out.

Adults:
I'd back-off the molasses. Most I use is 1 tsp per gallon, once a week at most. Otherwise I start to see yellowing, spotty neckrosis on fans, and bright yellowing of the new growth. (if I let it continue without flushing, that is)
I'd stop mixing the nutes from different manufacturers. Plus, Grow Big is a veg nutrient not intended for flowering plants. Is that why the weird ratios and quantities...?
Morebloom is 0-10-10, right...? Way too much potash.
Testing runoff with the aquarium ph test kits is deceiving. The tinting of the water skews the results, and are thusly inaccurate. Works great for clear water, though.

I'd Flush the ladies well, and while you are waiting for them to dry, see if you can get ahold of some quality veg nutes, and a solid flower nute, (I use and recommend the Fox Farms...even comes with a handy nutrient schedule online) but you'll need to get your N-P-K ratio's in line. With that much potash, I'm guessing your ph is way high as a result.

yeah, the only reason i mixed the nutes after the flush was to get a little nitrogen into the mix, since the morbloom is a 0-10-10. for some reason, i thought adding a 6-4-4 to a 0-10-10 would make a 6-14-14 and two 1/8 strength doses would make one 1/4 strength dose.

also, the aquarium test kits read bright yellow for anything under 6.0 and blue for anything over 7.0. i'm aiming for blue-green, about 6.8.

i never mix my solutions the night before, something i have read is done often as nutrient solutions become unstable? is this accurate, i.e, an adjusted solution will shift further as time goes on??

could the yellowing of your fan leaves after molasses be because the pH of molasses is 5.0 or worse? like i said earlier, i noticed the worst of the burn after i added molasses the first (and only) time.

something else and i can't believe i didn't consider/remember this before:

as seedlings, i almost lost one of my kids to damping off. it looked beat with the brown ring just at the soil line. i nursed it through because it was one of the only two purple g seeds i had left and didn't want to bin it. slowly, it grew into a young lady and was one of the first to give me cuttings (all of which are dead and gone) and be flowered. i marked the purple g with a blue paper clip. the plant i mentioned before with the oh-so-not-white roots has a blue paper clip.

so the little shit had a form of root rot when it was a seedling, right? and that doesn't just go away, right?!

it also makes sense that my plants are becoming symptomatic as i introduce them to my flowering room as that is where lady g has been since i threw the lights, i think.

fungus, fungus, fungus.......

in the future, i'll use rapid rooters instead of peat pellets and light warrior for seedlings/clones instead of ocean forest. happy frog is loaded with beneficial, too, i think.

since no damp has been pulled, does anyone have a suggestion of a good drench for killing root rot spores??

No clue about the possible fungus, but I'm sure there's someone out there with experience in dealing with those issues, and I try never to comment unless I am pretty certain. I live in the desert where it's much easier to dry soil out, than it is to keep them moist enough to cause problems.

Use nutes the same day they're mixed, and stir before use.

If you use the same components every time time you fertilize, your ph may be ok, but I'd have to verify before committing to that. Hard to ph the water after adding nutes, unless the nutes are clear. But it would really be nice to get an accurate runoff ph number. And I'm not sure which would win the ph battle of the ingredients over the long-haul...molasses or potash.

I'm not sure what you mean, "hard to pH the water".

The nutes I use are clear and the water is pH neutral, so it seems pretty easy, lest I'm not as chock full of common sense as I think I am: I add pH Up to my acidic nutrient solution and all is well. It was a little more difficult to adjust when molasses was in the mix, but even with a brown tint it was pretty easy to see when brown/yellow turned brown/green.

I'm in the desert as well and still found it easy to be a little too liberal with my watering can before, as I, once upon a time, had to use miracle grow soil and tried to fix the pH problems it caused. Lesson learned the hard way.

This is why I'm dumbfounded now. I'm only using the best ingredients (aside mixing nutrient labels, which I will fix), measuring the amount of liquid that is administered and following validated advice to a T.

With cloning, I never had to do anything but cut them, dip them in hormone/fungicide, stick them in peat pellets and wait. within two weeks, I had roots, almost 100% of the time. After my "fungus grow", I follow the same procedure as I always have, only rather than the end result being roots, it's dead cuttings, yellow and spindly, twisted and sad.

I really wanted to save the stock; purple g is one of my favorites and strawberry cough is delicious and nutritious, but I fear that I am doomed.

I'll keep reading and will know one thing for sure within a couple of weeks. It may be too late.

Again, I appreciate your time and interest and am glad that you people care enough to help.

P

My nutes are a geen, a brown, and a tan. I've also used nutes that were pink, yellow, red, orange, clear and purple, which was why I made the statement, and even included the 'clear' nute disclaimer. So what's the confusion...beyond thinking that just a little tint is of no consequence to a color chart. But as long as you are comfortable with an 'in the ballpark' number, so am I.

If you are looking for miracle cures for the fungus or whatever it is...someone else will have to assist. Honestly, I've never had a fungus or mold issue but would assist if I could.

I stated what I believe will help, and what preventative measures to take to increase chances of future success. I understand your wanting to save the strain, but given the info you provided, and previous posts...the only other thing I can think of is to take clones from healthy parts, use fresh soil, and keep the old soil away from the fresh. Before importing new clones though...perhaps a bleach wipe-down, and clean the pots with bleach, too.

don't know what i was thinking. the grow big is green and the morbloom is brown. when added to a gallon of water, they seem clear. guess that's where my head was.

when gauging pH, i guess i'm happy with a "ballpark", that is above 6 and below 7. the consensus is 6.3-6.8 in soil.

there were "miracle cures" for fungi on the market, e.g., no damp or hydroguard, but the fda has pulled them from the market. the lady at the grow store has something she says is "sure fire" against pythium. i don't remember the name but i remember the price tag; $70 for a like a 4 ounce bottle.

i'm more interested now in preventative measures for the next time. i thought i did a pretty good job cleaning before this round, but it seems i was wrong. i blame the goddamn gnats, the sneaky shits.

for anyone else reading, trying to figure out a situation like this- you cannot take cuttings/clones from a plant that is infected with pythium as it is systemic (works from within the plant). if a mother plant has it, the clones will have it as well. this i know from experience and i am pretty sure the fda has pulled any systemic fungicide from the market. if i'm wrong, please let me know- it would make my day.

thanks again for your help.

Rusty, Divestoned what the hell is going on? What's with the insults? Did this start back in the following thread or sooner:

http://boards.cannabis.com/plant-pro...ml#post1978428

You both know what you're doing when it comes to growing can't we all just chill? What am I supposed to do? I'm not going to edit out the flaming from the posts in thsi thread and deleting them loses some good advice in those posts? Come on wtf?

If the two of you have some issue you two need to figure it out without flaming or else ignore each other. It's been a long weekend and I have a busy week coming up with very little time off and I don't want to deal with this again. All the mods here are busy with work or school or both right now so everyone take a deep breath. A deep breath filled with smokey sweetness! :smokin:

To the member who reported the post thanks for pointing it out but I wanted to address something because you said you were sick of seeing members attacked. We do have a no flaming or no attacks or insults or trolling. I think we do a good job of enforcing it and finding them We can't always find them and without the help of members like you reporting posts, it would be a lot harder or take longer and some posts that are breaking the rules might even go unnoticed.

Flaming can earn a warning or infraction and depended on the person's history the infraction may be enough to earn some time off.

I'm sorry you seemed upset when you reported the post but we do enforce the no flaming rule here and we try to handle these posts as quickly as possible and as fairly as possible. If I'm missing what you meant in the post report, please let me know.

Don't stop reporting by any mean! :thumbsup:

LOL sorry FBR

I'll refrain from participating in the "flaming".

Dive:stoned:

these bitches were root bound when i transplanted them last (pretty bad, too).

could that be my biggest problem??

i'm still reading.......

Root-bound could definately cause this type of issue's,If the root's arent happy noone's happy.I find that my root's are alway's about as big as my plant's...If you figure on 1 foot of plant = 1 gallon of potter,then to grow 3 foot plant's you want 3 gallon pot's.of course this is not an exact science ..simply a good rule of thumb.

Dive:stoned:

yeah, for some stupid reason i left my darlings in half gallon bags all through their veg. guess i wasn't so meticulous after all, eh?!

stupid.

i usually SOG and half gallon is plenty large, giving me about 4 per square foot.

i noticed the burn/spotting when they were about a foot and a half tall and when i transplanted, the rootballs were *tight*, especially at the bottom.

i binned a male tonight that had been transplanted a week ago into a three gallon bag. the roots in the original half gallon ball were brownish and weak looking while the roots that had grown into the fresh soil were white, hairy and strong.

we might be on to something here.....

now if i can just get those cuttings to root. they've been in the dome for two weeks. i'll give them another two and then bye-bye purple g.

when your using the expandable peat dude's in a dome,it's easy to over-water them.You want the top of the peat pot to dry a lil...but not too the point that the whole pot dries out.Having to much water sitting around a rootless piece of stalk will cause rot fast.It's not like seedling's ..clone's will rot way faster,so leave the dome open more often.

Dive:stoned:

i've been on top of that one, to the point of running the virgin pellets through the salad spinner before they ever see a cutting. i'd say after expansion, i removed about half the water from the pellets before i got started.

moist, not wet.

when they start to look like they are losing the dark brown of moistness, i mist the outer edges of the pellet, never the center, being careful to not wash off the rooting powder. outside-in, yeah?!

in two weeks, i've only had to moisten them three times, about ten pulls from the mister each.

in the first week, i misted the dome with water that had been spiked with superthrive. your buddy rusty says that's a big no-no and i believe him. it's only water from now on and we'll see how it rolls. 75-80 degrees F at 60-80% humidity. that's all i can do, 'cept wait.

feeling like a fair-weather farmer, very much.

and after this, i'm not fucking around anymore.

grabbing up some rapid rooters tomorrow and hoping that a cutting comes through that will allow me to use them soon.

i've never had issues with peat pellets before, but now i hate their guts.

psh!

If you promise not to spray the plant's directly..You can add a lil B-1 too the mister,It will help the plant to form root's and help with transplant/cloning shock.Run the PH for the clone's at around 6.8 as usual.Make changes one at a time,and give a few day's to see if it helped.Otherwise you can't be sure which change solved the problem.

Dive:stoned:

by B-1, i assume you mean superthrive?

so, ST in the pellets, not on the inside of the dome.

check.

google agrees with you.

Im a big fan of superthrive and it may have B-1, but no....You can get a bottle of B-1 pretty much anywhere that sell's plants/supply's,It may cost you 5-6 buck's.It help's when transplanting to encourage root's and prevent shock.Alittle bit of that in the cloner may help them recover.

Dive:stoned: