Semi-Bleached new growth?

[Guest Eikel]

Hello all, I've got a plant problem that has me stumped so far and I'd like some assistance.

 

My White-Skunk plant has "bleached" looking new-growth, the new leaves are not nearly as dark green and lush as the older growth.

 

The symptom started showing itself after I transferred the plants from my 400wMH vet area to my 2x600wHPS flower-box. I originally thought it was light-bleaching, or the fact the plants were transplanted into a larger pot with a coco/perlite mix where the perlite had been washed in a strong oxy-plus solution. Unfortunately it seems I am incorrect, as the problem has been here for well over 2 weeks now and my attempts (flushing, lowering-PH to 6.0) have been completely unsuccessful.

 

I see no insects upon close inspection of the plant, I can safely say that there are no scarid-fly larvae in the medium or adults around.

 

Ignore the nute burn, that actually happened last watering when I pumped the EC up to 2.0, seems this plant likes his nutes at 1.6EC or so.

 

Ideas please?

[nitram]

Hi EIkel - don't take what I say as being right - I'm new to this so I tried to go see your profile first :

 

Favourite Strain White Widow

Preferred Heads Hydroponic

My Current Grow http://cannabis.community.forums.ozstoners...?showtopic=9300

 

My White-Skunk plant has "bleached" looking new-growth, the new leaves are not nearly as dark green and lush as the older growth

 

The yellowing is going from the outter ring of the leaf to the inner. the leaf veins seem to be ok where the damage is just starting. I grow in Coco and I use the Coco A & B with no perlite. I think the Coco has good drainage & retention of feed.

 

My stab in the dark is Mg defiency easily remidied with folier spray using Epsum salts (while lights out & not past week 2-3 oef 12/12.

 

I hope they recover as it looks like your about to go 12/12.

 

Being not so good at giving advice the standard "newbie" policies apply.

 

N.

[everest]

:mellow: hey man ..... you are normally on to every aspect of your grow ....

 

so look for what you did different ?

 

too much oxy ? whats the temps like with the 600's

 

perlite ? is it the same brand .? ventilation ?

 

mmmm , walks up and down with a fully charged bong :angry:

 

i'd drop the ph to 5.7 \ 8 ...... flush again then add nutes at a quatre stength .

 

pull the lights up out of range and see how your skunk reacts .

 

keep us posted mate .

[Tom]

Congratulations on making the 1,000 post mark everest, we pretty much agreed on PH being the most likely cause in the chat last night too, mostly because we eliminated everything else, hopefully we'll se some improvement in the next day or so.

 

[Guest Eikel]

Hi Guys, thanks for all the advice.

 

As Tom stated, we chatted about it for a bit last night and came to the conclusion nute-lockout and overly-high ph.

 

Starting today the plant was flushed at ph 6.0 (dropped from 6.4), I will water again tomorrow at 1.2EC, then step her up to 1.6EC nutes again.

 

Nitram - thanks for the advice, I have had a similar problem before that I put down to a mg def, however this problem hasn't been fixed by adding extra mg.

 

Everest - I don't know about being ontop of every aspect, but I do ok Just that this particular problem is something I haven't seen before.

 

The interesting thing, is the room has 2 other plants in exactly the same conditions and one that is in similar conditions (potting-mix instead of CoCo), none of these 3 plants have the same problem.

 

Seeing that the other 3 don't have the problem, does this mean the WS is less "hardy" than the other plants?

 

BTW, here's a pic of one of the other plants, the AK47, as you can see he has a minor case of burning from my too-strong nute batch, but is otherwise quite healthy. This plant is in the exact same conditions, same medium, same pot, same nutes, same everything.

[animal]

Dude some coco mediums and their nutrients work better at higher PH than conventional hydro. Why did you assume the PH is too high? Some run it at almost 7 in coco...

 

Transplanting a plant under more powerful lights and flowering it while it was still sick is more likely to be the reason its not getting better.

 

Coco is a unique medium and you should be careful about taking advice for granted from people who haven't grown in it much because some of the rules of conventional hydro don't apply.

[Guest Eikel]

Hey animal, thanks for your advice & input, most appreciated, the more eyes the better for this one...

 

Dude some coco mediums and their nutrients work better at higher PH than conventional hydro.  Why did you assume the PH is too high?  Some run it at almost 7 in coco...

 

Completely agree with you there, infact up to this grow I have had no problems due to ph. I've watered with everything from 5.0-8.5 - randomly within that range, and never for more than 2 waterings if it's outside of 5.9-6.8.

 

The reason I agree with Tom's diagnosis is:

 

a) Tom has alot more exeperience than myself regarding plant-problems, and has grown many more different strains than myself.

 

b ) I have tried everything I can think of to try and treat the symptom.

 

Transplanting a plant under more powerful lights and flowering it while it was still sick is more likely to be the reason its not getting better.

 

Up until the move, the WS was my most healthy vigorous plant, I seriously doubt it was sick when it moved. I'd also note that it had this symptom over a week before it was turned to flower - most of my plants get this affect when moved from my veg to my flower setup, I'd always put it down to increased light-intensity, however it's never taken more than a week for the plants to get over it.

 

Coco is a unique medium and you should be careful about taking advice for granted from people who haven't grown in it much because some of the rules of conventional hydro don't apply.

 

I fully realise what you're saying here, I'm not taking advice for granted, but looking for people of more experience than myself to suggest possible solutions. CoCo is a new friend to me, we've been through 2 grows already and this is my first issue that wasn't a breeze to fix - I even get rid of any scarids easily within 2 weeks

 

I should also mention that the plant has not lost any of it's vigor even with the bleached-growth, it's still getting visibly bigger every day, I don't know, but I have a suspicion that I'm worrying about nothing, the plant is just visibly different it doesn't seem to be "stunted" in the least.

 

Oh yeah - still no results from lowering the ph to 6.0 (2 days/waterings so far).

[Tom]

The reason I agree with Tom's diagnosis is:

 

a) Tom has alot more exeperience than myself regarding plant-problems, and has grown many more different strains than myself.

That doesn't mean that I'm always right though.

 

Dude some coco mediums and their nutrients work better at higher PH than conventional hydro. Why did you assume the PH is too high? Some run it at almost 7 in coco...

The PH would have been ok in straight coco, it being a coco-perlite mix is why I suggested to try dropping the PH to around 6.0 and see how it goes.

 

[animal]

At least if its been there for a number of weeks and hasn't spread to your other plants its unlikely to be a viral or pest problem that might wreck your whole crop.

 

As a general comment I'd look at how you move your plants from veg to flower. It sounds like you put them through a lot transplanting and beefing up the lighting all close together. That type of move may be OK for healthy plants but for a plant with any type of problem it will make recovery harder. I haven't read your grow diaries so forgive me if I'm telling you stuff you already do but if you are transplanting and changing your lights prior to flower, give your plants a chance to "veg in" to the new environment and be growing vigourously again before turning the lights down. Flowering struggling plants rarely results in a good crop.

 

Also you should be mindful of flushing too much. You said the plant experienced nute burn when you bumped the ec up to 2 so you flushed which is the right move obviously however continuing to flush too often will actually deplete the plant of nutrients when there is no lockout and it just needs a bit of time to recover.

 

At the end of the day shit happens sometimes. Sounds like you are doing most things right and have just had a bit of bad luck.

[Luke Skywalker]

Mg deficiencies typically affect lower parts of the plants rather than the upper parts. This would then progress upwards as it got worse.

 

Still, it could be Mg, but my money would be on the micronutes which are immobile like Iron, Zinc or Manganese, all most often caused by pH being too high at the rootzone. Try foliar feeding once a week with a good micronutrient suppliment like thumper to help with the initial problem, and then check the pH of the medium (not the water, as the medium can be quite different) and ensure that you're using a coco-specific formula with adequate Iron levels.

 

It should clear up in a week or so if the problem is solved, but to test the pH of the media, take a sample of the rootzone of the coco to fill up to 100mL in a glass jar. Make sure the coco is fully squeezed out of nutrients beforehand. Then top up the cocopeat in the jar with another 150mL of distilled water, and shake every hour or so for a day. Allow to settle, then the next morning take a pH reading of the water. Should be somewhere between 5.5 and 6.5. Much past 6.5 and you'll lock out iron, particularly if it's only supplied in the EDTA chelate form, as opposed to the EDDHA and FTPA forms, which are more soluble at higher pH. Try and get a nutrient with Fe, Zn and Mn in chelated forms, as these will be immediately available to the plants and far more stable.

 

Foliar feeding should only be done once a week too, any more than that and you'll end up leaching out the nutrients you're trying to help with.

 

Hope that helps, and good luck.