Drooping Leaves, Yellowing, Dark spots

[mugwah86]

Hey all,

 

Attached is some rather poor quality photos of a tiny plant i've had for a few weeks and over the past week have noticed starting from the bottom leaves, they ahve turned yellow, and dark spots started to turn up on the leaves. One or two spot per leaf. Is it normal for the bottom leaves to yellow and fall off? This plant has all it's original leaves.

 

I originally had the plant in soil, but started to freak when the plant started to wilt and decided to transfer it to Perlite which it has been in for 2 days now. I have it under a 400W light that has been running 24/0 but have started to give it 6hrs of darkness as i think the light may be overheating it. Temperatures range from 23 C to 35C. Depending upon the time of day.

 

I am using Vitalink Nutrients but have only added it once so far as this plant doesn't use a lot of water. When I pulled this plant out it probably had 30cm of roots which i cleaned so it dosn't appear that it's from lack of nutrition. However I don't have a Ph tester and am not sure how Ph should be tested or used.

 

any ideas guys on what may be the cause of this and how I can fix it?

[SukonmiSkunk]

aim for your PH to be around the 6.3 mark.. if it sways a little either way it will still be fine...

 

looks to me that the plant is starving.. with it being in perlite the only way for it to get fed is through adding nutrients.. you should also be watering this plant every 3-4 hours.. with perlite in my recirc system it will get a 30 min watering every 3 hours....

you cant really over water in perlite.. its drainage is pretty good.. its not a medium i would use for a hand watering set up.. maybe look into coco/perlite mix.. or granulated rockwool/perlite mix.. this will hold a little more water and may only need to be fed once every 1-2 days.. depending on the amount of perlite you mix..

 

if this plant has good roots.. then keep your PPM levels to around 12-1400..., if you water 3 times a day.. make the 3rd water of each day just plain water.. this should stop any salt build up.. (same goes if you only water once a day.. make every 3rd watering plain water)

 

leaves yellowing from the base is a nitrogen deficiency.. how ever with these plants being so small.. those leaves are about ready to be discarded any way.. theyve done their job.. you should never get any issues keeping your PH between 5.8 - 6.8.. and if you notice a slight yellowing then it can be 1 of 2 things salts built up in the medium ( which shouldnt happen if you make every 3rd watering just water).. or just not enough nutrients.. if that occurs.. water with plain water so you get plenty of runoff.. that will fix any build up issues( if thats the case or not.. this will make sure of that)).. then straight back onto nutes the very next water..

[mugwah86]

What about water contaminants in the water supply? Using tap water straight onto the plant and the medium.

[mugwah86]

Whats PPM? And right now the base at the bottom of the pot is still full of liquid so there is plenty of fluid there.

[Wrangler556]

I'd say not enough water + heat problems... 35°C is pretty high... do you have any ventilation/ exhaust fan?

[mugwah86]

I have two 120mm fans running full time. the area is not massice. 800mm x 700mm x 1.5m.

 

I don't think it's not enough water as there is always water in the bowl at the bottom. And I have been keeping the water up to it.

I'm leaning a little towards Ph of water etc. but will keep fluids up to it and see how that goes.

[icarus_1985]

hey mate. did you soak your perlite/vermiculite mix in 5.0 adjusted water first? i had a similar problem when i started with an auto-pot system some time ago. you'll find that most perlite and or vermiculite mixes have a really high or really low ph....cant memba. so my little seedlings were suffering ph lock-out. they can come right on the own with plenty of balance water. at that stage of growth id be giving them between 5.0-6.0 PH adjusted water, and an EC 0.3 above the EC of the tap water your giving it (eg. Straight tap water = 0.2EC, add weak veg nutrient to 0.5) Also as said by the other guy, perlite drains very quickly, but i noticed you have vermiculite in there, which hold water quite well. therefore i wouldnt be watering as frequently as suggested. but that also depends on whether you have it in a rockwool cube under all that perlite. and how developed the roots are. what did the roots look like when u planted in perlite?

 

the best thing you could do right now if you have not PH or EC tester OR nutrient for that matter (which would be silly if your growing in inert media such as perlite) soak the fuck out of a new batch of perlite with straight tap water, which usually has a PH around five, and re-plant it. PH lockout will cause yellowish spots to form on the topside of the fan leves first, than start going yellow/brown at the tips. at first i thought it was cigarette ash (coz i smoke and the "burns" on the leaves seemed about the same size.

 

hope this helps. sorry bout the novel. Im high.

[mugwah86]

The roots looked normal i guess. They were ivory coloured and there were about 4-5 different branches of it.

 

Do I need to replant the seedling? Couldn't I just soak the pot it's currently in in water? And use that to bring it back to PH neutral.

What does EC mean?

[mugwah86]

I have purchased a PH tester and also a wand to measure nutrients. I have mixed up some water and nutrients as per the bottle's specifications and placed it back under the light. I'll let you know how it goes.

[mugwah86]

Hey guys have been adding nutrient around 5.8ph but today when i got home, i tested the liquid in the bottom tray (i hand water in the top and it trickles down) the ph in the bottom is around 7.2 so does that mean that somehow the ph is rising as it goes through the pot? Do I need to flush the perlite until the ph stops changing from the top of the pot to the bottom?

I'm pretty sure that's what I have to do but would love some guidance.