Leave Curl

[Kimba]

These babies have been in the blue-light vegetation room for about 2-4 months and recently was attacked by (I had thought) a large insect. This insect made it's home on the up until then healty plants. I thought it might have been a good guy so I left it there as I do with lady bugs and spiders. After about a week I noticed some of the leaves of the plant it was on curling, forming inverse half tubes out of the sickly leaves. A quick spray of pyrithum and the bug was dead. Anti-joy and the poblem's continue having spread to half the room in two weeks. I have used Bio-Bugs for over a year and have had no insect problems at all so I'm at loss to what this is caused by. Here are the jpegs so you can look. Any help I will gratefully accept.

Edited March 28, 2004 by Kimba

[Kimba]

Another angle.

[SweetJane]

Dude are ya sure it's the bug that caused that? they look a bit like they have nute burn and too much Nitrogen, just a guess tho

[Tom]

Firstly I would get those plants out of the grow room, plus any others showing the slightest sign of curling as it is possible the bug was carrying something nasty, possibly fungal. Have you noticed any small black flies around?

 

It is unlikely to be an excess of nitrogen or nutrient related as the other plants appear to be unaffected at this time.

[Kimba]

by 'small black fly' I assume you mean the nemisis: Scarid Fly (or if you wanna be US: Fungal Gnat)

 

To answer that I have a story. My first crop (or the crop that almost died) was infected massively by first mites then flies. I delt with it with insectides and almost killed my five then eight week flowering girls. The prythum and then oil drench stuff really hurt the girls. Sure they wiped out the bugs but it took about two weeks each time for the girls to recover, even then not fully. Luckily for me I was intro'd to the bugs (after a www search that pointed to Trichaderma) in Bio-Bugs. Amazingly the moulds also help control the flies which had begun just begun a recovery after the spraying and thrived with the bugs. Since then (over 15 months ago) I have had eight crops that blitzed hassle free giving massive harvests. The fly's are never really gone have been managed by having their populations never sky-rocketing out of control as before. So yes the fly's are there. Due to the mavelous affect of Coco on the girls I have given up trying to wipe them out as the fly's love coco with constant app's of Bio-Bugs every three to four days in their nut's. Maybe it's air (being sealed for 16-12 hours a day) not circulating properly then but it has a osc. fan during the day. The flowering ladies are close by and haven't curled at all. I thought at first it was heat, but it's been cool lately. Rarely above 30c in there. usually 22-27.

Edited March 28, 2004 by Kimba

[Quad Damage]

I had that recently....

 

It turned out to be a combo of things including...overwatering/not enuff drainage....adjustment of ph levels...so I flushed em with water...dropped off the watering by 50% and foliar feed em with the nute water...which I added extra nitrogen too

 

It worked but still didnt give me a clear picture of what the problem was and whether it was related to a sensitivity of the plants to phosphorous...

[white_cluster]

Coco's associated with this scarid crap, its a fucking crap medium IMO.

 

Has all the problems associated with soil, with none of the benefits.

 

Fuck being some organic hippy, you got a responsiblity to not have any kind of infection in your garden, more than most people, so use a good medium like 2/1 perlite/vermiculite , or if you want a shitty, claggy, "fake soil" like Coco is use an even mix of perl/verm.

 

Put a few inches of clay balls over the top of ANY medium and it will stop the flies infecting a lil bit. Slight barrier of protection from them.

 

Reclone all your stock in rockwool, and clean the fuck out of your grow areas really well, MOVE every bag of that fucking Coco bullshit outta the room/house, and move every house plant into quarantine.

Dont keep ANY plants hanging around still in coco or soil, and once your stock is all rooted, chuck them in well sterilised pots full of a nice perl/verm mix.

 

The only people that have these problems are the coco and soil people, soil people have an excuse, coco people should use a decent medium. Organically you can get Diatomascious earth in there and flood the pots with Neem oil and shit like that, but its all a big hassle for a totally unnesecary problem.

 

Dont fuck around with insects its irresponsible mate, If you get the mites, hit em with Avid, dont fuck around with some airy-fairy organic bullshit, or predator crap.

 

All the popular "safe" methods of insecticide are pretty gay IMO, Its like we're trying to protect spidermites or sumthing, dont just sweep em out the door, fuck them forever.

 

Saying that, hows the pH of the runoff on the more affected plants??? a bath of H202 and superthrive for 30mins usually perks plants back up a bit, wont fix em of course, but often perks them up like magic. the curling downwards of leaves is often too acidic medium but that curling is fucking extreme, Im sure you woulda known if you were feeding it bad pH water, remember that salt build up will add acidity to your medium though.

 

Take care and fuck them pests off quick smart, be vigilant not tolerant. Dope Eating Insect are the scum of the earth, worse than pigs, and you wouldn't let the pigs hang round in your crop if they "werent causing much damage"

[Kimba]

But I like Coco as it produces. Well.

 

Anyway..You're right. The girls in the room get little if any proper drainage and they have never been leached. I will try flushing and intro better watering habits. (as well as Rizatonic and/or Superthrive baths)

 

Thanks for the help. I'll post again in a few days when they are better, I hope. At least it isn't a bug, thank f^ck as I refuse to use insecticides (besides the No-Frills Bug Spray very occassionally to kill the blue-bottles). Not for any 'green' ideals just that they hurt the plants and the yeild badly the one and only time I used them. Bio-Bugs has helped control any/all micro problems including the insects and moulds.

 

White Cluster have you met Dr Doug? You both seem to be made from similar molds. I mean no insult or disrespect by that as he's a close friend of mine. Thanks for the help and info. You too Quad Damage.

 

I now use Rockwool instead of Jiffy 7 for the clones now as the Scarid Fly larvae had killed about %10. That's my only insect problem (touch wood) using Bio-Bugs and Coco canna.

 

This is some of the girls flowering in Coco after six weeks:

Edited March 29, 2004 by Kimba

[Kimba]

It's called "Hemp Streak Virus" or "Leaf Curl Desease".

 

What's known:

 

It descimated crops in Italy in the fourties

 

It has no chemical or biological controls.

 

It's microscopic (viral)

 

It's has an insect vector (aphids)

 

Milk powder spray may help contain it. (?)

 

The only real control is crop removal. (!)

 

If I have missed or got anything wrong please correct/add away. Help save my Mum's.

[Luke Skywalker]

As I noted in the other post you've made on this subject, if you have a virused plant, destroy it, immediately.

 

There is no containment or cure, just removal of infected plants.

 

Look to your vectors, and if you smoke, you're a vector too.