Plants drying out and dying, PLZ HELP!

OK, so iv'e been flowering for 6 weeks now under a 400w HPS. My plants are covered with white hairs and forming nice buds. But iv'e recently noticed my top colas drying out and the new young leaves going yellow and then dying, going all crispy! The white hairs have died off completely and the immature buds have stopped flowering. This is my 1st indoor grow and im still learning the tricks of the trade, so any advice would be helpfull. I have flushed one plant yesterday thinking it mite be over fertilalzation or excess of N2, though iv'e switched over to a higher P fertilizer when i started flowering. Iv.e read that during flowering phase the plant derives its older leaves of N2, but why are my new young leaves and buds drying out and dying? It also seems as if only the top of my plants are affected.:sad:
 

Snak

Active Member
I know it sounds basic, but if its just the tops of your plants, I'd look first to see if there is any chance that they are being burned by being too close to your HPS. Try raising your light or adding a fan or two.

If you're sure thats not the problem, post some pics- it should help someone experienced diagnose the problem.
 
Thanx for the speedy reply guys! :lol: Well i doubt if its being burned by the HPS, since iv'e got 9 plants in total, of wich only 3 show signs of being burnt and crispy at the tops. My plants are bit tall, since their sativa's, and one is bout 30cm from my light, and showing no signs of damage. I do have pics, been taking a set every 10 days to monitor my growth, but quite new to this site, so how do i post them??
 

JN811

Well-Known Member
you can copy and paste them into your post, or go to manage attatchments and upload a pic from your computer, camera, memory card, ect..
 

autoflowa

Well-Known Member
if its just the top then its probably cus your light is too close and its frying your plant, thats what it sounds like anyway..:bigjoint:
 

123sinseme

Active Member
hey man i cant see any pics but from what im hearing it sounds like a particular discease that i encountered as a rookie, it happened to me during veg and slowed my groweth down for about a week, its known as fusarium wilt or verticillium wilt, its essentially caused by a buildup of bacteria in the cappilary system originating from the rootzone of your plant, its common in tomatoes and other plants of the like such as cannabis, i noticed and identified it in my plants more easily because i noticed the shoots on the side turning red as result of water and nutrient uptake loss which is common for lants in the flowering but definetly more noticeable in vegetative, it can look similar to nute burn or light burn, its easy to remedy. Regular storebrand hydrogen peroxide added to nutrient solution should do it, i lowered the overall ppm of my solution and added about five tablespoons of peroxide for every gallon of nutrient solution. It fixed the problem for me and my white widow came out strong and tasting fine after a final flush of course. Hope this helps, this is from experience and years of encountering this problem, now peroxide is part of my nute solutions always just because I dont have the facilities to properly sterilize my medium (coco coir).
 
Gosh, thanx 123, ur advice definitly makes sense, since the lower section of the plant doesnt seem to be affected at all. And it does look like the upper section are being deprived of water/nutrients.. I'l do some shopping tomorow and start with treatment ASAP.. Will they atleast recover in time and continue flowering? I was thinking letting them flower for 10 weeks, or at least till i have reached peak crystal production, just hope i didnt comprimise my yield too much. The particular 1 im worried bout most, is the 1 iv splitted, forming 3 main colas..
 

123sinseme

Active Member
Gosh, thanx 123, ur advice definitly makes sense, since the lower section of the plant doesnt seem to be affected at all. And it does look like the upper section are being deprived of water/nutrients.. I'l do some shopping tomorow and start with treatment ASAP.. Will they atleast recover in time and continue flowering? I was thinking letting them flower for 10 weeks, or at least till i have reached peak crystal production, just hope i didnt comprimise my yield too much. The particular 1 im worried bout most, is the 1 iv splitted, forming 3 main colas..

well id say depending on ur strain you may have to live with whatever damage that has been done it all depends on how long the peroxide takes to be taken into the roots, in about a week i would expect growth to resume, i would do a straight water flush of your medium then a straight water and peroxide mix and after about two to three days then flush again and add the peroxide with your flowering solution. This should allow maximum uptake of the peroxide and free up the cappilaries of the bacteria, also when you resume your flowering solution lower the ppm just a tad for the added peroxide and if the plant responds well try working back to the typical strength for your nutrients.

Also the mix ratio of peroxide to water/nutrient solution can be from 5 tbl spoons to about 12 tbl spoons to the gallon depending on whether your plant likes either higher or lower nutrient concentrations.
 
gosh, ok.. Well im not sure which strain it is, since its bloody hard finding decent marijuana in south africa, but was told by my dealer it was skunk.. The buds was truly a decent smoke with a lovely, pungent odour, so thats why i decided to keep the few seeds i found for my grow project.
 

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123sinseme

Active Member
this is the one plant thats affected the most.. Hope it'l help in diagnosing my problem..

well if its not fusarium then id say heat stress, which doesnt make sense because you say that they're not all affected, also

have you done any flushing? if not then it might be salt build up doing essentially the same thing as the wilt so the flush and the peroxide should help either or both problems, salt buildup in the roots would explain only a couple of the plants being effected

what strain is it? and what is you r grow medium?
 

JN811

Well-Known Member
I think its one of three things, I had similar problems. Either overwatering, too much Nitrogen, or heat. How often do you water, how much N do you give it, and what are temps?
 
Thats what I also dont understand, as Iv mentioned earlier, my other plants are much closer to the light and doesn't seem to be affected at all.. I dont have a temp. control setup yet, so i dont know if Im operating at too high temps.. I have flushed this particular plant once and noticed the water draining was rather yellow.. Can I flush as much as needed or will over flushing deprive the soil of maybe valuble nutrients? Also this plants leaves are much darker than the rest, does that maybe have summin to do with the fact that its burning? Iv stopped giving N2 as soon as Iv started flowering, my N P K ratio at the moment is 25-92-35 i think, but have stopped fertilizer treatment, worried that the rest might also get burned..
 
My grow medium is a mixture of soil, potting soil, compost and bone meal.. I water once a day, depending on how dry the soil is, and now that I think of it, this plants soil has stayed rather wet lately, which can only mean its not growing right? Ima post a few pics to give you a better view into my setup Iv got going on.. And I failed to mention, I had a spider mite problem a few weeks back, lost one plant to those sneaky bastards:cuss: but got the problem under control after spraying the plants and every inch of the room only once.. Its a organic pestiside consisting mainly of neem oil and garlic extract. Could this have summin to do with my problem maybe?
 

123sinseme

Active Member
Thats what I also dont understand, as Iv mentioned earlier, my other plants are much closer to the light and doesn't seem to be affected at all.. I dont have a temp. control setup yet, so i dont know if Im operating at too high temps.. I have flushed this particular plant once and noticed the water draining was rather yellow.. Can I flush as much as needed or will over flushing deprive the soil of maybe valuble nutrients? Also this plants leaves are much darker than the rest, does that maybe have summin to do with the fact that its burning? Iv stopped giving N2 as soon as Iv started flowering, my N P K ratio at the moment is 25-92-35 i think, but have stopped fertilizer treatment, worried that the rest might also get burned..

its a crap shoot man, now that ive seen the last pic you put up it could very well be just a weak plant, as much work and care we put into everything theres always one or two that just dont get along as well as the rest, has it been this short since veg?, if so then you might just have a weakling, and if i remember correctly you said you did some topping for three colas? it could be that it was done a little to close to flowering, also the number of individual leaves on the fan leaves is a decent indicator of overall strength/ growing conditions.

In my experience ive had the same genetics same conditions and the majority of them had 11-13 leaves each but there was that stragler that was last to germinate last to show sex etc.

overall diagnosis: possibly weak seed/genetics, heat stress experienced by this particular plant, possible fusarium wilt but after seeing the pics i would say it looks healthy minus the lack of vigor, a good flush is definetly in order followed by a lower concentration of nutrients.

and to answer your question regarding the flushing, if your using an inert medium (ie no soil or organic nutrients present) then no there wont be any nutrients lost because the new solution will replace them, flushing will rid the soil of the excess salts that build up in the root zone that prevent the uptake of nutrients into the roots, so definetly flush with ph balanced water ASAP then see where it goes.
 
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