Leaves dying fast! Possibly Mold or Fungus. Desperate for help. Outdoor (pics)

I have an outdoor grow that is just over 2 months into vegging. I was watering daily through my drip system but recently switched to every other day to try and combat what I think is fungus. I believe my problems started when I started feeding with a watering can which drenched the leaves. I live in a very hot and dry climate so I never thought fungus or mold would be a problem, but I have done quite a bit of research and it seems the most likely candidate.
I first I thought I might have spider mites but have dismissed this because I have seen no webbing and the black specs on my leaves don't move at all.

Notice the black specs. As leaves get really bad, they turn yellow and get crusty and curled. The cotton-like stuff in the pic of the single stem by itself is from some mint growing about 40 feet from my plants. It is almost exactly like what I found on the stem of all four of my girls. On my plants this white stuff was found mostly on the side of my plants that gets no direct sunlight.

If anyone can help I would greatly appreciate it, and rep would certainly be in order. I fear this could kill all of my plants if I don't do something fast. I am losing leaves every day and whatever this is is working its way up my plants. I'm fucking worried.

I can provide more pics if necessary and my journal has more info about my grow.

Hi, The leaf pics looks like a nitrogen deficiency to me maybe brought on by fighting spider mites but I don't recognize those eggs in the last shot. If you have mildew like on the stalks you can spray that with a high ph water to kill it. or use something like organiside. Folar spray with some neem oil couldnt hurt.

Thanks for the response, Cruzer. I will looks into the high ph water, neem oil, and organiside. I am almost positive I am not experiencing a nitrogen deficiency. I am feeding with Jack's 30-10-10 about every other watering. I will try and post close-up pictures of the leaves so it is easier to see the damage that is being done. I have noticed the white cotton-like mold around the bottom of the stem on several things in my raised bed. My parsley and hot pepper plants show leaf damage similar to my special girls. My basil and tomatillos do not seem to be affected at this point. I am going to take a sample of some damaged parsley leaves to a nursery and see if anyone there has any idea.

Every day I wake up I fear for my girls, knowing there is going to be more damage than when I went to sleep. It's a terrible feeling. I want it to go away. Fast.

Thats a good idea, if your other plants are infected and its a mold and the spores can go anywhere.
They will be able to help you I'm sure. Let us know.

lmfao , the white '' mold'' is spider mites webs, i just had that prob. mine arent rly effecting my plants yet, there not even that bad. but the leaves is 2 MUCH nitrogen, give plants 3x the water u normaly do. water them once every 2 days this way. do this 3 times ( for 1 week) then u should see results. after that give them ONLY water for another week or so, u can allow sum neturients ( very dioulted) between the 2nd week of just water. by the end of the 2nd week they should be back 2 normal.

as for spider mites, idk what 2 do about thoes. im not rly worried myself about them , as they take a few bites here and there. i no ppl say they can ruin a whole crop but i havn figured out how yet.

I will give your watering suggestion a try, PuffinPurp. I'm still not convinced I have spider mites though. You could certainly be right but I have my doubts. The white on the stems looks exactly like mold and there is no webbing visible between the fan leaves or between anything else. I also can't see anything moving on my leaves. I should be able to see them moving, right? I have these black specs where my leaves are getting damaged, but I sure can't see them moving. I also can't say there appears to be much webbing on the damaged leaves. With how quick my infected leaves are being destroyed, I would think they would be covered with webbing. Maybe not though...
A large fan leaf that I knew was infected but still looked healthy for the most part is now dried and crinkled. Not much is left of the leaf. It took about 4 days to reduce it to its veins and some crusty leaf material. I hate to think about this problem spreading from top to bottom.
I will take a closer look again tomorrow and will update with new pics. I have been trying to leave them alone as I think I may be spreading whatever is causing this. Plus, I hate to see them getting destroyed like this.

Thanks for the responses!

In my experiences with spider mites I found they don't build a web right away. The web comes later after they have made it to the top of the plant.
I think the best way to find out is to look under the leaf with a glass. They are pretty small. Once they start sucking the life out of your plant you see little white dots on the top of the leaf. Usually the lower leaf first. In about a week there eggs hatch, In about another two weeks they hatch like a hundred times more. If nothing is done in about another week the top of the plant is a big web. By then its too late.
Here is a good example of what the top of the leaf looks like

Thanks for posting the picture Cruzer! Below are some pics I took today. Have a look. I'm not so sure the damage to my leaves is like the damage in the pic you posted. Notice the black specks on my leaf as they are prevalent on just about all my leavs that are dying.

Today I decided I was going to try and do something proactive rather than just picking off my dying leaves. I made up a solution of baking soda, soap, and oil that is supposed to kill fungus. I sprayed the leaf in the pic below with the solution. When I did, I could actually see green being washed off the leaf. The good thing though is that much of the black specs were also washed away. I rinsed the leaf under the sink and it got rid of probably 75% of the black specks. So, I went out to my garden and sprayed away with the solution and then gave them a thorough rinsing with the hose. I am hoping to slow the destruction. I will repeat this process tomorrow.

I mentioned before that I have found similar damage on some mint that is far away from my garden bed. Today I checked out this area again and I found weeds that have the exact same damage that I am finding on all of my plants. I looked around the yard and every time I came across this weed it had these black specks that looks exactly like what I have on all of my dying leaves! So I don't know if these weeds are spreading this desease or whatever it is or if something is giving it to these weeds and is also giving it to everything in my garden bed. I did have some of these weeds a few feet away from my bed and I also noticed some seedlings in my garden bed that I believe were these weeds too. Not sure what to do now.

lvnv said:

I am feeding with Jack's 30-10-10 about every other watering.

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Hell yea, we got something in common.

how far down on the plant are those yellow sun leaves?
The black holes are probably damage from leafhoppers or small grasshoppers, they eat tiny holes and jump off, the leafhoppers are everywhere. Outside it could be a lot of different stuff, even small slugs and juvenile snails can do that. my bet is on the leaf hoppers and too much nutrients.
also i believe those eggs are scale larvaenot sure though, pretty harmless as they reproduce slowly, i don't think they have mites on them. I've never seen mites colonize stems by themselves they eat the leaf's juice so the stem isn't where they colonize. Not unless the whole leaf already is.
Look on the underside of the leaf with either 20/20 vision or a magnifying glass and you'll see a bunch of "specks" crawling around if they are mites, i blow on the leaves when checking to get them to move, shittily, i have more experience with mites than i'd like to have. They are indigenous to the mountains i live in so i deal with them constantly.
From what you said the feeding regimen may be a bit too strong, and you may have a salt build up, or a ph issue causing nutrient lock up.
Usually not a ph issue though.

I think PuffinPurp and Greasemonkeymann are right about over feeding. I have stopped all nutrients and water twice as much when I water. I don't know why I was still feeding as much as I was since most leaves and new growth are very green. The leaves seem to not be getting the rust colored burnt edges since I stopped feeding. I still get yellowing leaves, but it seems there are fewer every day. I do have what I believe to be very hard water. There isn't much I can do about it but perhaps this could be giving me some problems as well.

I don't think I have been describing the black specks on my leaves clearly enough. These specks actually look like ink dots. You know when a pen gets a little too much ink on the tip and it makes a little blob on your paper? It looks like that. Tiny ink dots all over the leaf. You can actually see the texture on these specks. It is not like they have been eaten into the leaf. That is why I believe it is some kind of disease/fungus.

The baking soda fungicide I concocted seems to be working, but has not completely eliminated the black specks. Today was the worst it has come back since I started spraying. I may just have to keep spraying every couple days to keep this problem at bay. I really should take some affected leaves from my pepper plants to a nursery to get a professional diagnosis.

To answer your question greasemonkey, the yellow sun leaves are on the bottom third of the plant. The largest yellow sun leaves all have something in common. They are single leaves that come off the main stem. Make sense? They don't come off of a branch, they come off the main stem. They are always directly below branches, and seem to come out of the same node, but they are attached to the main stem. New growth looks very green and healthy. I do have smaller leaves coming off of these lower branches that are shriveled and yellow/rusty and they always tend to be closer to the center of the plant. I probably pull about 2-3 large sun leaves and 3-5 small leaves from each plant every other day or so.

I have been noticing a few caterpillars in my raised bed but only one on my girls which I quickly smooshed. Can't blame it, I'd want to be chompin on those leavese too if I was a bug. I have noticed a praying mantis (or maybe several different ones) patrolling my bed which made me happy. I love those things. One was on my girls today when I was spraying them down. I wished him well.

That is where I am at right now. I will update with pictures soon. Thanks for all the help. +rep for the over-nute diagnosis.

Here are recent pictures of my problems.

Notice the black specs on the weeds in pictures 3-7. This is the same exact thing I am seeing on my plants. You can see from the last 2 pics of the leaf there are the black specks, and wherever these specks are present the leaves are losing their color and dying.

I am still spraying with my baking soda mix. I just made a new batch today because I think the baking soda isn't as effective after it sits around for a while. I also gave my whole bed a good spraying down today with the hose. Everything seems to be growing pretty well. Check out my journal if you are interested as I will be uploading new pics today.

Tomorrow will be 3 months since I started the seeds. They are all around 3 feet tall right now and they all appear to be females. I am not trying to harvest until October-November so they still have plenty of time to grow. My problem now is that they are starting to grow into each other and they are only about half way done. I'll have to see if there are any methods to grow taller instead of wider.

that mold is black eye something i had it a few yrs ago. comes from Europe. on broad leaf plants there are thousands of spores in the air and everywhere they land they leave those spots. i took a native plant from the ground and put it in a ziplock and go to green house and ask them. dont take it out if ur car ask them to come to ur car and look at it they frown apon u taking it near there plants. or out of the ziplock. i sprayed my plant with sulfur it kills most fungus and i spread sulfur around my garden 3 times a yr. it will kill all molds and dont hurt plants.

You have a couple problems, I don't know which is the prime issue. I would suspect that it's potassium def. Thing is, outdoors, when you have any slow in growth, everything will take your plant out. Then you think it's the mold, the bugs, the whatever. It starts with plant nutrition imbalances or lack of light in most cases.

For instance, every year my tomatoes succumb to a black blight by year's end. If I plant them where water gets on the leaves or they don't get enough sun or nutrition, they die of it much, much sooner. So the rule outdoor is to get that thing outgrowing the problems, not getting every little issue solved.

shizz said:

that mold is black eye something i had it a few yrs ago. comes from Europe. on broad leaf plants there are thousands of spores in the air and everywhere they land they leave those spots. i took a native plant from the ground and put it in a ziplock and go to green house and ask them. dont take it out if ur car ask them to come to ur car and look at it they frown apon u taking it near there plants. or out of the ziplock. i sprayed my plant with sulfur it kills most fungus and i spread sulfur around my garden 3 times a yr. it will kill all molds and dont hurt plants.

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Finally someone that had the same problem! I will bring some pepper leaves that also show the same problem to a nursery. I was wondering if it was a good idea to bring a diseased sample into a nursery. I will see what they recommend or just pick up something with sulfur.

jack the beanstalk said:

You have a couple problems, I don't know which is the prime issue. I would suspect that it's potassium def. Thing is, outdoors, when you have any slow in growth, everything will take your plant out. Then you think it's the mold, the bugs, the whatever. It starts with plant nutrition imbalances or lack of light in most cases.

For instance, every year my tomatoes succumb to a black blight by year's end. If I plant them where water gets on the leaves or they don't get enough sun or nutrition, they die of it much, much sooner. So the rule outdoor is to get that thing outgrowing the problems, not getting every little issue solved.

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Hmmm, I was thinking I had some nutrient problems goin on. Several weeks ago I thought it looked like a potassium deficiency as well, so I switched to my 10-30-20 for a couple feedings (I know it isn't an ideal ratio for potassium but it is more than my 30-10-10). I quit all nutriends for nearly a month though as I thought some of the damage could be due to nute burn. I just started up my 30-10-10 again at 1/4 strength.

They are certainly still growing, but I know they aren't growing like most outdoor grows I see. I like your advice though. I just need to get them outgrowing whatever is giving me problems. I think my problems are going away, but this black speck stuff really worried me. I will start reading up on nutrient problems again and try to get them diagnosed properly.

Thanks for the help guys.

sorry man those are thrips... friends of mine has em right now.. get some monterey insect spray.. it has Spinosad in it . after 2 applications everything was gone.. he bought 1 bottle and a bug bomb. just incase. and the spray worked in 4 days everyhting was dead. wen they eat the spinosad it makes them go crazy stop eating and die.